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Out of the darkness into the marvelous light: anti-Black racism awareness in teacher education

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Out of the darkness into the marvelous light: anti-Black racism awareness in teacher education

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OUT OF THE DARKNESS INTO THE MARVELOUS LIGHT:
ANTI-BLACK RACISM AWARENESS IN TEACHER EDUCATION

by

Trudi Lynne Perkins

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2020

Copyright 2020 Trudi Lynne Perkins

ii

Dedication
I am grateful to God for guiding me through this very amazing journey, and for giving me so
many people to thank! I dedicate this work first of all to Kimberly Dennis. Thank you, for your
unconditional love and support in everything I undertake. I could not have picked a better
partner, friend and love through this thing called life. And a special thanks to my two really good
listeners, our two beautiful children with paws, Zion, who has been a trooper through it all, and
Nelson (RIP-12/30/2019), my warrior dog.
When you stand in the shadows of greatness, you cannot help but see that greatness within
yourself. This dissertation is also dedicated to the memory of my mother, Evelyn E. Perkins, my
first and best model of a dedicated educator. It is on your shoulders I stand and in your footsteps
I follow. I thank you the love of learning that you inspired in me.
To my sisters and their families for always believing in me and standing with me – Michelle
Heard and Danessa Jackson, nieces and nephews, Jocelyn, Marlon J., Kaly, Sean and Steven,
Bro-in-law, Marlon, and my great-nephews and nieces. Much love to our family jewels, aunts,
Neotha R. Catalan and Shirley Brown, Godmother and cousin, Queen Sutton-Renner, and cousin
Roseland Jackson for picking up the mantle and showing me what family love and kept promises
mean. Thanks to all my cousins, especially, Dathan and Karen.
To my other family of the heart: Dr. (Mom) Norma P. Sublett, for your support and sharing
stories of you and Mommy as you worked on the front lines of a 1960’s segregated school
system. The entire Devereaux family: Everybody should have a full set of you in their lives! And
a very special thank you to my brother from another mother, Robert E. Davis. You are a precious
gift.

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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my Dissertation Committee, Dr.
Briana Hinga, Dr. Alan Green, and Dr. Guadalupe Garcia Montano for your patience and
guidance throughout the long process of getting to this point of completion. I specifically want to
thank Dr. Briana Hinga for believing in this study from the very beginning, and for being so
responsive and supportive throughout this very long journey. You were able to hear the voices
that were begging to be heard and encouraged my academic and creative meanderings as they
tried to meld into one focus. Thank you, Dr. Green for listening as I tried to find my way to the
discourse of anti-Blackness. Your knowledge and guidance were immensely valuable and your
early ‘permission’ to “hit the topic of anti-Blackness hard” was liberating to the entire
dissertation process. Dr. Montano, thank you for stepping in without hesitation, and being a
valuable voice in this process. I offer my most gracious thanks to my study participants, for
without their voices, candor, and experiential knowledge and most of all, trust, this study would
not have come to be. Your insights provided most valuable information to the study of anti-Black
racism. I also want to thank Dr. Julie Slayton for taking on my final class, an independent study,
and being so insistent on me seeing the importance of operationalizing knowledge. You pushed
me to the point of frustration and it led to fruitful understanding. I am ever-grateful to The Verna
and Peter Dauterive Scholarship Foundation and Dr. Jacquelyn Dylla for their much-needed
scholarship support when I thought that I had exhausted all means, and for the honor of
becoming one of the first Dauterive Scholars. I will always strive to give back and encourage
other scholars, as you have given to and encouraged me. Fight On!

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Table of Contents
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. vi
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ viii
Chapter One: Overview of the Study .............................................................................................. 1
Background of the Problem ................................................................................................ 7
Statement of the Problem .................................................................................................. 14
Purpose of the Study ......................................................................................................... 18
Significance of the Study .................................................................................................. 19
Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 23
Definitions and Terms....................................................................................................... 25
Organization of the Study ................................................................................................. 26
Chapter Two: Literature Review .................................................................................................. 27
Knowing Blackness as an Existential Threat .................................................................... 35
Chapter Three: Methodology ........................................................................................................ 46
How Qualitative Methods Drove This Study.................................................................... 47
Qualitative Case Study and the Heuristic Model .............................................................. 51
Heuristic Connection to This Study .................................................................................. 52
Design of the Study ........................................................................................................... 54
Qualitative Data Collection............................................................................................... 57
Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 63
Chapter Four: Discussion .............................................................................................................. 80
The Case Study ................................................................................................................. 80
Participants ........................................................................................................................ 84
Case Narratives ................................................................................................................. 87
Theorizing the Narrative Discussion .............................................................................. 152
FACEIT Model for Theorizing the Conceptual Framework .......................................... 154
Chapter Five: Findings ................................................................................................................ 157
Recommendations ........................................................................................................... 165
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 169
References ................................................................................................................................... 172

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Appendix A: Interview Script ..................................................................................................... 184
Appendix B: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................. 185
Appendix C: Hand-Coded Interviews ......................................................................................... 186
Appendix D: Initial Open Codes................................................................................................. 187
Appendix E: Course Artifact (Syllabus p.1) [GPS] .................................................................... 188
Appendix F: Course Artifact (Syllabus-p.2) [GPS] .................................................................... 189
Appendix G: Course Artifact- (Syllabus-p.1) –[TPS] ................................................................ 190
Appendix H: Course Artifact- (Syllabus-p.2) –[TPS] ................................................................ 191
Appendix I: Original Journal Note-TPS ..................................................................................... 192
Appendix J: Journal Note-GPS ................................................................................................... 193

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List of Tables
Table 1: Research Question Refinement 79
Table 2: Sampling of Interview and Survey Questions Related to RQ1 89
Table 3: Theme and Rationale Connection 106
Table 4: Word/Phrase Co-Occurrence 110
Table 5: Sampling of Interview and Survey Questions Related to RQ2 112
Table 6: Accessing the Three Forms of Racial Knowledge 129
Table 7: Sampling of Interview and Survey Questions Related to RQ3 130
Table 8: FACEIT Theoretical Framework 156
Table 9: Racial Knowledge as Stance Chart 167

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List of Figures
Figure 1: Code-to-Code Relationships 179
Figure 2: Findings Chart RQ1(a) – With Co-Efficient Translator 180
Figure 3: Application of the Associative Property - Theme 1 181
Figure 4: Findings Premise - RQ1(a) 182
Figure 5: Narrative Support for Findings (by CODE) 183

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Abstract
The primary objectives of the study were to explore how two teacher-educators
developed greater awareness of anti-Black racism in academic settings, and how they maintained
a commitment to multicultural education and operationalized those knowledges despite working
in educational systems that perpetuate anti-Black sentiments and practices. This qualitative study
used personal interviews from participants, surveys, video observation, curricular resources, and
researcher journals to aid in the extraction of the greatest amount of data for examination. A
heuristic analysis procedure that required moving continually and consistently between inductive
and deductive reasoning and between description and interpretation was applied. This study
builds on the complicated relationships that exist across the critical theories that are commonly
used to examine race and racism. Critical Race Theory (CRT), Racial Identity Development
Theory (RID), Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), Bodies Out of Place (BOP), Intersectionality
Theory and Post-Colonial Theory, individually and collectively, supported the examination of
the phenomenon of anti-Black racism in educational spaces. They additionally helped to position
the theorization of anti-Black racism within the practice of teacher education. The abduction
process unexpectedly helped to shape the procedures used for changing data into evidence in
order to state the study findings. The findings indicate that the very hard and deeply
metacognitive work that each person commits to doing, both personally and professionally, is
effective in combatting anti-Black racism and disrupting hegemonic structures. The findings
indicate strongly that there is no one process that is best, and no one road on this journey leads
directly to greater racial understanding. The data indicate that a curriculum which takes a
knowledge as stance approach may enhance opportunities for actionable racial awareness and
growth.

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Chapter One: Overview of the Study
As an opening commentary, it is important to note that this dissertation takes an
unorthodox structure. This review attempts to conduct a dialectic interaction with the literature
by infusing the voice of this researcher into the discussion through the use of researcher
personal journaling and creative expressions. The limited exposure to the voice of Black
teacher-educators on the topic of anti-Black racism, and the largely missing narrative of their
existential pluralities, makes it imperative that this voice is given opportunity to weigh in on the
academic discourse on anti-Blackness. Additionally, throughout this dissertation, the term
African American is intentionally written without the customary hyphen. As the poem below,
taken from my personal writing journals attests, there are compelling reasons for its exclusion.
Tired © 2017, Trudi L. Perkins
That hyphen is worn out
A long, drawn out stretch of nothingness
Which can neither serve to separate nor join
The truth of the two beings within one Black flesh
“At the present time America stands at the apex of racial crisis, marked in many areas by
violence and bitterness” (Dauterive, 1966). These words are as poignant and accurate today as
they were when written more than fifty years ago. The expendable existence of Black people,
even in 21
st
century America, is an almost never-changing headline. The repeated displays of
indifference to the value of Black lives, which we continue to see across our nation, and the
blatant examples of practices and policies being instituted to once again label Black resistance to
genocide as terroristic acts, generate serious concerns about the true racial state of this country.
On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by one of Florida’s gun-toting

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“concerned citizens” for wearing a hoodie and walking down the street in his predominantly
white neighborhood. On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, age 44, while selling single cigarettes
outside of a store, was placed in an unrelenting chokehold by police, who ignored his repeated
cries of “I can’t breathe.” Garner’s death was ruled a homicide by the coroner, but no charges
were brought against police in the case. On August 9, 2014, in Missouri, Michael Brown, 18-
years-old and unarmed, was shot while walking in the middle of a street. Just two days later, on
August 11, 2014, in Los Angeles, Ezelle Ford, a 25-year-old man diagnosed with mental illness,
was shot in the back, and killed. The circumstances of his murder are still unclear. On
November 22, 2014, Tamir Rice, 12 years old, was shot by police less than five seconds after
they encountered the child who was playing with a toy gun. On July 13, 2015, 25-year-old
Sandra Bland was arrested by police following an alleged traffic violation. Soon after she was
dead, hanging in her jail cell, with police claiming she took her own life. The circumstances
surrounding her death remain unclear. On July 5, 2016 Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, a Black man selling bootleg CD’s outside of a convenience store ,was murdered at the
hands of police while pinned to the ground, helpless. Videos showed police officers afterward,
ignoring the dying man. Sterling was seen reaching for the sky, his hand shaking violently, as he
drew his last breath. On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was stopped by police for a non-existent
broken tail light. He informed officers that he was legally carrying a registered weapon – and
they shot him dead while his young child and fiancée watched helplessly.
Police murders of Black people occur so quickly and repetitiously that it is difficult to
maintain an adequate vision of the scope of the problem. On March 18, 2018, Stephon Clark, 22
years of age, the father of two young children, was shot multiple times in his grandmother’s
backyard when police allegedly mistook his cell phone for a gun. Another Black man, dead.

3

Each of these unthinkably violent acts illuminate the reality of Black understanding that, for
many white people, there is an unchanging disconnect between human characteristics and Black
individuals (Ray, Randolph, Underhill, & Luke, 2017).
The continually growing list of Black life after Black life being snatched prematurely
from existence is devastating. We in the Black community have long known that police fear the
presence of Black men, and are more likely to shoot and kill them. We also know that the racial
and existential concerns of African American people have never been a priority for America.
White America has understood the grim social realities of Black life and death to be natural
consequences of Black pathology rather than the effects of oppressive racial structures that deny
civic protections to Black communities. Understanding, on any large scale, of the daily violence
against Black people becomes real for white people only when bullets cross from out of the
inner-city and into the immediate worlds of white society.
The Parkland, Florida high school shooting on February 14, 2018, which claimed the
lives of seventeen mostly white students and teachers, laid bare for many non-Blacks the broad
threat of societal violence and the realities of senseless loss. The experience of violence that so
indiscriminately stole seventeen lives and emotionally scarred countless more, awakened the
next generation of white students set on having their voices heard with regard to the future
shaping of American society. These young people, soon to be adults, attempted to draw a line in
the sand to bar what they viewed as society’s illogical and ineffective response to the threats
against their lives. One student who survived the tragedy expressed in an interview that the
shooting created an unexpected parallel in the life experiences of Black teens and those of white
teens. The young white male described to journalists how he sheltered, and helped to shelter
others, in a small, locked room on campus. He recounted the moment that he realized that he fit

4

the description of the suspect for whom police were searching. And he told of the fear he had for
his life, as he came to understand that those with whom he had hunkered down in safety, had
become suspicious of him. Shakily, this young man tried to explain his own existential quandary
in coming to know that, in those few moments, his life could end simply because of the way that
he looked.
In the weeks following the shooting, white youths met with Black youth activists in
Chicago, Illinois to discuss their joint efforts at societal change. Their collaboration enlightened
the white youths’ perspectives of Black social existence in the United States. The young white
students, suddenly thrust outside of their comfort zones, learned the harsh realities of American
existential violence that Black youth, and Black communities more broadly, have lived with and
through for numerous decades. They saw the realism of the loss of life that occurs in Black
communities with the randomness of a passing breeze, the societal expectations of instantaneous
emotional recovery, and the acceptance of this type of violence as normal. By joining together to
form a generational coalition, the newly interconnected generation of youth courageously
assumed roles that signaled a shift in American youth consciousness. The question of how to best
prepare the next generation for the civic, social, and moral dilemmas and decisions that lie ahead
of them poses a significant challenge for consideration within education in general, and teacher
education in particular. Along with demanding reforms of gun violence laws in America, today’s
youth have defined a generational mandate to unify our common humanity as a fundamental
factor in their commitment to greater societal change.
The “March for Our Lives” event in Washington D.C., which took place just one month
after the February 14
th
tragedy in Florida, further demonstrated the readiness of young people to
tackle difficult conversations about race. When an eleven-year-old Black child spoke to a crowd

5

of nearly one million people, and expressed her existential truths with the clarity, conviction and
wisdom that exposed the wounds of life experiences that should be far beyond her few years,
many in white America could not help but wonder, from whence this knowledge sprung. When
this young child shared her knowledge of the boundaries within our society that exclude and
ignore her existence, and the existence of all who share her skin color, ancestral heritage, and
American history—many in white American wondered whose sentiments she spoke. It is time
for educators to realize that teenagers and young adults from across the country, regardless of
their race, ethnicity, social status, or age, are very capable of articulating the transformation that
they hope to see take place in this country, and they are ready and willing to learn how to speak
their desired change into existence.
Educators, especially those charged with preparing the next generation of educators, must
be provided support in their efforts to raise racial self-awareness (Jackson, et al., 2016; Gay and
Kirkland, 2003) because their perspectives can directly impact the Black learners that they
encounter (Furman, 2008). There is little academic research that provides a starting point for
development of the knowledge and skills required to identify and challenge aspects of their
practice that may unknowingly perpetuate anti-Black sentiments. According to Black studies
scholar, Michael Dumas (2016), intellectual inquiry theorizes anti-Black racism outside of the
direct personal investment of the educator’s involvement with race as both a member of society
and educator. Education approaches learning related to Black identity, racism, and existential
experiences primarily through comparative literature, performance studies, and cultural studies
that fail to elevate the exploration into Black humanity and the structures within education that
repeat societal disgust with, and disregard for Blackness itself (Dumas, 2016). In teacher
education, that failure to recognize evidence of racism translates into educators missing critically

6

reflective and transformational experiences that might significantly provide avenues for
expanded understanding of themselves and the world around them.
Because educational spaces are a microcosm of the greater society, and both influence
and are influenced by that society (Nichol, 2013), this intersectionality of life and education is
also an opportunity for educators to re-examine the knowledge that these future leaders and
potential educators will need in order to effect change within academia. Educational leaders and
teachers must learn to apply pedagogical practices that are inclusive of dialogue regarding the
continued racial distinctions and institutional structures that shape oppression in American
society (Kumashiro, 2001). They must embrace development of curriculum that refuses to ignore
the humanity of Black people and work to dismantle educational systems that rely on the
stratification of society based on the centuries-old conceptualization of “race." Although newly
ignited student activists have developed the beginnings of a counter-narrative to what they have
been taught to believe about society’s color-blindness (Jackson, et al., 2016), they lack full
understanding of the ways in which historical anti-Blackness ideals and oversimplification of
racialized systemic structures play into their current experiences (King, 2012). They are still
unaware of the depths to which colonial concepts of race have nuanced critical association with
the racial divisions and biases that are evident in society. Empowering these types of learners
will require teacher-educators to abandon the anesthetizing “banking” concept of education,
which sees knowledge as a gift bestowed upon learners and inhibits the use of creative power to
approach education from a problem-posing perspective that seeks to expose reality (Friere,
1996). This new generation of student learner-activists, many of whom are potential future
educators, are ready to have the types of difficult dialogue that anti-Blackness awareness
requires. They have removed the societal and racial blinders that had convinced them that ours is

7

a fair and equitable society, and they are now moving into college classrooms ready to grapple
with the world in realistic ways that many educators are not prepared to facilitate (Howard,
2017). This demographic of students now comprises the hundreds of thousands of new learners
entering into college classrooms each year, and they will require educators who have been
willing to remove their societal and racial blinders, as well. They will need access to, and
teaching from, professors who are ready to take on the difficult challenges associated with
facilitating the growth of racial awareness in themselves and their students.
Background of the Problem
Educators, especially Black educators of the past, have been socialized to avoid taking
overtly activist positions on race (Marshall & Anderson, 2009), out of concern that it might
interfere with their expected ‘objective ’roles as teachers. The current trend has shifted toward
teachers becoming more involved as advocates for change. Teachers have begun to recognize
that their work as educators can no longer be conducted within the boundaries of education that
require them to keep their personal lives separate from their profession as educators, and they
question whether or not their position as educators should mean that they give up their rights as
political people (Marshall & Anderson, 2009). In greater numbers, educators are becoming
aware of the intersections between their personal, professional, and political selves. But, despite
the vast inclusion of diversity and multicultural courses included in teacher education, and the
great number of resources that schools and universities put into maintaining the appearance of
racial and bias-free education, teacher education programs continue to lack resources that help
educators construct greater knowledge of race (Smith-Maddox, et al., 2002) as it relates
specifically to anti-Black racism. They have failed to recognize the continued harm inflicted by
an educational system that does not recognize or respond to the need for a discourse around the

8

indelible wounds inflicted upon what W.E.B. Du Bois called, the “souls of Black folks” (Du
Bois, 1903).
To speak more directly to the practice of ignoring the continued harm against Black
people, and especially Black learners, I am reminded of a professional experience that reflects
this snubbing of Black people and their learning needs in education:
I recall attending a whole-school professional development meeting that was being led by
an administrative trainer for a large local school district. The focus, as is the greater
portion of teacher development within this particular district, was yet another opportunity
to ensure that all educators are well-versed in the cultural and educational needs of
English as Second Language (ESL), English Language Development (ELD), Bilingual
and Dual Language Program learners. Viewed as another level of multicultural education
preparation, the planned two-hour meeting reviewed the "usual suspects" of teacher tools
such as scaffolding, SDAIE (Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English), and
developing various access strategies. It covered the use of cultural literature and other
resources to strengthen teachers’ abilities to ensure the development of lessons that would
resonate with these particular learners. As each of these strategies was being discussed,
the District representative continued to state that these strategies would also work with
SEL (Standard English Learners, the category into which African American learners are
placed. Growing weary of the same old passive, fleeting mentioning of African
Americans, at some point fairly early in this training, I raised my hand and asked the
trainer, who was there as the voice of multicultural education for the District, a question.
Her response would leave me speechless, but not action-less. To the best of my
recollection, the exchange went like this:

9

Me: Although I recognize how useful these strategies are for all learners, it is clear that
the intended demographic of students for consideration in this PD and most of the other
multicultural trainings we attend, is the Latino population of students. What, if anything
does the District have planned to specifically train teachers on ways to address the
cultural needs of Black students in the district?
District Representative: "We haven't thought that far."
The thoughts and emotions that did not materialize into words: That far? Education has
had how many years to think about Black learners? Just how many damned years do they
need?
In the moments after the callousness of this District Representative's response collided with my
consciousness, the first thought I was able to coherently form was, “Thank you God,” that none
of those not-so-subtle, knee-jerk responses that swirled through my mind had actually escaped
my lips. I knew all too well that there were any number of scenarios that could have easily
provided the epilogue to this particular vignette. Angry Black teacher disrupts school meeting….
You know the rest of that story, and so did I. And no lie, in some of the scenarios I envisioned,
that would have been very true. But this commentary at this time, comes with the ability to apply
hindsight in order to evaluate the dialogue and understand where to situate all of the many ways
in which this entire exchange violated Black humanity. My humanity. I was offended for the
Black student who is deemed to have inferior language skills, but who has, in truth, been
forgotten as English Language Arts departments across the country focus more and more on
making sure that non-Black English Language learners reach the minimum basic communication
level, let alone language arts skills. I was humiliated as an English Language Arts and English
Language Development teacher, who so fiercely sought out ways to ensure that all of her

10

students, Standard English Learners (SEL) and ELD, had access to the full knowledge needed for
continued growth. At that moment, I was an angry Black woman, to be certain. I was angry with
the entire school district, the professionals who witness and refuse to address the significant
harm to Black people that educators such as this District representative do when they do not see
us and our children. It was as if I had suddenly found myself standing in the horrid past, when
coming face to face with white racism and the indifference to it was commonplace. I am certain
that this is an example of the point at which the cultural pluralities, cultural memories, historical
and life experiences of Black people gets thrown into a whirling turmoil of understandings and
emotions that must be instantaneously deciphered. It is the point at which common sense must
rationalize, for your own good, all of those knowledges that your colonized intellectual mind
tries to override. It is the point at which all of the cultural memories from a lifetime of existence
in a white dominated world slams up against a radical Black body that throws up the Black
power fist and says, No! You will not so carelessly carry out your responsibility to the Black
learners who are placed in your care. No! You will not get away with boldly dismissing the
presence of Africans from across the diaspora in educational spaces and feel certain of my
silent acquiescence. No! You cannot be so certain that I have been so completely colonized into
submission that I am blinded to the exclusion of my own image from the murals of multicultural
education. And then you remember that you need your job.
Journal Thoughts continued: Somewhere, among all of the other more vocal responses
that swirled in my head, I made up my mind that from that moment on, I would not attend
another professional development that spoke only of helping one demographic of
students and left out those who looked like me. I simply picked up my belongings and

11

walked out of the meeting. By the time I reached the exit door to the gymnasium, a few
other African American teachers were also taking this moment to make their exit.
Even now, in retrospect, this is a galling encounter, and an indictment of the so-called
progress occurring in multicultural education. This educator's actions demonstrate the full and
appropriate learning, by a non-Black minority, of the tools of race as the white hegemonic power
structure has taught. This casual dismissal is a clear replication of the dismissal of Black people
in society as a whole and speaks to the lack of consideration for human feelings that white
people apply to Black people and their lives. Recognizing the level of learned dismissal in this
educational leader's response to questions about educational benefits for Black students, and the
lack of consideration for how her words would be received, is another indicator that educational
leadership continues to be guided by structural anti-Black racism within society. Although this
relays a personal experience as an educator at the secondary level, the experience is one that is
repeated in numerous situations and settings across academia. It represents the perspective of
Black educators, whose racial voices, compounded with the conflation of their pluralities as
individuals, is rarely heard by educational leaders and is even less sought after in educational
research.
Including the voices of African American people in the disruption of the existing systems
of educational oppression that embrace Black deficit ideologies is a complex task for teacher-
educators. Educators are often limited by the policies, procedures, time constraints and general
hesitation of teacher education programs to confront racism. One area in which educators can
begin to make a direct impact on the development of anti-Black racism awareness in educational
spaces is by re-evaluating the curriculum and educational resources they select for use in their
pedagogical practices. But, before any teacher can authentically incorporate positive knowledge

12

and perceptions of African American people into their curriculum, they must first develop clear
understanding of how certainly and steadily our society is moving backward racially. The
predominantly white teaching force must make significant shifts from thinking and operating in
terms of “supporting student learning” about anti-Black racism to actively working to disrupt the
systems that support the exclusion of this important focus from education (Viesca, et al., 2014).
Opportunities to engage in continuous critiques that help identify biases and fears related to
racial discussions that stand in the way of making pedagogy more relevant for a diverse
population of students should be a key aspect of teacher preparation (Gay and Kirkland (2003).
Many educators who work within teacher education programs that have a focus on
multiculturalism or diversity are unaware of the much-needed transformational racial work that
many of their colleagues are doing toward gaining greater awareness of anti-Black racism as a
problematic societal phenomenon. Without support from the administrative level in opening
opportunities for learning about anti-Black racism, educators will continue to struggle with
gaining full access to means for understanding anti-Blackness and how to effectively adopt and
incorporate practices that aid in the disruption of these types of anti-Black biases.
Challenging the existence of anti-Black racism and oppression through educational
avenues is an uncomfortable undertaking that is largely left up to higher education institutions,
since they are responsible for preparing future educators. It would be unfair to say that these
difficult conversations related to race and racism are not occurring on some level within some
teacher education programs, because it is common to find multicultural education or diversity
courses listed in most teacher education program descriptions. Several even have a Black focus.
It would also be incorrect to say that there are no accreditation standards that guide the expected
requirements for multiculturalism and diversity because CAEP (Council for the Accreditation

13

of Educator Preparation), the organization that accredits higher education institutions, has
established standards by which colleges and universities are assessed on the quality of programs
offered in their institutions. A review of the standards, however, shows they do not include any
language related to the acknowledgement and importance of cultural and racial knowledge of
learners (ncate.org). Although there are no specific mandates for teacher education programs to
have a focus on multiculturalism and diversity, most programs do include courses that allow
teacher learners to engage with issues related to race. These programs, however, stop short of
delving into the more complicated issues of racism and the historical aspects of colonialism that
pervade American society and highly influence education.
There is indication from the literature that multicultural teacher education programs
recognize the need for greater critical teacher reflection that prompts the examination of moral,
political, and ethical contexts of teaching practices (Howard, 2003). Unfortunately, this has not
translated into pedagogical practices or other forms of educator support in developing modes of
reflection that delve into the problems related to the broad-reaching influence of stratification
by color, the cornerstone of anti-Blackness in American society. If given extensive
opportunities to interrogate their personal perceptions and potential biases with regard to the
Black and white binary, educators may become clear that the discussion of this binary
necessarily leads to a critique that continues on two levels – civil rights scholarship and civil
rights law (Brooks and Widner, 2010) — which provides a more critical point for self-inquiry
to begin. Exposure to their own internal discourse can help educators see how their personal
beliefs impact their pedagogical practice.
As the minimal amount of scholarly research on the topic of anti-Blackness in teacher
education indicates, educational scholars will not explore that of which they will not speak.

14

Institutions of higher education, which are primarily responsible for much of the research that
explicates societal and educational phenomenon, have few starting points from which to examine
the grander impact of their complicity in providing the avenues for anti-Blackness to remain so
actively present in academia. Teacher education programs within universities that honor a
commitment to racial equity are one of key means by which anti-Blackness views and practices
can be uncovered. Teacher-educators must continually check their curriculum and practices to
assess what they are doing to prepare learners to fully appreciate, understand, and interact with
the racially complex world (Hoang, 2012). Educators seeking to enhance their racial efficacy and
begin the challenge of racial identity awareness often find that there are few avenues to help
them understand how to begin, and they face uncertainty when seeking avenues for growth on
their own.
Statement of the Problem
In the perfect vision of a diverse and multicultural society, after which many educators
fancy their educational philosophies, an ideology of anti-Blackness is not supposed to exist. In
the real world, the bitter truth that many come to recognize is that Blackness itself was never
meant to exist, and those who inhabit Black bodies were never meant to survive, let alone thrive
in a society created and maintained by colonial visions of existential dominance. The structures
which initially established and now uphold American society firmly rely on colonial concepts of
Blackness that echo and perpetuate long-held cavalier sentiments toward Black existence. Racial
constructs are a fundamental design of the American societal structure, and as such, racism is
deeply embedded into the national identity (Barndt, 2007). The Western positioning of
‘whiteness ’as a preferred racial construct, shapes a societal and world view which places
‘whiteness ’at the top of a hierarchal system, and conversely places ‘Blackness ’at the bottom.

15

This two-fold hierarchy intersects racial and national systems that conspire to deem Blackness as
inferior, and thus, justifies a societal disdain for Blackness (Bashi, 2004). This framework for
societal structure extends to all aspects of human existence in ways that affect one’s conscious
and unconscious understandings of the world. The fundamentally unequal and oppressive
system, which allows only some to reap the benefits of the skewed social structure, masks the
harsh racial realities of systemic poverty, violence, and oppression against Black people, and
then shrouds itself in false claims of atonement for its history of anti-Black racism. It is a system
that is constantly oscillating between two sets of incompatible and irreconcilable racial
perspectives and desires that potentially threaten the all-essential imbalance couched in the
symbolic systems (Bordieu, 1989) and ensure an inequitable divide of power and cultural capital.
Education is touted as one of society’s greatest equalizers, yet it is also one of the greatest
areas in which the unaccounted elements of anti-Black racism can be found (Wun, 2016), and
breeds an element in which apathy toward, and inconsequence of, Black existence is perpetuated
through policies, outcomes, and expectations. The predominantly white faculty that comprises
the make-up of most higher education institutions has had little societal or personal situations to
disturb their comfortable pedagogical nests. Educators are aware of the existence of anti-Black
racism in society, and many are also willing to acknowledge its existence within education;
however, they are seldom, if ever, given opportunities in their professional practices to expand
their understanding of the intersectional nature that exist in relation to anti-Black sentiment. Just
as white people in society are rarely asked to examine their racial selves, so too, are educators
rarely asked to examine, or given the flexibility in programming, training, and professional
development to interrogate, both themselves and their pedagogical practices with regard to their
awareness of anti-Black racism (DiAngelo, 2018). DiAngelo (2011) noted appropriately, that

16

white people have been insulated from racial stress, which gives them the freedom from having
to do such difficult personal racial work. While teacher education programs are the logical place
for this type of critical discourse to occur, few programs are positioned to optimize the
opportunities for teacher-learners to expand their personal understanding of anti-Blackness. They
have not carved out space that lets educators perform the type of necessary exploration of
personal racial perspectives through the curriculum within their programs. Patel (2016) states
that education doesn’t deal with race, except when it relates to data which then become strata, or
layers of information, which is used to stigmatize Black students, their homes, culture, and their
learning ability, and fails to address the societal design that creates the strata. Patel further states
that when education continues to address these issues, they become complicit in perpetuating a
larger problem. Leonardo and Porter (2010) have stated that in education, it has become common
to place the condition of “safety” around racial dialogue and assert that this creates a comfort
zone in which the fight to end racism is sufficiently sanitized so that dialogue remains such that
white people can avoid looking racist. This enactment of inauthentic effort related to
understanding the racial experiences of Black people causes further racial harm and trauma to
Black people. Deep racial dialogue that pushes past these limits is largely avoided in teacher
education, and this lack of specific interest in anti-Blackness leaves room for the question of
whether educators, Black or white, have gone through any recognizable processes associated
with racial awareness, or are even aware of the need to undergo such racial interrogation. Davis
(2016) suggested that we need to develop a language for talking about race. She advised against
trying to continue using the “old language” for talking about race, or we will continue to have
only superficial conversations.

17

The process of increasing one’s personal and professional awareness of anti-Blackness is
a transformational endeavor that is difficult for most to undergo, and proves particularly difficult
for whites, whose existence, ensconced in whiteness, has typically protected them from the racial
stresses associated with racial identity (DiAngelo, 2011). The socialization of white people has
caused their dialogue around race to become not much more than practiced scripts (DiAngelo,
2018). White educators must be willing to examine themselves and their practice to the point of
being forced to contend with the dilemma of choosing customary practice over issues of
conscience (Smith, 1994). With white educators comprising the greatest racial group among
educators, racial efficacy is an especially important form of professional growth that teacher-
learners should have extensive opportunities to explore before entering classroom environments.
This is important because it is precisely these settings in which they will likely encounter
students who are grappling with the exact kinds of societal situations that will test the racial
efficacy of these educators.
Race is seen as a “given” state of being, so much that we do little in pushing ourselves to
explore it fully. Education research is no exception. The scarcity of intellectual inquiry and
theory being used beyond dialogue to specifically confront and dismantle anti-Black racism
within the field of teacher education (Dumas, 2016; Dumas & Ross, 2016) have spoken directly
to the lack of attention that has been given to this historical phenomenon which, even today,
often reaches directly into educational spaces in very personal ways. Our educators live with
anti-Blackness. Our students live with anti-Blackness. Our administrators live with anti-Black
racism. Through personal experience or not, everyone involved knows that anti-Black racism is
real, yet there is little work being done to provide opportunities for expanding this knowledge
within teacher education. This contemporary reality presents a specific challenge for educators as

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gatekeepers to knowledge and access to learning (King, 2014), and dictates that they hold a great
responsibility in deciding how their pedagogical instruction will expand the limited amount of
historical knowledge found in curriculum, and how it will work toward increasing awareness of
the ways in which societal anti-Blackness continues the threat to Black humanity. Despite the
lack of educational resources to inform educator practice and increase anti-Blackness awareness
within teacher education, some teacher-educators are taking the personal initiative toward
becoming increasingly aware of this little examined phenomenon. Educators seeking to expand
their racial awareness are recognizing that the immutable cultural deficit beliefs and knowledges
that many believed to be a thing of the past, have regained a prominent presence in today’s
society. They are seeing, many for the first time, how surely these ideologies are ingrained into
the very fabric that weaves itself together as the dominant American society. Many are learning
that a great number of those sentiments reside even within themselves. Deep introspection and
self-interrogation of personal racial perspectives and positionality are necessary steps toward the
difficult task of interrogating one’s racial identity and coming to terms with the historical
implications of that identity. The degree to which educators are willing to challenge their own
positionalities and racial identities, and the boldness in their demonstrated actions, signal the
depth of their commitment to racial equity in education and the world.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to learn more about how educators in teacher education
programs develop an awareness of anti-Blackness, and how these educators address and
acknowledge the manifestation of anti-Blackness in teacher education. Through the lens of
those charged with developing future and current educators, this study examines aspects of
teacher pedagogical practices that recognize the exclusion of Black voices from the discourse of

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education and asks how they engage in reflective practices that help them to explore their
personal racial identity while also maintaining their identity as educators. The research seeks to
understand how these educators honor and embrace the responsibilities and challenges
associated with the teacher activism work that is inextricable from an anti-anti-Blackness
pedagogy. Finally, this research seeks to understand how educators in the field of teacher
education translate their racial learning into functions, practices and behaviors that help to
operationalize this complex learning and transformational experience.
The research questions guiding this research are:
1. How do teacher-educators in teacher education programs empower themselves with
knowledge of anti-Blackness to safeguard against its manifestation in educational spaces?
2. How do teacher-educators demonstrate a commitment to multicultural education given the
pervasiveness of colonial views of Blackness within American society?
3. How do educators in teacher education programs use race theory(ies) in their pedagogical
practices to help learners develop more efficacy in applying knowledge of anti-Blackness to
their learning?
4. How does the limited presence of African American voices in teacher education programs
encourage or proliferate anti-Black biases and perceptions in education?
Significance of the Study
This qualitative study provided a much-needed case study on anti-Blackness in teacher
education programs. The intent was to begin filling in the missing pieces of critical thought that
are useful in boosting multicultural teacher education programs’ efforts to combat systemic
anti-Blackness within education that continue the dehumanizing deficit views of Black people.
This study operated under the assumption that, despite a dearth of academic literature, teacher-

20

educators are taking independent steps toward increasing their personal and professional
knowledge of anti-Black racism. The study illuminated aspects of anti-Blackness that have
significant influence on discourse among educators about how teacher education programs can
better ensure that transformational practices lead to greater racial efficacy among teacher-
educators. Existing educational theories, when used individually, prove insufficient for the
depth of exploration needed in order to fully grasp the truths associated with anti-Blackness.
This study examines the need for a grounded theory that looks at anti-Blackness from a multi-
focused, critical perspective.
Research of literature on this topic showed that the field of multicultural teacher
education has largely excluded this difficult but necessary dialogue around anti-Black racism
from the conversations of academia (Dumas, 2016). Patel (2016) asserted that we are not
paying attention to and reckoning with the legacies that have created inequities, and she warned
that without addressing these issues we cannot expect to change the practices that work to
continue racism in education. The recognition of this exclusion strengthened the argument of
Michael Dumas (2016), who asserts that as a way of specifically theorizing Blackness,
BlackCrit is needed in order to fill some of the gaps of Critical Race Theory. Michael Dumas
has explored the topic of anti-Black racism through the lens of policies and practices within
multicultural teacher education, and also explored anti-Blackness in connection with Black
Critical Theory. Aside from the work currently being produced by Dumas, there was little
intellectual inquiry located that delved into the treatment of anti-Blackness in teacher education.
A thorough search through scholarly journals and case studies turned up no case study that
situated scholarly inquiry of anti-Blackness directly on the development of a knowledge of
practice among teacher-educators as they endeavor to combat racist biases. One case study by

21

Connie Wun (2016), selected for this study, explored anti-Blackness in K-12 education, but
focused on discipline practices as applied to African American girls. Although this study added
to the theoretical understanding of anti-Blackness, it did not explore its deeper origins and
expansive reach into educational spaces, and added no discussion related to educators’
interaction with anti-Blackness. The greatest discussion on anti-Blackness came from Lewis
Gordon (1995), whose book Bad Faith and Anti-Black Racism provided perhaps the most
extensive collective writing that specifically dealt with anti-Blackness. Gordon, using a
Sartrean philosophy of existence, discussed the various degrees to which anti-Blackness
emerges and expands the questions that are asked in the study of racism and how it performs in
our society. Many educators have begun taking advantage of the information highways that
provide access to Black experiences, yet there is little direct access to the narratives of Black
people that could act as fodder for deeper discussion within the educational spaces themselves.
The current discussions, though helpful to the understanding of Black experiences, do not treat
race with much significance beyond data, and consistently circumvent interrogation of the
psychic and material harm of anti-Blackness in educational spaces, leaving the discussions
within education remain superficial in their examination (Milner, 2015). Other treatments of
anti-Blackness utilized for this study approached the topic from a perspective that examined
anti-Blackness from societal perspectives that, although very critical, were also framed in ways
that situated the problem primarily as being external to education. Fred Moten (2013), for
instance, examined the notions of political and social death of Black life by looking at various
treatises of writers on anti-Blackness and afro-pessimism. The works of Frantz Fanon and
Orlando Patterson provided sound foundational perspectives from which to view the lens of
political and social death. These were important to explore, as they greatly informed the

22

understanding of, and reason for, some of the racial situations that teachers encounter both
inside and outside of school settings.
Throughout the literature review, critical race theory (CRT) was used most often as the
framework from which racial discussions in education occur. Ladson-Billings (1998) pointed
out that when exploring the aspects of social justice in education, CRT becomes a necessary
tool that helps researchers and educators to deconstruct and reconstruct understandings of
human agency and the construction of equal and just power relations. However, there are
specific aspects of the theory that confine the full exploration of anti-Black racism. Michael
Dumas (2016) presented a look at Black critical theory (BlackCrit) for the benefit of specificity
that it adds to critical race theorizations. Dumas presented an examination that asserted that,
despite attempts at applying CRT to theorize Blackness, it is not intended for the specific
theorization of Blackness (p.416) and thus justifies the need for a Black Critical Theory.
Critical race theory and BlackCrit have been crucial to educational research specifically
because of their demands for social justice on behalf of Black people. However, neither theory
individually or collectively, provided the critical examination that would be necessary to help
educators excavate the problems of the Black and white racial binary, which manifests itself as
anti-Blackness in these settings. Post-Colonial Theory (PCT), as Parsons & Harding (2011)
asserted, also seeks justice, and provides an additional avenue for theorizing through the use of
literature to speak directly to and about the social and psychological suffering, exploitation,
violence and enslavement of the victims of colonization. For much of the world, the colonial
constructs of racial stratification have deemed and virtually certified the positioning of Black
people outside the category of human. This kind of dehumanization has emboldened those who

23

subscribe to those racist perceptions, and simultaneously justifies and absolves ‘good whites ’in
their inaction.
Given that the responsibility for guiding most teacher education programs has been
placed in the hands of white educators, who comprise the largest percentage of educators
(NCES, 2017), an additional aim of this study became to determine how a grounded theory can
be used to explicate anti-Blackness in greater depth than is currently being explored. The
incentive for theorizing this phenomenon through grounded theory lay in the need to give
educators the means to extend their application of theory beyond the limitations of Critical Race
Theory when applied to education. The application of CRT by Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995)
began to explore the stories of those whose lives have not been recorded for history, and whose
primary biography consists of horrible inaccuracies as to who they were and the horrid stories
of things that had been done to them (Hartman, 2007). The existing theories as they are
interpreted and used in educational research leave great room for exploration of anti-anti-
Blackness through the enjoining of critical thought and critical literary analysis.
Limitations
One of the primary limitations of this study was gaining access to teachers within
multicultural teacher education programs who were concerned enough about equity to place
themselves in a position to be scrutinized for their anti-Blackness perspectives. The educators
selected for this study needed to fully embrace a true desire to delve into the uncomfortable
aspects of race and racism as they pertain to their personal and professional perspectives. They
needed to be forth-coming about pedagogical practices, while simultaneously exploring ways to
expand dialogue and efforts within programs so as to thwart stigmatized realizations within
education. In considering the ways that limitations can affect the data collection processes and

24

methods used in a study, it was important that the research methodology allowed for substantial
designation of interview settings and protocol that provided an environment that encouraged
feelings of safety and comfort for participants to express their thoughts and ensured them of
confidentiality. Discomfort, or lack of trust can cause respondents to hold back in their
reactions and responses, and thus, could have potentially present an internal validity threat for
the study. Selection bias is a problem that often affects the outcomes of research (McEwan &
McEwan, 2003). Therefore, as researcher, the potential drawbacks that may influence the
consent decision of a participant were considered. The units of analysis were selected for
participation because of their leadership positions within teacher education programs, or as
practitioners who have demonstrated a commitment to valuing all cultures for the betterment of
the field. Additionally, the selected participants have demonstrated a willingness to self-
interrogate regarding racial perceptions and biases. Those asked to participate in the program
demonstrated a clear understanding from the beginning that they would be asked to grapple
with complex issues such as educational efforts within a multicultural teacher education
program to explore the deeply complex, but largely non-existent, conversations about anti-
Blackness, cultural and social death of Black people, and the shared power domains of post-
colonial vestiges in contemporary society and education. For the aforementioned reasons, the
purposeful selection of participants was a critical component of the study. Because no prior
empirical studies were located that explored the processes of development of anti-Black racial
awareness in teacher education, the interpretations, assumptions, and assertions that emerged
from the data analysis in many instances, constituted the first documentation of responses from
teacher-educators to questions regarding their understandings and perceptions of anti-
Blackness.

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Qualitative research by its nature seeks answers to questions that are important to the
topic of study (McEwan & McEwan, 2003), and as such, this case study sought to uncover
aspects of societal anti-Blackness that educational leaders have not begun to address. This study
extended racial discussions of the Black and white binary to the areas of contemplation that
educational research has yet to breach. The lack of existing scholarly studies meant that no
comparison to other studies could be made as a way to support or further explain the findings.
To accomplish the necessary excavation of professional and personal biases of educators, this
researcher needed to access course materials used in teacher education programs. It was
anticipated that there would be limitations to some of this particular material and information
due to University restrictions, confidentiality, or other stipulations and agreements as a
condition of participation in the study.
Definitions and Terms
• Anti-Black Awareness: Having full consciousness and an ever-present vigilance toward
identifying, naming, confronting, and dismantling systems and ideologies that rely on,
and/or perpetuate deficit views of blackness and devalue black humanity.
• Afro-Pessimism: An influential account of anti-blackness among Black Studies scholars
which insists on the distinction of anti-blackness from other forms of racism. It critiques
the push to abandon the black/white binary for studying race. It replaces the ideal of a
Black/white “binary” with the concept of “antagonism” (As defined by Ray, et al).
• Teacher-Educator: One who is employed as an educator who is responsible for the
formal education of teachers.
• Teacher-Learner: One who is employed as an educator and is also taking coursework in
higher-education setting to enhance their pedagogical knowledge.

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• Educator-Activist: An educator who is involved in activities that actively use their
pedagogical practice to pursue social justice and equity, and to attempt to dismantle
systems of inequity and racism.
Organization of the Study
This study begins with a review of the existing literature and empirical studies related to
the phenomenon of anti-Black racism as it presents itself in different forms, and as it is seen in
educational settings. The review of literature is followed by a detailed description of the
methodology used in the study. The data collection process is broken down for greater clarity
into the research, the steps and means for gathering the case study information. Following this
section, the methods, and procedures for analyzing the data are detailed so as to explain how the
data were stratified and disaggregated to better allow for application of theorization. The
findings are discussed in relation to the research question and thematic connections that
emerged from the analysis and interpretation of the data. Following the discussion of findings,
the implications for the future of education and educational research based on the findings are
explained, and the case study is summarized in the conclusion section.

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Chapter Two: Literature Review
The structure of this literature review intentionally steers away from an
orthodox exploration of solely scholarly research by infusing creative expression and personal
experiences of the researcher as dialectic fodder for discussing the failures of multicultural
teacher education. The use of literary works and personal experiences in this manner provided a
helpful counter-narrative to an accepted premise which places the highest value on canonical
literature as premier knowledge and does so with the assumption that these knowledges emerged
without African presence or input (Morrison,1992). As previously articulated, the voices of
Black educators are significantly absent from the racial discourse within higher education in
areas of leadership, professional development decisions, curriculum development, and also in
classroom environments.
Because this review of literature includes an interaction with the researcher’s personal
narrative and educator experiences, it was important to periodically examine the researcher’s
positionality. In standing in the truths of the many iterations of myself and allowing the
narratives of time to unfold, selected texts functioned as narrative stand-ins for the silenced
voices of Black American educators, whose existential perspective is ignored within educational
spaces, and whose perspectives are largely missing from the curriculum and scholarly research
within the field of multicultural teacher education. The selected writings used in this literature
review were taken from a compilation entitled, “The Musings of an X-Patriot” (Perkins,
2020) and include a sampling of spoken word, essays, poetry, and personal expressions that I
have written over the span of nearly two decades. These works give a glimpse into the dialogues
that that go unspoken, occurring only in the minds of Black educators, who cannot help but bring
their racial bodies and authentic selves into professional spaces. These conflicting and pluralistic

28

selves vary across the spectrum – from educators who choose to ignore their culture, and every
conceivable variation. Merriam & Tisdale (2016) stated that people create understanding of the
world around them in many ways, including through artistic expression. The contemplation of
Black presence is based on knowledge and understandings that allow it to hover precariously at
the margins of what is considered literary imagination (Morrison, 1992).
The expressions of Black consciousness in this review are offered as additional
considerations that teachers of novice educators, as well as those in positions of educational
leadership and curriculum decision-making, may unknowingly need to hear. They represent
voices that may help to expand the frames of reference by which the critical decisions related to
knowledge value are being made. These renderings symbolize but a few of the millions of voices
that have attempted to “lift the veil” (Du Bois, 1903 on the numerous ways in which the cultural
memories of African Americans, as the descendants of African captives, remain fresh. These are
voices that speak to the unacknowledged role of African American people as forced participants
in a nearly 400-year long, hegemonic game of catch-22 in which Black people must constantly
attempt to navigate and outsmart the societal constructs of race and racism that persist,
proliferate, and become reinvented with regularity. Fanon (1952) stated, that regardless of stature
in life, the Black person remains a prisoner of the vicious cycles and layers of anti-Black racism.
Fanon described Blackness as an existence forever hinged to a national prism that vilifies
Blackness and perpetually terrorizes Black people, physically and spiritually, while claiming to
be oblivious to skin color (96). This review of literature offered insights into the inadequacies of
the accepted definition of racism given society’s determination to stratify humans according to
what Du Bois calls the color-line (Du Bois, 1903). The forms of racism detailed in these

29

literatures exist in both subtle and overt ways within greater society and the confines of
education.
This literature review process began by exploring the presence of what Jean-Paul Sartre
(1943) referred to as bad faith.” This was a logical starting point because, as Sartre defines bad
faith as the lie which the conscious affirms. It is a lie to oneself. Sartre further stated that the
person who practices bad faith does so by hiding a displeasing truth, or by presenting an
unpleasing truth as truth (p. 87). I began the literature review with this discussion because in this
researcher’s perspective, bad faith is at the core of the challenges facing teacher education. Anti-
Blackness is driven by powerful white ontological imperatives and existential fears that can only
be achieved and sated through domination and subordination of those deemed inferior. Lewis
Gordon’s (1993) application of Sarte’s notion of bad faith to anti-Black racism, was my entry
point to developing a philosophical understanding of this phenomenon.
In the second discussion, research by leading scholars on anti-Blackness provided a
wealth of insight enabling the theoretical critique of anti-Blackness to enter into educational
spaces. Dumas’s (2016) scholarship names the colonized ideologies that position Black people as
antagonistic to white existence in society and education. Wun (2016) examined anti-Blackness in
education from a perspective that tackled evidence of anti-Blackness with regard to discipline for
Black girls in school settings. Jared Sexton’s (2017) analysis of Blackness explicated many
previously inexplicable understandings of hatred toward Black people. Selected works by other
scholars such as Frantz Fanon, Fred Moten, and Vilna Bashi exposed the embracing
of colonized beliefs about Black people that manifest intentionally or unintentionally in
education. These literatures explicated anti-Blackness in ways that proved helpful to the growing
racial discourse within teacher education and the ability to name anti-Black racism as the system

30

of political and social domination that continues to hide in plain sight within educational
policies, practices, and teacher education program curriculum.
In the third discussion, the literature review explored how Black scholars of the past
resisted systemic racism and the suppression of Black culture through the early ethnic studies
programs, which sought to develop self-knowledgeable, self-loving Black learners. The literature
showed how, with cooperative assistance from a few allies within higher education, student
demands for inclusion led to the creation of ethnic studies and provided multicultural education
with a model. The curriculum that has been a part of multicultural educational environments for
the past several decades, has been one that largely presents a disjointed, incoherent, and negative
view of Black people. It is not possible for multicultural education practitioners to claim
an understanding about the significance of anti-Blackness and continue in denial of its many
influences on curriculum and pedagogical practices. Rather than producing a long list of
deficiencies in the practicum of multicultural education, this literature review remained in
dialogue with the topic through an exploration of scholarly work by James Banks, Evelyn Hu-
DeHart, Vincent Harding, Ed Wetschler and Queena Hoang. These scholars offer important
insights into the historical development of ethnic studies, from its early beginnings with
pioneering Black scholars, to the construction of contemporary cultural education
efforts. Multicultural education has reached a stagnant place, and it would be helpful for those in
leadership to take heed from efforts of the early ethnic studies programs, as the scholars of those
days unfortunately faced the same social, educational, political, judicial, and existential problems
that challenge educators today. This part of the discussion clung to the belief that the past must
inform the present, if we are to move forward in ways that make lasting change.

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A fourth focus that emerged from the literature review was the need to expand teacher
education in ways that safeguard against the continued policies and practices that feed anti-Black
racism in school. With the growing public sentiments that attempt to normalize racism in
American society, it is clear that the problems of the past adamantly refuse to be resolved by a
nation that remains mired in its racialized efforts toward educational equality. Not only
has contemporary multicultural education conveniently substituted ethnic studies for a more
palatable focus of multiculturalism and diversity, but it also appears to have welcomed the
reprieve that the demands for inclusion from cultural groups of learners other than
African Americans offered. The literature additionally explored aspects of anti-Black racism in
our educational system that encourage the disavowing of Black selfhood in favor of the anything
but Black mentality (Sexton, 2016). This insight was important to the development of an
understanding of what avoidance of anti-Black issues looks like within educational spaces.
Fanon (1952) helped in identifying the connection between the dogged avoidance of Blackness,
which he attributed to the colonial exhibition of “lactification,” a term he used to describe white
women’s neurotic and dogged avoidance of Black men, and the point at which the direction of
multicultural education began its detrimental shift toward “ la c tif ic a tion.” These same extreme
measures of avoidance of Black thought and concerns equate to a form of lactification within
education that is exhibited by the almost neurotic ways in which education has consistently
disregarded Black thought, Black concerns, and Black bodies in order to avoid directly talking
about anti-Black racism. The historical progression of ethnic studies toward contemporary
multicultural education showed that as the ethnic studies movement gained legitimacy, other
groups who had been oppressed and marginalized within society also began to demand that they
be included in the cultural dialogue of education (Banks, 2013). These demands made it easier to

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conflate issues of anti-Black racism with other forms of oppression. The request for inclusion
was in some ways, a reprieve for the white educators who were not prepared to take on Black and
white r ac e r el ations in any great depth. Banks (1993) provided a discussion of the transformation
of ethnic studies into what we now recognize as multicultural education. Banks examined various
approaches that have been and continue to be used by multicultural education as ways to address
critical concerns for the field. Continuing the examination of early multicultural education
literature, Sleeter and Grant (1987) conducted an analysis of multicultural education by
synthesizing the body of literature so that it adds conceptual clarity to the purpose of
multicultural education. They examined the literature used in multicultural education for its
contribution to theory and practice within multicultural education. Through the analysis of
literature related to multicultural education, it became evident that the clear shift away from an
ethnic studies pathway left the work of ethnic studies unfinished.
The lite r a tur e reviewed for the fifth section of this study revealed that in the transcendence
of ethnic studies to multicultural education, both problems and promises were uncovered.
Multicultural education has done well in entrenching the learning environment and pedagogical
practices of educators with support for non-Black ma jor minorities, as is evidenced by the
numerous dual-language and ELD programs in school districts across the nation which
Banks (1993) spent much time elucidating. Within the field of multicultural education, there has
been a presumption of inherent value in the knowledges of non-Black cultures that can be seen in
the relative ease with which complete cultural curriculum has been devised for these groups.
This ease of facilitating the learning of these students aided in the appropriation of ethnic studies
in favor of a diversity-focused curriculum, and in many ways led to the commodification of the
knowledge (Early, 1993). Once properly appropriated, this knowledge was developed and

33

disseminated in the form of comfortable multicultural curriculum about non-Black minority
groups. Assante’s (1991) discussion explained how, what started as a genuine understanding
among Black scholars of the necessity for African American people to learn of their historical
path, and be re-educated toward their culture rather than away from it, was easily disfigured and
transformed by the needs of the education system. The racially imbalanced needs of the system
needed to continue to divert educational resources and focus away from the educational civil
rights issues of African American learners. Assante’s work further illuminated the types of
cautions that teacher-educators who desire a more racially aware practice and academic
environment should take into consideration. A shift in curricular development and instruction
that encourages an Afrocentric approach to teaching Black students and teachers of Black
students can specifically combat what Skinner (2001) has described as the long-held practice of
maligning Black culture.
Sleeter and Grant (1987) have provided research that addresses the various approaches
that have been used by multicultural educators to articulate the efforts and concerns
of contemporary multicultural education. The research completed by Sleeter and Grant (1987)
supports the assertion of Black scholars that, aside from the comfortable“ Heroes and Holidays”
approach, which has become a highly popular practice across schools in the United
States (Banks, 2013), Black people’s experiences and their history are being left out of
mainstream education (74). Teacher education programs make little effort to help classroom
teachers outgrow their very superficial classroom activity. Technology now allows contemporary
“Heroes,” (the actor, the ballplayer, the musician) to be easy replacements for the previous cast
of characters in their lessons – Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King. But we

34

still have done little to encourage teacher-educators to examine the roots of the injustice and evil
that caused these many of these “Heroes” stories to exist in the first place.
The final discussion of this literature review focuses on contemporary educators as
activists. Teacher activism is becoming more commonplace and may be considered by some to
be a required quality for educators. Today's educators must be bold enough to honestly address,
challenge, and erase the aspects of colonialism that linger in education, standing in the way
of a willingness to explore the development of curriculum that values African American
people. Brooks and Widner (2010) examine the Black/white binary as one of the specific aspects
of colonial racial understanding that multicultural education continues to avoid. There must be
willingness on the part of educators at all levels to provide all learners with opportunities to
interrogate their personal commitments to doing activist work, even as it crosses over from
professional spaces into personal spaces.
The review of relevant literature shows that critical race theory and BlackCrit are most
often used as frameworks to view education from an Afrocentric perspective.  Each of these
theories provide methods that are most reasonable for examining the ways in which multicultural
teacher education programs can begin to more fully address the issues of race, history, culture
and systemic racism. The principal claim of critical race theory is that racism, as an ordinary part
of society, is ingrained in the American political and legal systems (Berry & Candis,
2013). Ladson-Billings’s (1998) study on critical race theory in education provides significant
support for this claim through an examination which discussed attempts to point out the slow
response of education in implementing racial reform. BlackCrit differs from CRT in that
BlackCrit theorizes Blackness by addressing the significance of the racial attitudes of whites
toward Black people from across the African diaspora. An examination of BlackCrit in education

35

by Dumas and Ross (2016) was discussed specifically as it pertained to the analysis of anti-
Blackness in educational spaces. It was be helpful in this study to use these two frameworks
independently and in tandem. Additionally, Post-Colonial Theory was used as a third framework
because it is a literary theory, which applies a critical approach to dealing with post-colonial
literature, which dominates educational curriculum. With a vision focused on Critical race
theory, BlackCrit theory and Post-Colonial Theory, this literature review challenges the silencing
of Black voices that would speak against the continuance of colonial views of Blackness in
society, and the ways in which these paradigms are knowingly and unknowingly embedded
into multicultural education.
Knowing Blackness as an Existential Threat
Bad Faith as Demonstrated Through Anti-Black Racism
Philosopher and anti-Blackness scholar, Lewis Gordon’s Bad Faith and Anti-Black
Racism provided an in-depth examination of the various layers that comprise what existentialist
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre identified as “bad faith.” (Gordon, 1999) examined bad faith from
this Sartrean perspective to show how bad faith and anti-Black racism relate, and to help explain
just what bad faith looks like in our society. Sartre (1943) defined bad faith as consciously lying
to oneself. It is an act that rests on a foundation that continually vacillates between a position of
transcendence and facticity, in which neither is recognized for what it truly is. Frequently, it is
identified with falsehood (p. 801). Bad faith is further extended in the understanding that liars lie
to themselves on the personally established condition that they are able to then separate the bad
faith lie from lying in general (p. 87). Gordon (1999) identified self-evasion as a core problem
facing the efforts in the study of racism (p. ix). This self-evasion, which emerges from an
“evasive spirit,” challenges those who attempt to confront the situations that cause anti-Black

36

racism in ways that unveil things they may not want to know about themselves. Racism itself,
Gordon explained, is one’s self-deceiving choice to continue in the belief that their race is
deemed as human and is therefore superior. It stands to reason that since racism emerges from
this point of self-evasion, this sense of evasion would necessarily extend to the racist. And the
racist will not stand still and ask to be unmasked.
Bad faith, as Gordon (1999) contended, causes a person to attempt to flee the truths that
they find unpleasant, and cling to falsehoods that allow them to convince themselves that a lie is
in fact, the truth. In dissecting the act self-deception, normal lies typically include the deceiver
and the deceived. In lies of bad faith, the deception becomes more complicated as the deceiver
and the deceived are one in the same (p. 8). In the form of Sartrean bad faith, this is problematic
because it causes one to seek their own identity through the negation of others (6). Bad faith,
therefore, can be clearly seen as a direct connection to the dominant society’s foundation of
white supremacy.
Bad Faith in White Fear of Blackness: Threat to White Existence
Bad faith, as Gordon (1999) and Sartre (1943) explain, stems from an evasive spirit
which causes many whites to be resistant to acknowledging the fact that the world is in such
racial disarray because of their refusal to face the misdeeds of their fore parents. A refusal that
makes it impossible for them to reconcile with the truth that they are indisputably the heirs to a
legacy of white supremacy and systemic hegemony. Accepting the benefits of white privilege is
therefore an act of bad faith. The fragile comforts of whiteness need to be made troublesome, so
as to disrupt the narratives of Black inferiority and criminality and rudely interrupt the ease of a
slumbering white society. Whites are socialized to see Black people through their white gaze, the
lens of fear of Black skin, and thus, the fear of Black people themselves (Fanon, 1952). The

37

darkness of that skin is what erases the humanity of Black people from their view and causes, for
many white people, an irrationality which constructs a threatening Black existence which white
people must fear. They fear Black existence because they do not know Blackness. They do not
know Blackness in terms of its humanness on an equal footing as their own. They only know
Blackness through the contrived assignments of wickedness, ugliness, dangerousness, and all
other manner of denigration.
As the literature shows, whites see Blackness as a threat to their existence, in several
ways. First — and by no means is this to imply its order of importance to anti-Black racists — is
the existential threat. This particular threat to whiteness lies in the power that Blackness holds in
its ability to expose the fragility of the concept of whiteness. To better understand this
connection, Jared Sexton offers an unexpected perspective on Blackness. In his article, All Black
Everything, Sexton (2017), who has become recognized as one of the leading voices on anti-
Blackness, stated that “there is perhaps no color freighted with as much meaning as black.” He
approached the color black from an artists ’pallet that recognizes black to be not a color at all,
but instead represents the absence of light. He asserted that to truly see black would mean that
there is a loss of any visible light, therefore leaving all, in fact, black (p. 3). When considering it
from this purely artistic perspective of color, Sexton asserted that blackness, enjoys a certain
“pride of place” as the single uniting element of the synthesis of all colors of the spectrum, it is
the monochrome that is in reality, a combination of the full range of monochromes (p. 6). He
continued by observing that in understanding the constitutive qualities of Blackness one begins
to recognize Black as a social, political, and aesthetic power. “Black is what you get when all the
primary colors are present equally in the mix” (p. 6). Blackness necessitates the voluntary self-

38

cancellation of all colors and combinations of colors and illuminates the paradox of ‘beginning
and ending ’and ‘being and nothingness ’(Sexton, 2017).
Germination ©, 2015 T.L. Perkins
I am the seed of the dark richness of earth
Sprung forth from the sweet belly of the Mother
Bathed in the unknown memories of warm sunlight
From her ancient sky.
Natured, nurtured and transformed
Still her own
Flower
In opposition to Blackness, Sexton (2017) placed white as the absence of color.
Therefore, it is only logical to expect that, from an ontological perspective, the act of seeing the
color of Black people would necessitate for white people, a voiding of a great part of themselves.
A voluntary surrender of their whiteness – the most critical cultural capital they possess. In that
very acknowledgement, the meaning of Black becomes so excessive that everything else
disappears into Blackness (Sexton, 2017). To white society there then appears to be only two
choices – to not see Blackness, or to see Blackness magnified exponentially (p.4). This is a key
conceptualization of how Eurocentric, anti-Black ideologues view the existence of Black people.
To see Black, says Sexton, is to see all Black everything (Sexton, 2017), which thus activates a
desperate and misguided form of self-preservation, makes it necessary for the dominant
population to erase the Blackness of African people from across the diaspora. In viewing this
paradox of “being” and “nothingness” from Sartre’s (1956) philosophy of the dualism of “being”
and “appearance,” the concept and interpretation of existence is further complicated if we

39

confine our understanding of existence to the phenotypical. We then in essence, opt to see only
the superficial coverings which hide the true nature of humanity. According to Sartre, the
manifestations of our appearances, be they internal or external, should each have equal
consideration and should position neither of these manifestations as privileged (p. 3). However,
in a society that has structured itself with the imperative of color distinctions, there is no option
that can accept white as the color of “absence,” or the “being of nothingness.” The absence of
whiteness exponentially amplifies the existential fears of the dominant white society. The fear of
the absence of unearned existential privileges that are granted by the mere presence of white
skin. They experience a very real fear of whiteness losing its ethnic capital and its ‘becoming of
nothingness’. Ironically, the loss of ethnic capital is viewed by both Blacks and whites as a
threat. Both groups fear the “absence” of their presence, or the “becoming of nothingness” of
their individual and collective ethnic selves.
Threatening the Fairytale of White Supremacy
“A lie can be the gospel truth, if eloquently told.” - Erik Benet
It is one thing to lie. It is quite another to lie to yourself. The bad faith of self-deception is
what aids in the perpetuation of the lie of white supremacy. In his reflection on the controversies
around afro-pessimism, Zama Mthunzi (2017) noted that scholars who engage afro-pessimism,
such as Fred Moten and Sexton, emphasize the importance of understanding that afro-pessimism
is primarily concerned with understanding the structures within society and the world that work
to keep Black people oppressed. The colonial construct of color and race, which supports the
notion of white supremacy, is one such structure. The United States was formed according to a
racialized notion, which allowed racism to flourish and become a lasting fixture of this country
(Barndt, 2007). It was first seen in the unchallenged embracing of a white supremacist National

40

identity, followed by the forced servitude and subjectification of Black people. Finally, in
becoming a Colonial world power, the lasting effects of colonialism have led to the inability of
Black people to shed the twoness of identity that has left an inferiority complex which has not
fully been laid to rest (Fanon, 1952). But colonialism has also left unacknowledged and
unexamined a white inferiority complex that masquerades as superiority and forms deep fissures
in the foundation of this Nation. Once again, we see the exhibition of bad faith as self-deception.
America, and the world at large, has deemed white people as the humans in society, and
Black people as the subservient shadows that are constantly seeking, responding to, and living
for white aspirations (Mthunzi, 2017). Once again considering the paradox of “becoming and
nothingness,” the association of Blackness with nothingness becomes even more complexing.
Since a shadow has no will of its own, it is not feasible to think of shadow people as being in
pursuit of anything, let alone, white-ness. However, if as Mthunzi (2017) asserted, these shadow
people are trying to achieve white aspirations, then one must accept the fact that shadows can
only reflect the actions of an object. If, as white supremacist ideology imply, Blacks are simply
shadows of whites– just whose actions do the behaviors of African American people reflect? If
Blacks are so completely deficit in being and behavior, what do the actions of Black people, as
shadow persons, say about those shadow casting objects — the supposed objects of Black
desires? We typically associate purposeful aspirations with human intent, and that in itself places
into conflict the arguments of many who see only inhumanity in Black people. Either Black
people are shadows, whose actions can do no more than merely mimic those of dominant
society, or else, the full recognition of African Americans as humans must enter the
consciousness of white American society.

41

Many people resist acknowledging that anti-Black racism exists as a solid fixture in
American society. It is important to bear in mind the inseparable linkage between America’s
colonial history and the construction of race (Barndt, 2007) in order to understand the realness of
anti-Black racism. Anti-Blackness differs from general racism in that it is the specific hatred and
disdain of Blackness, animate and inanimate. Anti-Black racism is a concept that continues to
exist only through adherence to the centuries old, intentional constructs of race along a Black and
white binary. With the arrival of the first recorded slave in the American colonies, the
establishment of a system of colorism was seen as a necessary element of its societal structure
(pbs.org).
In his 2016 article, Michael Dumas (2016) expanded the understanding of how the
creation of Blackness as a system of oppression and stratification is a tool in the ideology of anti-
Black racism and white supremacy. Dumas used the phrase, the Black, as a collective reference
to Black bodies, and explained that in the afro-pessimist’s viewpoint, the Black person is
theorized as existing in a structurally antagonistic relationship with humanity (p.13). In this
ontological view, they are not merely seen as Other, they are seen as other than human.
Therefore, this ontological perspective maintains that humanness is something that is not
attainable by the Black (p. 13). Based on this theorization of how Black people are systematically
excluded from the societal machinations that create the societal measures of humanity, Dumas
(2016) asserted that anti-Blackness goes far beyond the racial conflicts that are easily
recognizable in daily life. He stated that anti-Blackness and by connection, afro-pessimism,
represent the irreconcilability between Black beings and any of the social or cultural aspects of
humanity. This perspective positions African slaves, and thus, their descendants, as perpetually
reaching for, yet unable to reach, the status of human (p. 13). This view is currently being

42

revived in the reversal of many social conditions that once acted as buffers between anti-
Blackness and its enactments of hatred and oppression toward Black bodies. Frank Wilderson
(2010) supports Dumas (2016) in his assessment that American social structures, in order to
stand, need to forbid the intersection of Blackness and the established white dictates of
humanness. Indeed, as Wilderson (2010) further asserts, early American understandings of
freedom depended on the existence of chattel slavery (p.21) and therefore, whites could not
embrace Black humanity without relieving themselves of some of their own. Dumas (2016)
specifically noted Wilderson’s claims that in the process of creating the concept of the Human
and securing its importance in the hierarchal structures of nature and social orders that dictate
power, white people had to first “murder” the Black (Dumas, 2016; Wilderson, 2010) – his
humanity, and all other social, economic, and political capital, thereby bringing about the “social
death” of the slave, and by mere existence, all their future progeny. Killing off the Black
ontologically in no way prevented further oppression of Black physicality. Many effective
practices were instituted that kept the power structure and idea of whites as the symbol of
superiority alive, and through the effective use of the commodification of Black people and the
narrative of Black inferiority, Blackness was traded freely (Wilderson, 2010). Through these
means, whites were able to remain comfortable in their fear-based accounts that cast Black
people, in the flesh and metaphorically, into positions as unknowable human capital.
Visage © 2016, T.L. Perkins
Do you try to read me, like I try to read you?
Do you scan my face, hoping to see what is true?
Do you find yourself wondering what feeds my mind?
Do you feel the effects of what history has left behind?

43

Do you ever stop to ponder whether you’ve overlooked a potential friend?
Do you recognize your trepidations as wounds not given a chance to mend?
Do you hazard the chance to freely speak your mind?
Do you do it in a way that tries to enhance all humankind?
You do?
Then there is hope for us after all.
The offing of the Black from humanity was necessary for the construction of ideological
systems that would convey privileges to those who, through silence or outright embracing of
racism, support the systems and structures of domination through institutionalizing colorized
categories. It is important to remember that the freedoms of slave owners could only be secured
through their perceived status of power in relation to the number of Black bodies they owned
(Dumas, 2016). For this phenomenon to occur, a continuum of the narratives of white
superiority, and the disconnect between slavery and the refused acknowledgment of Black
humanness (p.14), would need to become the accepted practice. For contemporary heirs to this
legacy of power, maintenance of these anti-Black systems is translated into political, economic,
and educational exclusions that work in tandem to support the total structure of inequity.
Blackness as a Threat in Education
The concept of anti-Blackness is one that has received little attention in the educational
world. There has been a reluctance for educational leaders to accept the demand for honest
acknowledgment how fully colonizing ideologies have bolstered the phenomenon of anti-
Blackness within educational spaces. Educational leadership is not eager to begin the tedious
task of untangling the structural vines that strengthen the bases for the hegemonic, oppressive,
and racist ideologies which have racially stratified our society in ways that ensure

44

continued elitist existential status and privilege for whites (Nothias, 2012). This same oppressive
structure which systemically determines economic, social, and political opportunities, comprises
the same body politic that guides education and ensures that the privileges for white-centered
opportunities extend to those settings, as well. For Blacks in the educational environment, both as
educators and as learners, there is a keen awareness that the same educational efforts that
promise greater opportunities for whites, do not always transfer so easily into opportunities for
Blacks (Dumas, 2014). Regardless of the underlying reasons for the e x c l us i on of anti-Blackness
discussion in education, the review of existing literature makes it evident that when theorizing
racialized policies in education, anti-Blackness must be clearly understood, as it forms a central
way in which most people, Black and white, educator as well as non-educator, make sense about
their economic, historical, and cultural positionalities in human life (Dumas & Ross, 2016). And
these concerns become critical to address relative to their impact on learning environments.
There is hesitance to admit that colonial views, coupled with the makeup of societal
structures, de m a nd active displays of cultural disregard for and disgust with Blackness (Dumas,
2016) which often leaves many educational spaces situated as being complicit with these
practices. As a recurring theme within the literature reveals, it is critical that educators at all
levels understand exactly what anti-Blackness is, and the many ways that racism in this form
manifests racial stratification. In his 2016 ar ticl e, “Against the Dark: Anti-Blackness in Education
Policy and Discourse,” Dumas argued that education as a whole must finally begin to grapple
with not only cultural disregard and anti-Blackness, but also the signification of Black bodies,
and the perceived threats that those in positions of dominance attach to those Black bodies (p.
11). This treatment of Blackness speaks directly to the primary fear that drives most resistance to
Black ethnic studies in multicultural education. These perceived threats translate into fears that

45

are exacerbated by white cultural memories of the power encapsulated in Black unity that have
been displayed at various times in world history. One example is the fear that, if given the power,
Black people would subjugate whites in the same ways that whites have subjugated Black
people. Knowledge of ancient African societies would too greatly challenge the dominant
society’s narrative of deficit and its ability to maintain the belief of Black inferiority that has
been so expertly cultivated across the globe. The glorification of Black cultural
memories of unity and power by African American people poses additional threats to
proliferating negative views of African American culture and people in educational arenas.

46

Chapter Three: Methodology
It is difficult to place the discussion of race into one particular focus. The conversation
tends to meander across historical, cultural, political, religious, moral, and educational realms.
Qualitative research is similarly difficult to place into one specific format of study (Agee, 2009).
This difficulty is due to the fact that meaningful aspects of the data are often intertwined with
and are reliant on the interpretations and experiences that come from a broad spectrum of places
and situations informing the basis of truth for those involved in the study (McEwan & McEwan,
2003). With an understanding of the transient nature of qualitative research, I gave deep
consideration to the type of study that would allow me to expose the greatest degree of honest,
raw and uncensored discourse from teacher-educators about their ability to develop knowledges
related to anti-Blackness awareness. Webster’s dictionary defines the word transient as meaning,
“staying only briefly,” and in applying this meaning to the nature of qualitative research, one
might say that a qualitative researcher drops in briefly, looks around, and then leaves to go and
explain their findings. In addition to trying to determine which processes or strategies teacher-
educators used in developing an awareness of anti-Black racism, this qualitative study also
needed to examine practices by teacher-educators that resisted maintaining hegemonic types of
learning experiences that claim to have a focus on diversity and multiculturalism.
In this section, I explain why a qualitative case study method was utilized for this study
and how a constructivist worldview guides the study and lends itself to a case study method for
exploring the phenomenon. An introduction to heuristic inquiry is followed by a discussion of
how heuristics presented itself as a critical element and how it guided the development of the
research. I proceed by explaining the design of the study, discussing the setting, the
instrumentation used to collect data, and the processes of data analysis, interpretation, and

47

validation. A thorough reflection on my researcher positionality and role in the study will be
discussed because of its importance for informing my objectives and goals for the study, but also
my intentions as the researcher. My researcher positionality places me directly in a position to
provide experiential commentary for consideration in the processes of analysis and interpretation
of the data. Additionally, I provide an introduction to the participants in the study and the
rationale for their selection. Of great benefit to the study was the fact that heuristic inquiry lends
itself easily to case study examinations. This case study examined the experiences and responses
of the participants with regard to their development of racial awareness. It additionally explored
the conditions in which the participants worked and existed as racialized people navigating
professional quandaries that arose when they attempted to insert racial understandings that
violated the accepted norms in educational spaces.
How Qualitative Methods Drove This Study
Qualitative studies are often selected by researchers because there is a lack of theory
related to the phenomenon under investigation, or because the existing theory does not
sufficiently support an explanation of the phenomenon (Meriam and Tisdale, 2016). A
qualitative approach proved to be more appropriate than a quantitative approach because
qualitative research encourages the researcher to use the data they collect in order to build a
concept, hypothesis, or theory. Unlike quantitative methods, qualitative research does not
attempt to prove or disprove any hypothesis, nor does it offer solutions to a problem (Meriam
and Tisdale, 2016; pg. 17). This study did not intend to use theory to come to any one conclusion
or finding regarding how anti-Black racism presents in social and educational spaces. Instead,
the influence and application of critical theory analysis became most valuable in helping to

48

support this researcher’s interpretation of the data and guide the study toward recommendations
for future study.
As suggested by McEwan and McEwan (2003), this study made specific attempts to
adhere to the three principal characteristics of qualitative research. First, it recognized the need
for the types of naturalistic aspects that are very closely associated with the study of race. It was
my belief that the more closely this study remained focused on collecting data related to real and
naturally emerging experiences from the participants, the more authenticity it would lend to the
study and my ability to interpret the data and its outcomes in an unbiased way. Thus, a heuristic
approach was applied. Second, the research topic of teacher-educator’s awareness of anti-Black
racism held the promise of rich, multifaceted descriptive forms of data. A specific intent was
made to allow the participants the freedom to share their stories in their own personal ways, and
to let them speak their truths with as little researcher intrusion as possible. Third, throughout the
research process, I remained focused on making meaning, explaining, and interpreting the data
that was collected through the interviews, artifacts, and audio-visual recordings. At each instance
of interacting with the data, the literal, figurative, cultural, social, and professional contexts
presented by the participants were juxtaposed with my own personal understandings and
experiences, as a way to further analyze, understand and explain the importance of the data.
More importantly, this method of interacting with the data served as a constant check on the
influence of my own researcher biases.
The most important decision that I had to make early in the research process was
determining which worldview was most closely related to the type of study that I intended to
complete. Creswell (2014) identified four worldviews — Post-positivism, Constructivism,
Transformative, and Pragmatism — that help researchers understand the motivation behind the

49

actions they may be challenged to examine within their studies. Trying to understand the reasons
for our racial beliefs can be daunting because it means being willing to recognize the flaws in our
thinking, and also requires us to challenge the thinking of those whose opinions we may have
held in high esteem. It means recognizing the humanity within us all, and it begs for us to
exercise compassion in our coming to terms with our emerging insights about the world and our
place and role within it. Worldviews, as defined by Creswell (2014), can be seen as a general
philosophical orientation, or philosophical way in which the researcher situates themself in the
world they seek to better understand, as well as the nature of the research that they bring to the
study. The worldview that best demonstrates my research philosophy is that of the constructivist
worldview. In this worldview, a belief is that people try to make sense of and understand the
world in which they work and live. There has been little, if any, case study research that allows
teacher-educators to directly speak about their efforts to increase their racial awareness. Keeping
this in mind, privileging the participant’s voice remained a key focus of the study from the
beginning by allowing the teacher-educators to expound on their experiences with racial identity
development, and share how their understandings and perceptions of anti-Black racism as it
exists in their personals and work lives have evolved along with their racial awareness.
This study, very much in keeping with its heuristic nature, was allowed to develop in the
most unprescribed unfolding of events, which also often mimics the most natural experiences
that occur in learning environments. Just as we cannot control the sands of time, neither can we
control the events which occur during those times. As such, this research took on a progression
that was largely reliant on and coincided with the researcher’s own academic pursuits in teacher
education. Qualitative data collection tends to occur in natural locations where the problem or
issue occurs, and this study required a blending of the “natural” locations as they pertained to the

50

participants and the researcher-participant. The information for the study was gathered through
talking with two teacher-educators who utilize their racial awareness as a personal and
professional resource in their practice. Because I am the researcher, my experiences of living,
learning, and teaching while Black also become a key instrument in the study (Creswell, 2014).
In choosing the qualitative methods that I would use for this study, I first considered the
intention for the collected data, which was to garner the greatest degree of information that
helped uncover the perspectives of teacher-educators about the acknowledgement of anti-Black
racism within educational spaces. I determined that an emergent design would best support the
data collection, analysis, and interpretation because the discussion of racial issues does not
typically follow a prescribed flow. It became apparent that a heuristic study requiring a great deal
of self-exploration had emerged. Because of the very personal and complicated nature of the
topic, it was most important that the voices of the participants were given the maximum
opportunity to shine through. A reliance on natural elements, such as those generally associated
with qualitative research conducted as case study, provided the most appropriate match.
Researcher positionality and experience are impactful to a qualitative study; therefore, because
of my personal experiences with race as an African American woman, K-12 educator, and
graduate student in a teacher education program, I chose to conduct a heuristic study that allowed
room for Black student and practitioner voices that are largely missing from teacher education.
This heuristic inquiry also allowed for the pairing with case study methods, which I
utilized to gain the perspectives and personal narratives of the two teacher education
practitioners selected to take part. Emerging methods such as open-ended interview questions
specifically designed to elicit in-depth, thought-filled responses from the participants (Creswell,
2014) along with textual and video data provided a clear perspective of how teacher-educators

51

navigate their multiple positionalities within teacher educational spaces. The decision to use
emergent methods was primarily based on the intent of the study, which was to hear the
perspectives of the participants and learn more about their experiences in developing racial
awareness and utilizing that knowledge in their teacher education practice. The initial plan for
the study was not tightly prescribed and intentionally allowed room for any changes related to
the study progression and timing, or shifts in data collection such as interview questions, artifacts
collected, and observational processes (Creswell, 2014).
Qualitative Case Study and the Heuristic Model
Creswell (2014) has suggested that the criteria for selecting a research approach should
be closely connected to a phenomenon that needs to be fully explored and understood, and is
lacking in the breadth of existing literature that directly addresses the phenomenon. The
qualitative approaches used as a strategy of inquiry in this study are phenomenology and case
study through heuristic inquiry. This study, very much in keeping with its heuristic nature, was
allowed to develop through documenting events that mimicked the most natural experiences that
occur in the educational process of teacher-educators. Qualitative data collection tends to occur
in natural locations where the problem or issue occurs, which helped to solidify the integration of
heuristics and case study. Because the phenomenon of teacher-educators being unprepared to
confront and challenge anti-Black racism within educational spaces is not a problem that is
location bound, the concept of the natural setting took on a broader meaning within this study.
As such, the natural setting took shape in the vistas that participants verbally painted in the
retelling of professional and personal memories. Because I am the researcher, additional data
contained in my researcher notes, personal journals and various forms of creative musings
transformed my experiences of “living, learning and teaching as Black” into critical, naturally

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occurring data for consideration within the study (Creswell, 2014). My experiences of living as
Black— Black educator, Black student, Black woman — and my many other pluralities also
became a natural setting in which greater understandings and insights into the need to challenge
the anti-Black biases that are still prevalent in multicultural teacher education programs became
apparent. For proper contextualization, it is important for me to distinguish the intentional use of
the phrase “living, learning and teaching as Black” because of the critical connection to
existentialism. My Blackness is always a primary factor. Just as I cannot and would not hide my
Blackness from the world, I cannot and will not hide, or exclude my Blackness from my
interpretation of my life and the world I inhabit. This expanded understanding of the natural
setting became critically important because Black educators carry those understandings and
experiences with us into our classrooms.
Heuristic Connection to This Study
Heuristics, in most pure form, is evidenced by a passionate and discerning personal
involvement in finding solutions to problems by putting forth effort to know the essence of some
aspect of life through the internal pathways of the self (Douglas and Moustakas, 1985; Bach,
2003). This form of exploration begins with an intensive self-study that is typically followed by
connection and communication with others in a manner that is guided by a particular sequence of
processes. These processes of inquiry use a methodology that integrates disciplined self-study
and in-depth accounts that are integral to the understanding of the phenomenon (Bach, 2003).
The heuristic model, being phenomenological in nature, requires a process that involves deep
reflection, exploration, and elucidation of the nature of the phenomenon being investigated. This
form of research produces data that is typically autobiographical, original, and heavily
descriptive of lived experiences (Douglas and Moustakas, 1985).

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The heuristic model of inquiry was developed by Clark Moustakas in the 1950’s as he
lived through an extended period in which loneliness became paramount to both his personal and
professional life. Moustakas was passionate about trying to understand the essence of loneliness,
and his powerful experiences with it led him to an intensely personal form of research inquiry.
His experience of being lonely despite being surrounded by others could also describe the
experience of many educators who have developed a more intimate awareness of how the
phenomenon of anti-Black racism within educational spaces. Educators often find themselves on
foreign soil when faced with the needs to confront not only their student’s racial identities and
experiences, but also their own racialized experiences in the classroom, because they have not
been educated to engage learners in this type of discourse around race. Educators have not been
taught how to deal with discourse that may offend or challenge the racial perspectives of pre-
service or in-service teachers. As such, the racially aware educator often finds themself on an
island when injecting knowledge (often unwelcomed knowledge) about the topic of race and
racism into conversations with their colleagues. Racially aware educators’ desire to see more
colleagues and educational leaders awaken to their complicity in perpetuating anti-Black
sentiments is often misinterpreted by their supervisors and peers. Any flaw or issue in the details
are scrutinized and inflated, while at the same time the associated facts are distorted and
dismissed. Once these acts of denial, minimization and blame-shifting are complete, supervisors
and peers vilify the activist. The result of this process is the vilifying of the activist is set into
motion, the race card cry goes out, and the isolation of the teacher-activist begins in earnest,
ultimately increases feelings of being isolated from their peers. Just as Moustakas was interested
in understanding the phenomenon of loneliness, my research also attempts to understand the
often-isolating position in which racially aware educators find themselves. I sought to learn how

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these educators channel the intrinsic motivation for activism toward racially informed
pedagogical practice. Heuristic inquiry required me to concentrate on seeking insight into the
involvements with race that many educators are challenged to understand for themselves. The
naturally emerging conversations that take place around anti-Black racism takes on greater
significance within the research of this study through its recognition that the primary subjective
experiences that teachers have with race should not be suppressed. Nor should the challenges
associated with developing greater racial efficacy among teacher-educators be seen as so
daunting and hopeless a task that we lose track of our purpose and become stymied into inaction.
As educators, we often have to walk fine lines between our private and professional selves. As
Black educators, our personal and private existence is filled with the consciousness of race. It is
something we simply cannot ignore. In our efforts to make sense of the racial world, Black
educators also have the work of constantly trying to understand, navigate, meter, and monitor our
responses to racism, so we don’t end up simply being relegated to the “angry Black person”
trope. Through this research, I hoped to move the conversation about anti-Blackness within
teacher-education from the current confines of ethnic studies and multicultural education, toward
a transformed view of our roles as educators where “we do not suppress our primary subjective
experiences, nor do we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and swept along by it; rather, we
raise it to consciousness and use it as part of our inquiry process” (Bach, 2003.
Design of the Study
Site Selection
Most qualitative studies take place at l oc a t i ons where participants experience the
problem being observed (Creswell,2014). The lack of racial efficacy among teacher-educators in
relation to anti-Blackness is not a problem that is unique to any university or program but is

55

found in educational and societal spaces the world over. This study did not rely on directly
observed pedagogical behaviors of racially aware teachers practicing in ways that challenged the
anti-Black racism that exists in the curriculum and discourse of teacher education. Additionally,
the participants were not selected based on their association with any specific university.
Because the participant input would not be connected to any specific university or program, it
was not necessary to designate one specific site for the study to be conducted. Participants were
allowed to specify the location for interviews, follow-up interviews, and for completing surveys.
Although the study was not confined to a singular site, significant effort was made to ensure that
all locations selected for face-to-face interviews or conducting surveys took place settings that
encouraged free expression. By establishing the survey process through the use of internet
communication applications, the study allowed participants to determine the location, time and
environment in which they accessed and completed the online surveys.
Participants
This study is bound within the experiences of racial awareness development among
teacher-educators. As a result, the selection of participants took on an intentional process to
ensure that appropriate consideration was given to the benefits each participant brought to the
study. Purposive sampling operates from the assumption that the researcher intends to construct
meaning from the experiences of human beings, as they engage with and interpret the world
around them (Merriam & Tisdale, 2016). It was critical to the research for me to gain extensive
insight into the motivations and actions of teacher-educators who had begun to make significant
shifts in their racial awareness, and to gain better understanding of how racial practices drive
teacher action. Locating teacher-educators who had become consciously aware of the ways race
operates in educational spaces was challenging, as I encountered several teacher-educators and

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administrators who seemed quite challenged to understand what this study was attempting to
explore. With this in mind, a snowball, or network strategy, was applied for participant
recruitment, by which I sought referrals for individuals who might be helpful to the study. An
introduction to one teacher, who is a member of a local teacher-educator’s group and very
engaged in efforts to disrupt anti-Black racism, led to discussion of her participation in the study,
and subsequently to an offer of introduction to a colleague and co-teacher who had also done
significant work on the topic of racial identity awareness. Patton (1990) asserted that there are
different types of purposeful sampling that lead to selecting information-rich cases. Adhering to
this understanding produced valuable research relationships for the study. Intensity sampling
allowed me to seek out the rich examples that came from examining specific educators who have
developed and built an intrinsic motivation toward anti-racist work. In keeping with the nature of
a heuristic inquiry, my deep, personal experiences with anti-Black racism as a Black educator,
learner, and foremost, human being, became critical to the intensity of the examination of the
topic.
Role of Researcher
I bring to this study the perspective of a creative person who has a passion for education,
an unequivocal acknowledgement of the humanity within all people, and a never-ending drive to
see racism and racist beliefs and actions become conscious, definitive acts that no human can
tolerate. Also, I have a clear understanding that in considering the complexities that teachers
(particularly from my perspective of a Black teacher) must navigate when it comes to dealing
with race in educational spaces, the personal existences of each individual educator is the most
crucial tool that all of us possess. Miles, Huberman, and Saldana (2014) cautioned that the
positionality of the researcher as either an insider or outsider has great influence on the groups

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involved in a study. In conducting this critical research, an initial focus on researcher reflexivity
was key in attempting to understand the influence that my position as both insider and outsider
had on my participants, as well as my own perception of the data (Merriam and Tisdale, 2016).
Therefore, the use of a Constant Comparative method was decided upon prior to moving into the
study. I engaged in a practice of self-reflection in which I explored the various ways that I could
see the research analysis and interpretation being affected by the relationships that existed in the
correlating experiences with the participants. This reflective process caused me to challenge
some of the long-held notions, cherished cultural sayings, and other aspects of my own racial
experiences. It forced me to make room to determine that change was needed in my perceptions
or beliefs. I noted these thoughts, feelings, and perspectives in a project journal. These notes
were referred to continually and were expanded upon as the data collection and analysis process
continued.
Qualitative Data Collection
Instrumentation
In order to reduce the risk of the study reflecting biases that can emerge from the use of
only one method (Maxwell, 2013), a variety of data collection instruments were applied in this
study. Individual interviews, video observations, surveys, and analysis of curriculum and other
related program documents, as well as participant and researcher journaling provided a variety of
means for gaining the greatest amount of data to examine in the study. Interviews with
participants were completed face-to-face and by telephone for follow-up interviews.
The choice to collect data through using interviews was based on the need to allow
participants an open-ended, yet semi-structured way to express the experiences that shape their
unique pos i t i ons (Merriam and Tisdale, 2016) as teacher-educators. Although the use of pre-

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defined questions is more closely connected to a structured approach, both pre-defined and
unstructured questions were used to collect the online survey information. The online webtool
RedCap ™ provided added flexibility in the collection of participant survey responses. This
online method allowed for differently structured question formats, such as multiple choice,
true/false and Likert scales, which aided in the gathering of information from participants. To
address concerns for the confidentiality of the responses, the secure online site helped
to maintain the autonomy and personalization associated with personal computing, while
ensuring that the online data collection tools allowed respondents to choose the secure, safe zone
of their preference.
Interviews
In establishing the pre-data collection processes that would be used with the study, it was
imperative that considered not only the strengths, but also the limitations associated with the use
of interviews. The strengths of using interviews for data collection included being able to
exercise a certain degree of control over the types of information solicited by the questions.
Interviews also offered the benefit of giving participants sufficient space to feel comfortable
including historical, contextual, and other information within their responses, which was
immensely helpful during the data interpretation process (Creswell, 2014). The key limitations
associated with using interviews in qualitative studies did not appear to have significant negative
impact on the interpretation of the data in this study. In fact, it can be argued that the negatives
actually were dual functioning in some ways. Among the drawbacks noted by Creswell (2014) is
the importance of understanding that interview information offers only indirect insight into
the problem, as it is viewed through the sole perspective of the participant. Though in some
instances the single-sided perspective could be seen as a drawback, these concerns were moot

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given the highly personal nature of this study of educators who have taken on the task of
interrogating their racial perspectives. The internal search for an understanding of one’s own
awareness of the challenges that affect the existence of others did not require acknowledgement
from any other person, which allowed the individual perspectives of the participants to carry
greater weight. The lack of alternate representation of the situations and events being shared did
not significantly constitute a void in perspective.
Another drawback that Creswell has insisted deserves consideration is the fact that in the
process of conducting interviews, the natural setting has been disturbed (Creswell, 2014). Again,
with regard to this study, the conditions that Creswell presented as they relate to the disturbance
of the natural setting can be seen as both drawback and benefit. Given that each interview
inherently contained the participant’s attestation to the processes toward their personal
development of racial awareness and given the fact that these types of transformative
experiences are often emblazoned in the mind and spirit, the “natural setting” becomes somewhat
subjective. This subjectivity of place begs the question of whether the disturbance of the natural
setting still occurs even when the setting becomes the being of the self-seeking person. Part of
this establishment of rapport required me, as the researcher, to consistently check for any
influence that my personal biases might have on the interpretation of data (Creswell, 2014). With
the above limitation in mind, it was important to establish a comfortable working relationship
with the participants, and establish from the beginning of the recruitment process, the immense
value of their participation. The situations and events as shared by participants were
contextualized for the value that they held to the participant at that given moment, and the value
that the participant shared through the process of retrospectively visiting those often
uncomfortable places.

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The data collection for the interviews included semi-structured, open-ended questions that
allowed the participants a wide berth for responding to the interview questions (Creswell, 2014)
in ways that went past superficial dialogue and self-questioning and attempted to allow the
participant to exhaustively explore their interaction with, and growth related to the understanding
of anti-Black racism. As suggested by Creswell, prior to collecting audio data from the face-to-
face interviews, I developed a protocol that was followed in both participant interviews (p.194).
An interview script (see Appendix A) was created that provided for a structured way to ask each
question. This was important so that I could ensure that each participant would most likely
understand the question using the same set of comprehension criteria. The intent was to be sure
that even though their responses would most likely take them in divergent directions, there
would be less likelihood that they would misunderstand the information or knowledge they were
being asked to consider. The interview script also included space for researcher’s notes and
observations to be recorded as each question was being asked and responded to
(Moustakas,1990). The interview protocol (see Appendix B) included space for hand-written
researcher notes, which were recorded as the interviews proceeded. All documents associated
with the interviews, such as consent forms, interview script, transcribed audio, as well as hard
copies of hand-coded interviews (see Appendix C)created during the open-coding process
(Appendix D), were contained in a secure file which was maintained in a secure location.
Observation
When doing observations, where to begin looking is often determined by the research
questions (Merriam & Tisdale, 2016). As such, the video observation conducted for this study
was key to adding insight into critical aspects of the research questions. Using observations
along with interviews was another way to garner greater insight into the same research questions,

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only from differing perspectives (Maxwell, 2013). The process of collecting data through
observation included analysis of the participants conducting a joint webinar on navigating
developing personal racial insights. In this instance my researcher notes were strictly from the
perspective of an observer, as I was viewing the previously recorded interaction. Collecting data
that went beyond the typical opportunities for observation helped me to look for opportunities to
capture insights that were not so readily evident from the face-to-face interviews (Creswell,
2014). Observation was a useful secondary level of data collection for this study
because it allowed me to have direct scrutiny of the teacher-participants as they practiced in
multicultural educational spaces. Additionally, their initiative toward undertaking this webinar
showed them taking the extended measures of stepping outside their higher educational confines
and seeking ways of helping themselves and other educators increase their racial efficacy. The
observation allowed the collection of data to empower their actions and greatly support the
transformation of their practices. Additionally, this observation allowed me the chance to listen
more thoroughly and document notes, as participants guided their attendees through a discussion
of America’s colonial past and how the colonial concepts of race have fostered anti-Black
racism. Through their workshop, I was able to observe how they, as educators, navigated racial
dialogue with learners, and at the same time, remained aware of how personal biases and beliefs
that potentially show up in their practices. Finally, this video observation provided an
opportunity to explore the ways in which critical theories were either present or absent from the
learning processes included within the workshop. Conducting observation in this study provided
a powerful and direct way of understanding the discussions, behaviors, and contexts for the
actions of educators dealing with the various iterations of racism and anti-Black views in
multicultural education (Maxwell, 2013).

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Creswell (2014) recommended paying attention to several limitations in the use of
observation that I had to consider when establishing the initial protocols for observations. One
large concern was that during the process of observations, personal information might emerge
that could not be reported. Using the video workshop reduced the challenge about data emerging
that would not be appropriate or applicable to the study due to the fact that the workshop being
conducted was specifically directed toward the topic of research, and the participants had
established their moderator’s talking points prior to conducting the workshop. The use of this
recorded video, which has been made public by the moderators, presented a need for the
researcher to take extra precautions when referring to the video observation so that the identities
of the participants remained protected. To violate this privacy of participants would also mean
a vi ol a t i on of the confidentiality agreement for this study. Additionally, when conducting
observations, it was important that I made very specific attempts to avoid intruding on the space
of participants as they shared their experiences so that their thoughts and recollections could
resurface naturally, without excessive researcher probing that could skew the accuracy of the
interpretation of data.
Artifacts
An additional type of data collected were artifacts from the teacher education course that
each of the participants teach. These documents included the list of texts used in their
curriculum, course syllabi (see Appendix E, Appendix F, Appendix G and Appendix H), and
supplemental resources or texts that were specifically selected by the participants for use in their
unique facilitation of the course section that they teach. Artifacts were collected and analyzed
based on a document analysis protocol designed by the researcher to help ensure that the
examination of the documents consistently focused on extracting knowledge that shed light on

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participants’ degree of flexibility to incorporate racial dialogue within the courses they teach.
The artifacts, when possible, were matched with related codes or themes within the study.
Data Analysis
In his book entitled, Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology and Applications, Clark
Moustakas outlined a set of procedures for use in the analysis of heuristic data. Moustakas’s
eight step process was followed in this study of the awareness of anti-Black racism in teacher
education. Although the analysis procedures applied here share similarities with those used in
many qualitative studies, the analysis of heuristically collected data differs in that it must remain
true to one of the few imperatives of heuristic investigation. This heuristic study adheres to the
intention of meaning making about the phenomenon of anti-Black racism and the ways that
educators use their awareness of that phenomenon in their teacher education practices.
Additionally, the heuristics of this study holds me, as the researcher, to the second level of
meaning making, which comes through the commitment to self-exploration of my own
experiences as a co-participant. As is evidenced through this discussion, my position as the
researcher for this heuristic study positions me in the dual role of observer and participant, and
thus, as a means of ensuring against researcher bias, articulating my process for meaning making
becomes a critical element to the study. As the naturally occurring nature of heuristic inquiry
allows for flexibility, I chose to use Moustakas ’procedures as a gauge for the general flow of the
gathering and analysis processes, rather than as a stringent, step-by-step set of methods.
The following describes how the heuristic analysis procedures were applied. The first
step was organizing, handling, and synthesizing the data that was gathered. This procedure
involved taking specific steps toward making sense of the massive amount of data that had been
collected in the form of the two participants audio and video transcripts, researcher personal

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journal notes (See Appendix I, Appendix J), study related researcher notes, creative works and
other artifacts and resources. The large amount of data, much of which I chose to maintain in
paper format, as well as digital format, increased to the point where it threatened to overtake the
space that I had designated for my work. This process of organization proved crucial to this
study due to the often fast pace at which the public data related to anti-Black racism emerged,
and continuously begged for me to continue documenting more and more. The process allowed
me to define when and where to put on the brakes or carry on with regard to data collection. The
second step, what Moustakas called “timeless immersion,” began as quite a natural flow from the
act of organizing the physical data. During this second stage I immersed myself in the task of
seeking as much knowledge from the data as possible. This process was fairly time consuming,
taking nearly three weeks to do an initial reading and establishing loose categories for what
became a continual and recurring process of re-examining the data and repositioning my
understanding of its placement in the greater structure of the data. The amount of time spent
closely examining each document, journal note, creative rant, and academic prose proved
extremely beneficial, as it allowed me to gain greater clarity on the quality and content of my
data. It also allowed me to internalize the knowledge in constructive ways that expanded my
ability to connect with and categorize the participants’ experiences. The degree of data
documentation and my level of interaction with each aspect of the data became important for me
to understand. Why had this particular piece of data been gathered? Why did a specific event or
interaction trigger the response, thought or insight which had been documented in my notes? As I
worked to somehow stratify the data, it became extremely clear how quickly the data was
mounting and how necessary it was to maintain data management protocol. The third step in the
heuristic analysis process was setting aside the data for a period of time, and then returning to it

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after an interval of rest (Moustakas, 1990). The period of rest in this study, which coincided with
my continuance of required coursework within a teacher education program, allowed me to
review the data with a freshness upon returning to the study. One of the heuristic elements that
presented during this point of the study was an unexpected, first-hand experience with
unawareness of anti-Black racism in education. This experience became critical for consideration
in the study. The process of rest allowed me to move away from the data temporarily, with the
clear understanding that it was also serving the purpose of moving me forward, toward a return
to data. This provided me the chance to gain significant researcher experiences that had great
influence on the interpretation of the data and can also be seen to varying degrees in the
researcher commentary related to the participant conversation.
The fourth step of the procedures that Moustakas outlined calls for the return to the
original data to ascertain whether or not the experiences described by participants were relevant
to the study. The process used to accomplish this aspect of the analysis process included a
retracing of all of the data. Although I had already done a review of the data during the
organization and handling stage of process one, I could recognize the difference in my intentions
for reviewing the data again. Moustakas's suggestions at this stage coincide with the more
traditional aspects of data validation, which occurs through the “member check” stage. This
procedural step, which I had completed earlier in the data analysis process, was necessary so that
I could clarify any misunderstandings or fill in any gaps in the information I had gathered from
participants. Since I had allowed myself a full semester away from the data I had collected while
I completed my coursework, I now took the opportunity at this stage to once again engage in a
somewhat immersive interaction with the data by re-reading transcripts, reviewing coded data
through a different lens by grouping coded data according to emerging themes and avenues of

66

connectivity. Quite a bit of time had passed while I was away from my work, during which time
I had maintained only minimal interaction with the data, although I continued to live with the
topic on a daily basis. The topic of the awareness of anti-Black racism came up at all times. With
family, friends, colleagues, with strangers in the grocery store. It never left my mind. During this
time, additional themes started to emerge as I went about my day-to-day routine, and although
not actively working with the data, I began to see how they also connected with the themes that I
had noted. Having the freedom of being detached in some ways from my data allowed me to see
how these ancillary themes and codes that continued to emerge supported my understanding of
the individual coded components and strengthened my original process of creating an individual
depiction of each of my participants experiences (Moustakas, 1990). It became easier for me to
see how to more directly identify and situate their experiences into the appropriate contexts that
were stratified according to the thematic data. Step five requires the researcher to conduct the
same process as identified in step four for each of the participants. Step six requires the
researcher to take the individual depictions of the study participants and gather them into a group
representation of experiences. This step again required me to spend a great amount of time
immersed in the data, and I conducted an intensely close review of the individual depictions of
each participant. Moustakas (1990) suggested that this step of the procedure is intended to allow
the researcher to see the ways the narratives, descriptive accounts of experiences, and the
conversations that participants had around those topics demonstrate the “flow, spirit, and life”
that is inherent in the participants ’experiences with the topic. The group composite that emerged
of the two participants included depictions that presented the phenomenon of their experiences
with anti-Black racism and their personal awareness of it through clear, vivid, accurate and
lively details. I used this step to look for the ways in which the experiences shared common

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elements or extreme differences in their methods or approaches to developing racial efficacy.
During this time, I revisited previously coded data and extracted insights that helped me to
explain how the participants very different starting points and ending points along the racial
journeys converged and created joint opportunities for learning. The seventh procedural step
returned my attention to the raw material gathered from each participant’s described experiences.
Autobiographical information and artifacts that the participants shared, as well as the individual
stories and specific recollections, experiences, and emotions that were collected during the
interviews and observations were once again deeply scrutinized. This was done to ensure that my
researcher focus provided room for the investigated the phenomenon and the personal qualities,
characteristics, perspectives, and insights of the participants to emerge in a unified manner
(Moustakas, 1990). At this point of the analysis process, I began to look at the data from a
perspective that put me in even more intimate relationship it. It became more important for me to
explore the research software, Atlas.ti for its more powerful uses for analyzing data. All the
while, I continued to look at the meanings of the codes and attempted to interpret the greater
reach of them within the study. I ultimately had to spend approximately16 additional hours
looking at tutorials and creating a few test samples as practice before manipulating the live data
from the study. I was able to use the software to explore more closely the relationships that exist
between and across the data (See Figure 1).
Step eight in the heuristic analysis process matches traditional qualitative studies because
it required me to again drill down through the various layers of coded data to make in-depth
meaning and state the findings. One of the most important aspects that I came to understand at
this point in the procedures was the need to recognize the great subjectivity of viewpoints on
anti-Black racism. This step of the heuristic analysis procedures allowed for great freedom

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characterizing and understanding the phenomenon (Moustakas, 1990). The process that I used to
synthesize the data stemmed from the creative connections that I had made with the emergent
themes and relied largely on the methods of handling and presenting heuristic data that
Moustakas outlined. All of the insights and knowledge that I gained over the nearly three year-
long exploration of the topic of anti-Black racism came to bear on the ways in which the data
was analyzed and interpreted.
Miles, Huberman, and Saldana (2014) have cautioned that the positionality of the
researcher as either an insider or outsider has great influence on those involved in a study — an
influence that has significant bearing on their ability to remain open to the facts of the data. In
conducting this critical research, an initial focus on reflexivity remained key to understanding the
influence that my position as both insider and outsider had on my participants and my own
perception of the data (Merriam and Tisdale, 2016).
My positionality as a Black woman and educator were crucial factors that needed to be
considered in this study. Involvements in organizations and activities that relate to education,
politics, religion, and social connections which collectively make up my existence as a Black-
woman, educator, teacher-learner, are central elements of my plural self. It was also crucial to
acknowledge the parts of me still shaped by the thoughts, fears, strengths and ponderances I
experienced as a Black child of the 1960s, who came of age during a time when the Civil Rights
Movement was starting to make progress in demanding that America recognize Black civil rights
in this country. It was a time that snatched the lives of so many: President John F. Kennedy; his
younger brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; Civil Rights Leader and Nobel Peace
Prize recipient Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X, Human and Civil Rights Activist and
supporter of Black Nationalism; Activist and NAACP Secretary Medgar Evers; Voting Rights

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activists Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney; and Black Panther and
NAACP Youth Leader Fred Hampton. I was a girl whose formative years were shaped by the
stories in the news of Angela Davis and the Black Power Movement, which took different
initiatives toward Black liberation than America had ever known. The organized murder of
countless Black revolutionaries by agents of the state sent a clear message about the position of
Black people in America. It was a world filled with messages of deficient Blackness. But in spite
of the many displays of anti-Black sentiment that existed before me, those messages were not
strong enough or loud enough to drown out Brother James Brown who, during the late 1960’s,
could be heard screaming from the radio speakers, empowering young Black girls like me.
Giving me the authority to love my skin and to “Say it loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud”! And
messages like those coming from songbird Deniece Williams, proclaiming me, and everyone in
the Black community to be the Black Butterflies who carry the strong messages of collective
value and capability in spite of the great humanitarian struggles we have historically endured.
These messages, which reinforced those in my home, boosted my certainty of how powerful I,
and our Black people, really were and could also one day be in our society. But make no
mistake, this was a time when white Americans saw it their duty to make young Black girls and
boys aware, at very early ages, of their disdain for dark skin.
The aforementioned are crucial factors that had to be considered in this study. I engaged
in a practice of self-reflection, in which I examined the various ways that I could see the research
analysis and interpretation being affected by the relationships and commonalities that existed in
my personal, professional, academic and research worlds. As those understandings coexisted,
and at times, collided and combatted for priority of attention. I noted as many of those
experiences as possible in a project journal. These notes were referred periodically as the data

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collection and analysis process continued. As a researcher-participant in the study, notes that I
had made, and insights I gained from societal occurrences, were also considered in the process of
interpreting responses and analyzing their significance and relevance to the study.
Adhering to the guidelines of heuristic research outlined by Moustakas (1990), I again
turned to the refined data to begin the process of drilling further into the data. I began to explore
ways that I could see the already stratified data becoming complex in ways I had not anticipated.
It is important to consider what Miller and Fredericks (2003) have said about the ontological
nature of data. They have asserted that when attempting to extract findings, researchers should
consider first and foremost that “data become evidence; they are not (alone) evidence,” and thus
become an epistemological concern (p. 40). They further suggested possible ways to look at the
process of data becoming evidence. Their suggestions included exploring the process of
abduction, positing that “where given a (certain) major premise, a weaker, minor, probable
premise is conjoined producing a probable conclusion” (p. 40). I began to see a thread
connecting the premises that I was discovering. This perspective offered a way for me to begin
considering my data as evidence. In viewing the data through the lens of how to operationalize
the transformation of data into evidence, I began to see the heuristic connection once again.
I utilized a set of complex procedures that involved continually moving back and forth
between the examination of concrete data and abstract data. The process required me to maintain
a willingness to continually and consistently go between inductive reasoning and deductive
reasoning, as well as between description and interpretation (Merriam and Tisdale, 2016). The
meanings formed as a result of the numerous attempts to make sense of data ultimately
comprised what became the findings of this study. These findings are discussed in detail in the
next chapter.

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The most important priority when reviewing and interpreting the data was paying close attention
to the process for identifying the segments, or units, of data that best answered the research
questions (Merriam and Tisdale, 2016) guiding this study of anti-Blackness awareness. The units
in the study were representative of single or groups of words, various terminology, and phrases,
and other written or observed phenomena that had the potential to add significant meaning to the
collected data. Merriam and Tisdale have suggested that a unit should reveal information
considered relevant to the study, and further assert that a unit should be information that is small
enough to stand by itself. This function was achieved in the form of the Word/Phrase Co-
Occurrence table which will be discussed in detail later in this study.
During this first interaction with the data, I listened to the audio tapes with an
understanding that I was listening to the interviews as both a researcher and a study participant.
It was crucial for me to establish a practice of checking for the ways my biases as a researcher
showed up in the study and how my personal experiences with race and racism, in both social
and professional spaces, might assert themselves into my interpretations of the data. I began my
deep interaction with the data by listening to the tape for clarity and understanding of the
conversation. It was important for me to establish quickly any areas of the recorded interview
that would require more explication from the participants, so that I could gather that information
during follow-up interviews. During the member check, any questions regarding terminology
used by participants or additional information needed to help me to fully understand and relate
the participant experiences, were asked, and clarified. Prior to the study, I had identified a set of
code labels as a pre-established list of anticipated ways racism might emerge in the data. As I
listened to the tapes, I listened for words or phrases related to racism that could be considered
units of data, and thus, potential codes for use within the study. I allowed myself the freedom to

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react naturally to the questions. During this step of the process, I conducted a general analysis of
the statements that stood out for me. I identified the various units of data contained within
statements made by participants and made meaning from these units as a way to develop an
individual description of the participant’s experiences (Moustakas, 1994). I made note of any
aspects of the conversation that were unclear, ambiguous, or areas that I felt I could have
solicited further insights from the participant. I made a list of questions for follow-up with
participants, as well as any questions related to the phenomenon of anti-Blackness that stemmed
from the participant’s descriptions of their experiences or understanding of race. The anticipated
codes were established based on my personal understandings of racial dialogue, and highly
considered the potential elements of racial discourse that might occur within teacher education
spaces. Once any questions or clarifications regarding what was audible on the tape had been
obtained, I moved forward with the transcription phase of data collection. Transcribing of audio
files was done using NVivo data analysis software. Transcripts were logged and named
according to an identification code that I established for each participant in order to protect their
identity. At this point, a pseudonym was assigned to each participant. The transcription process
proved to be an arduous undertaking, which took more than one week per interview to transcribe
the nearly four hours of audio files. Yet, to maintain the confidentiality of the data, I chose to
perform the transcriptions myself. Because of my personal preference for interacting with text in
printed format, I printed out copies of the full transcripts and began the first level of open coding
through this manner. This process allowed me to get closer, and more intimate, with the text —
to hear the voices and, as I annotated, begin a direct dialogue with the data itself. The printed text
was read line by line and assigned codes using the pre-designated anticipated codes, as well as
by identifying new open codes.

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Data analysis in a qualitative study typically proceeds simultaneously with the
development and gathering of other data, and includes the writing of reactions to the data, or
insights gained while interacting with the data (Creswell, 2014). This remained true in this study.
For example, as I was beginning the open coding of participant GPS-ING interview transcript, I
also conducted the face-to-face interview with participant TPS-DTL. Additionally, once the
participants had signed the consent form for the study, they were given password access to
complete an online survey which was accessible through RedCap application. Artifacts such as
course materials and syllabi from the class the participants teach were also collected. The memos
and notes that I took during these various intervals were useful in my process for creating the
narrative of my findings.
I chose to complete open coding with a hand-written process which included creating
specific categories under which the data would be housed and stratified the codes further by
grouping them based on the research questions, as well as the survey and interview questions that
had been created prior to beginning the study. Some of the codes that the initial reading and open
coding process began with included empowerment of teachers, educator’s role, knowledge of
anti-Blackness, ontological considerations, anti-Blackness awareness, commitment to cultural
awareness, racial perspectives/beliefs, and challenges or obstacles. Applying these codes as I
read through the interview transcripts, I was able to make my first researcher connections to the
text through the comments and questions that I had noted.
I chose to use both hand-written and computer data analysis software as the primary
methods to maintain an organized and structured way to interact with the texts, audio-visual data,
and artifacts collected in connection with the study. The main question that drove my
interpretation of the data was “What did I learn about how teacher-educators confront the topic

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of anti-Black racism in educational spaces?” The ability to see the qualitative data through the
theoretical lenses of critical race theory, Black critical theory, and post-colonial theory helped
me to see the data as a call for action (Creswell, 2014).
The nature of heuristic inquiry insisted on me taking time away from the data to allow for
the natural emergence of insight into the problem being studied. As such, I made the conscious
decision to focus on gaining deeper personal understanding of my positionality as a Black
educator who was also a graduate student in a teacher education program. During this time, I
continued to explore my past experiences with anti-Black racism. I went about my continued
Ed.D. coursework and my daily activities and tried to allow the insights to emerge in their own
ways. One critical insight became evident at this time that changed the way I looked at evidence
associated with this study. It became evident that everything I did or thought in relation with this
study was highly important. Every document, note, scribbled idea, article, list, or thought about
daily existence as a Black woman educator — absolutely everything in my existence — was
quite likely to be data or documentation that would support the process and/or findings of the
study. The thought and weight of it all, at times, became extremely heavy. There was simply too
much information, too many emotions, too many centuries of hatred toward my Black skin, and
that of all of my ancestors, that needed to be somehow untangled and sorted out. I spent the next
semester of study examining my own experiences with education primarily through the lens of a
racially aware African American teacher-learner. Although most of these experiences occurred in
specific environments or settings, they have been examined for the deep impact or experience
that stood out as notable within those academic spaces. The pointing out of my own perception
and experiences within the situations being discussed may feel as indictments, but they are not.
They are simply the unfolding of events that have become the personal schema that I must

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examine in order to remain truthful and transparent to the study. This is a process that is very
concerned with the ability to place at the forefront, experiences that play out in classrooms across
the country, but go unnoticed and unaddressed in most instances. This process is very much
concerned with making educators aware that racism in education happens as a result of the
silence that most educators, especially African American educators, have learned is more
preferred than our voices when speaking out against the racial harms that we and our Black
children experience in educational spaces.
Because there was such a large quantity of data from the interviews, it was not possible to
utilize all of the data from the transcripts, and through an emergent coding process, the data was
broken down into several themes. Because this research study was a heuristic inquiry into a very
nuanced phenomenon, it was important to place the greater emphasis from the data on the actual
statements of the participants (Creswell, 2014) and to be able to generate meaning and create
individual and group depictions of the related experiences (Moustakas, 1994). This process
included the steps associated with open coding, then selecting a category for the data, followed
by positioning the data into a theoretical model for axial coding. After identifying themes that the
coded data comprised, I began a more complex analysis that helped me to determine how the
themes connected to the experiences and narratives shared by the participants. As suggested by
Creswell (2014), each individual case was analyzed against the themes and then the themes were
compared to identify any of the themes that carried across the two cases. From the beginning of
the data collection process and continuing throughout the data analysis process, my position as a
researcher-participant demanded that I adopted the practice of continually comparing the cases to
my personal experiences as both a graduate student in a teacher education program and a teacher
who has conducted teacher development courses outside of the higher education setting.

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Completing this process of reflection helped me to better situate my personal experiences within
the themes that continued to emerge through the study and provided a frame of reference as I
tried to understand the how the participant stories moved the knowledge back and forth between
teacher level work, to needing a way to understand reactions related to racism that may come
from a more personal perspective. The themes that emerged for the study were (1) Doing the
Hard Work of Becoming Racially Aware, (2) The Existential Quandary of Anti-Black Racism,
(3) The Intersectionality of Racial Knowledges, and (4) Situating Anti-Black Racism Awareness
in Teacher Education.
Theories Applied in the Interpretation of Data
Creswell (2014) identified 4 ways that qualitative researchers use theory in their studies,
and this understanding helps to connect the interpretation of the data for this study. Critical race
theory (CRT), Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), Race Identity Theory (RID), Bodies Out of
Place Theory (BOP) and Post-Colonial Theory (PCT) were used to orient the study in the
complex lens of race and racism. Racial Identity Theory and Bodies Out of Place Theories
emerged as useful critical analysis tools during the data interpretation phase of the study. These
theories guided my examination of things that I considered important to a study that sought to
understand what motivates educators, both Black and white, to take the risks of welcoming
discomfort in order to speak the truths that acknowledge anti-Black racism. Each of the theories,
when applied in a qualitative orientation, became the end point of what was an inductive process
that moved from a look at broad patterns within experiences to a more generalized theory. As
such, the data collected was examined for the themes that began to form broad patterns, themes
or generalizations that connected specifically with the tenets of each of the critical theories.
Those themes and patterns were considered in connection to the existing literature on the

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practices of teacher-educators who work toward developing greater racial efficacy both
personally and professionally. Heuristic inquiries that include phenomenological studies do not
contain any specific orientation, but instead, build on the essence of experience (Moustakas,
1990), as the researcher constructs meaning through the use of rich, detailed description. This
study deviated from the sense of ‘freedom from theory” that heuristics allows, and instead
favored the attempt to situate the phenomenon of racial awareness among teacher-educators
within theoretical frameworks. Additionally, this study posits the potential of expanded critical
theory that specifically addresses anti-Blackness.
Validity
The methods of validation that I used for this qualitative study were triangulation,
member checks, researcher bias checks and, most importantly, spending time in the field, living
and experiencing the phenomenon of anti-Blackness, in a dual “fly on the wall” type of
observation. In keeping with the heuristic nature, this somewhat omniscient view of the learning
environment within teacher education programs developed as a natural outgrowth of the research
experience and stepping through the individual processes associated with data collection and data
analysis.
In order to reduce the risk of the data collected reflecting the biases that can emerge from
the use of only one method (Maxwell, 2013), a variety of data collection instruments were
applied in this study. Individual interviews, one survey instrument, video observation of practice,
and artifacts, including course syllabi and other textual resources, provided a variety of means
for gaining the greatest saturation of data to examine in the study. Interviews were completed
face-to-face, with follow-up interviews and member checking completed via telephone. Audio-
video technology was used as a means to access the joint participant lead webinar. Audio, as a

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standalone method, was used to aid in the documentation of the interviews, along with researcher
developed notes. As the first level of triangulation, the choice to collect data through interviews
was based on the need to allow participants an open-ended, yet semi-structured way to express
the experiences that have shaped their unique positions (Merriam and Tisdale, 2016) as racially
aware educators in teacher education programs. The second level of triangulation came in the
form of a joint webinar conducted by the participants in which the process of developing racial
awareness was the primary focus, with an additional benefit of hearing real-time questions from
actual learners (through the use of chat feature). The third level of triangulation, course artifacts
and other teaching resources, provided additional insight into the curricular efforts at including
discourse around the lasting imprints of colonial racialization that seeks to exclude the Black
narrative.
The qualitative research process is iterative, reflexive, and dialogic, and therefore, required
constant reflection and examination of the knowledge coming from the data. Agee, (2009) has
suggested that it is to be expected that the initial research questions will be revised at some point
in the writing of the study. In learning to listen to and honor the voices and messages contained
in the narratives of the participants, it became imperative to give the same amount of respect to
my voice as the interpreter of this data. While the specific wording of the research questions was
refined, the intent of the data collection and methodology were not changed in any way that
impacted or changed the meaning or purpose for soliciting the information from the participants.
As such, the research questions that guided my research were refined as follows:

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Table 1

Research Question Refinement

Refined Research Questions
RQ #1 How do teacher-educators cultivate
knowledge of anti-Black racism in order to
safeguard against its proliferation in
educational spaces?
RQ #2 How do teacher-educators demonstrate and
maintain the commitment to fighting anti-
Black racism within education, given the
pervasiveness of colonial views of Blackness
within American society?
RQ #3 How do teacher-educators operationalize the
transformational learning that associated with
developing greater awareness of anti-Black
racism?
RQ #4 *In revisiting the research questions, it
became evident that the insights provided
from the data collected in connection with
this question did not further the knowledge of
how educators make attempts to interact with
anti-Black racism. Therefore, the data
connected with this question has not been
considered in the interpretation of the data.

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Chapter Four: Discussion
Early in the data collection process, it became evident that I had embarked on an
intensive search that would lead me to a better understanding of how educators — who are
responsible for teaching current and future teachers — successfully navigate the very sensitive
and complicated experiences of race within their practice. I had anticipated walking away from
this study with specific teaching strategies, as I had been taught to see them and their purpose,
that would help teacher-educators be more efficient in safeguarding against anti-Black racial
biases. I had expected that the participating educators, each having taught for close to two
decades, would share teaching experiences that had provided them with practical tools for
dealing with the anti-Black sentiments that often exist in subtle and unrecognized ways within
education. What I came away with instead, was an immensely personal story of two educators
committed to working untiringly to dismantle racism wherever they may encounter it, and an
intimate look at how these educators integrate their life experiences as racialized people into
their pedagogical practices in ways that sustain their work as anti-racist educators. Between the
two separate yet interwoven narratives, emerged an exploration into the personal and
professional journeys that teachers take in the process of becoming anti-racist educators. This
case narrative provides a detailed story of how each participant recognizes the intersection of the
personal and the private facets of life that influence who they are as educators.
The Case Study
Heuristic research requires researchers to become comfortable with paying attention to
themselves. In fact, when considering the basic truths of the form, heuristic research can only
work when a person applies the principles of metacognitive practice and begins to think about
how they think. Metacognitive thinking necessarily leads to examining the meta-data that is

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associated with the information that is gathered. While I was exploring the experiences of the
participants, I began to also see that this study had launched me on a personal journey of racial
self-discovery, and that the copious amount of research notes and personal commentary that I
had taken over the nearly three-years it took to complete the study, and the many hours of data
interpretation and analysis, had become extremely important to shaping my understanding of the
ways in which teacher-educators interact with their knowledge of anti-Black racism. These notes
and commentary will be used in this discussion as a means for enhancing the transparency of the
racial discovery journey. Each participant narrative will be framed around the individual research
questions, of which there are three. The narrative will be followed by a brief exploration of how
the themes emerged from the data and show up in that discussion. Next, the theoretical
discussion will explore six critical theories that, when applied to the theorization of anti-
Blackness, the everyday racial discoveries we make about ourselves, and our pedagogical
practices, strengthen teacher-educators’ ability to navigate back roads of educationally situated
anti-Blackness.
Uncovering A Heuristic Beginning: Journal Note 08-17-18
Early in my pursuit of higher education, I once had a white professor chastise my
critique of America’s false identity of being an inclusive melting pot where all who live
within her borders remain optimistic about their futures. Intent on selling her narrative of
the American dream, this professor, in all her righteous indignation, looked at me eye to
eye and asked what turned out to be one simple, yet very loaded question. “Have you
ever traveled outside of the USA, and seen what real poverty and oppression looks like in
third world countries?” My answer was then, and unfortunately remains, “aside from
couple of vacations to Jamaica many years ago, no.” To which she most curtly, and self-

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assuredly suggested that I should travel to other countries, and then, certainly, upon
seeing true oppression, and how so many other people live, I would appreciate the life
that I have here in America. At that time, I was an undergrad student still trying to get my
bearings in this new world of higher education, and I hadn’t yet found my voice to rebut
this “esteemed professor,” and so I did nothing, except internalized her rebuke. I had
been properly chastened and repositioned back into my ‘proper place ’in the societal
pecking order, which she through white privilege, and I through living-as-Black
conditioning, recognized. I accepted that perhaps it was simply my myopic worldview
that caused me to misread my very own existence. I chastised myself for not having taken
greater advantage of the opportunities for more extensive travel, which had at one time
been a bit more possible for me. These many years later, as I immerse myself in the
attempt to better understand my life as a Black woman and educator here in America, I
realize that it was not my myopic perspective that narrowed the lens through which I saw
the world, but hers. It was her limited view and insight into the complexities of Black
existence that prevented her from recognizing the conflict within my cultural pluralities,
those ‘small things ’which significantly informed my perspective, and, when coupled up
with many different things that have informed travel for me, made her feel justified in
making such statements.
Afforded the benefits of life experience and education, I can recognize that privilege
ensconced this professor’s accusations that I, as an ungrateful Black woman, chose to simply
complain about a situation which she felt I possessed insufficient knowledge to critique. Her
privilege disregarded the many layers of structured hegemonic, racist, and trans-migration
oppressional systems that combined to make opportunities to simply “go and see the world” a

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non-option for many Black Americans. Her privilege could not let her see that I did not need to
leave the United States to recognize that woven and ingrained into the fabric of this Nation, and
Nations world-wide, is a serious and strange affinity toward and relationship with anti-
Blackness. This professor did not know that my experiences as a Black woman, living in
America had opened my eyes to the racial ways of this country long before my presence in her
class. She did not know that I could see the way the perfectly oiled machines of American
systems of hegemony and privilege worked together to keep my Blackness, and that of any
whose complexion came anywhere near mine, under subjugation, and had worked to instill a
very healthy distrust for white people no matter what country they resided. It is this type of
knowledge that often is invisible to, or disregarded by, many non-Black educators, as the
narratives from each of the participants show. White educators often see relatively commonplace
things, such as international travel, through the prism of their own experiences that include the
freedom to move through the world without regard to, or concern for, their skin color. They do
not have to rely on any of the racial internal safety mechanisms that might cause a Black person
to first wonder if a destination has a Black population, and then feel compelled to query (at least
to some degree) whether the area has historically been amenable to people of their hue. This is
but one example out of the numerous internal dialogues that help to shape one’s understanding of
how deeply felt and ingrained the understanding of anti-Black racism is to most Black
Americans.
The data from this study suggest that one can only learn to contemplate knowledge of
anti-Black racism once they have interrogated who they are individually and professionally and
have taken the time to reflect upon and re-direct how they walk in this world as a racially aware

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person. Transformative growth demands that we remain open to seeing the world realistically,
and then have the courage to change as needed.
Participants
The participants in this study are colleagues in a teacher education program in California.
Each teaches one section of the same course, which uses the same syllabus, assignments, and
resources. The demographic of the learners in the University where they teach is largely
Hispanic, at 58%, with a representation of Asian/ Pacific Islander students at 15%, White
students at 12%, 8% who identify as other or multi-racial, and a Black student population of 7%
(NCES.gov). In their shared roles as educators in the program, they teach a course that has the
stated goal of engaging learners in learning about historical and institutional issues of inequity.
Both participants were very forthcoming in their sharing of insights into their journey toward
becoming racially aware educators. According to the participants, most of the graduate students
they teach, approximately 70%, are already classroom teachers who are either attaining a higher
degree or completing their teaching credentials.
These participants were selected largely because they have had the experiences of
teaching in both the K-12 and University settings. Through this interaction, have developed a
professional respect for one another and the experiences and insights that they bring to their
working relationship. Additionally, they have cultivated a personal friendship that allows them
the space to continue examining who they are as racial beings, without the need for censuring
their messages. Through their narratives it is clear that each participant has spent significant
amounts of time defining and refining their racial selves.
Additionally, the participants have used their voices in numerous ways, as outspoken
anti-racist educators. Together, they hosted a webinar that engaged participants in a discussion

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around the topic of white racial guilt. It is important to note that neither participant considers
themselves an expert on the subject of racism, and they place great emphasis on starting any anti-
racist work from a perspective that causes one to “self-identify” in some way. In the observation
data used for this study, the participants began by identifying and acknowledging that the very
land on which they sat, here in California, is indeed stolen land. Land that had its own history,
prior to the mass dislocation of millions of indigenous people.
Yvonne (participants have been assigned pseudonyms) is a 46-year-old self-identified
Black woman who teaches in both K-12 and teacher educational settings. She holds a B.S. in
Biology, Master’s Degree in Education, and a PhD in Teacher Education in Science. She has
been an educator for twenty years, and for the past three years has also been actively teaching
undergraduate and graduate students who are pursuing degrees in education. Yvonne has
mentored novice teachers, while working in teacher education at a Northern California
university. Additionally, she has created curriculum for use in a teacher education program and is
currently working on creating a course for another university. Yvonne said she “got politicized”
while still in high school and says that her journey to practicing as a racially aware educator has
become her “personal revolution” against racism.
I first met Yvonne in her classroom at the elementary school where she teaches. She
talked openly about her experiences with race, and presented a level of honesty, frankness and
courage of voice that is rarely openly expressed and exhibited among Black teachers within
educational spaces. Yvonne’s willingness to expose raw emotions, thoughts and experiences that
are often left unsaid, provided a crucial perspective that is missing from the discourse and
dialogue within most teacher education programs.

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Because there are so many differences between this Black educator’s journey to racial
awareness and that of her white counterparts, it is imperative to explore how this participant
invites the intersection of existential, political, and educational knowledges to become joined
into one individual attempt at authentic racial dialogue. The thoughts that Yvonne shared are
those which rarely are allowed to become a freely developing dialogue in educational spaces. In
many ways, Yvonne willingly offered her own road map for navigating what often remain the
constricted internal dialogues of Black educators.
Linda, 46, self-identifies as European American, and has been an educator for twenty
years in both K-12 and university settings. She has a B.A.in Psychology, Master of Arts in
Counseling Psychology, and a PhD in Psychology. She has also served as Chair of the Education
Department at the University, where her responsibilities required close work related to
implementation of State standards within the teacher education program. At the time of her
participation, she had transitioned back to a strictly faculty role. Linda spoke openly about how
she became involved with educational work that focuses on racial equity and social justice at the
teacher education level. She credited her journey toward racial awareness to the people who
mentored her and challenged her to take her racial growth seriously.
She freely shared the ups and downs she experienced as she went about building her
knowledge of anti-Black racism. Her responses in connection to building knowledge of anti-
Black racism are insightful in the fact that, just as the Black voice is often silenced, so too, is the
voice of white activists for racial awareness. With a focus on the same set of questions that were
posed to Yvonne, the other case study participant, Linda was also asked to provide her insights
based on her experiences as a white educator, whose relationship with race came about in ways
that reflect the situations and settings of her life.

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Linda has over twenty years of experience working in education and doing racial identity
and anti-racist work, and she is very clear in the impact she chooses to make on the profession.
She and I sat and talked in her office at the University where she is on the faculty of the Teacher
Education Program. The narrative that Linda shared provides an unexpectedly candid exploration
into the efforts of a white educator to better understand herself and the ways in which the social
constructs of race, and its progeny, racism, white-privilege, and hegemony, have played defining
roles in the person she had learned to be. Linda also shared how she did the hard work of re-
learning her racial identity in order to step toward the person she was ultimately destined to
become. Linda’s discussion openly examined her experiences as a white, anti-racist educator,
with an authentic depth of understanding and honest discourse about race that is seldom even
attempted by white educators.
The insights that this teacher-educator into the largely unexplored racial identity
experiences of white educators provides invaluable knowledge for the furtherance of racial
awareness development within teacher education programs. With the majority of today’s
educators being of white, hers is a story that brings to the forefront questions that would go
unasked, and answers that would not be obtained, but for the courage of educators such as Linda
to undertake such an intensive pilgrimage toward self-understanding, and to do so out loud, and
on display for the world. Linda shared an in-depth and explicit account of her transformative
journey toward becoming a racially aware individual, who uses her teaching practice in a way
that specifically intends to disrupt racism.
Case Narratives
The initial set of questions are framed, for discussion purposes, with the intention of
finding out how the participants feel that their past experiences, whether personal or

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professional, have influenced their development of a deeper understanding of racism and how it
intersects with societal and national views of Blackness that often find their way into educational
spaces.
Because of the complicated, personal, and nuanced nature of any authentic discussion of
race, the purposeful decision was made to veer away from the more expected format of
qualitative case study presentation of data, so as to provide the least interruption to the naturally
unfolding participant stories and offer a tighter focus on the thematic connections that arose. The
narratives of both participants offer tremendous insights into the deep soul-searching that
initiated, motivated, and sustained their transformed views and experiences with race. They
discuss in great detail and with great candor, their pathways toward reconstructing their
relationships with race, and lay bare some of the resistances they have overcome. Their stories
expose the sometimes dark, and hard to walk through changes that those on this racial journey
might very well see taking place in themselves and their vision of the world around them.
To provide full insight of the data, it was important for me to establish the most complete
vision of the participants as educator as possible. With that in mind, I began each interview with
questions that allowed them to share their own early pathways into becoming more racially
aware, while also sharing some of their personal racial perspectives. The intention of this
questioning was to help me to better understand how they each came to the point in their
teaching practice where they could fully recognize their efforts toward creating greater
awareness of anti-Blackness within education. To that end, the questions listed on the table
below represent some of the questions that were posed to each of the participants and directly
frame their individual responses.

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Table 2:
Sampling of Interview and Survey Questions Related to RQ1
Research Question (RQ) 1:
How do educators in teacher education programs cultivate knowledge of anti-Black racism in
order to safeguard against its manifestation and proliferation in educational spaces?
Sampling of Questions Related to RQ 1
How did you become involved with educational work that focuses on racial equity and
social justice at the teacher education level?
How would you describe the processes or shifts in your perspectives and beliefs as your
awareness of the need to address the phenomenon of race and racism personally and
professionally increased?
What was the most difficult part of coming to terms with your changing, or expanding racial
understanding as an educator?
Probing/Follow-Up Questions
How would you describe the racial climate of today?
How do you respond to those who say it is not appropriate to equate colonial ideologies
of race with the disrespect we see of Black people today?
How does your knowledge of systemic inequities influence your pedagogical choices?

Case Narratives: Research Question One.
Yvonne. In response to the first research question of how educators cultivate knowledge
of anti-Black racism in ways that strengthen their pedagogical practice, Yvonne began by sharing
some of her early reconciliations with her Blackness and some of her internal thoughts and
dialogues about race. She credited her early educational experiences with putting her on the path
toward teaching with racial awareness. Yvonne’s teenaged experiences of dealing with what she
described as self-hatred and coming to terms with the racial positioning of Black people in the
world indicate an existential challenge that many young Black people must confront. Race

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impacts and influences the self-perception of Black youth much differently than non-Black
youth. This type of racial knowledge is imperative for all educators to have. Teachers who
recognize the psychic harm that historical racism has caused in the lives of Black people are
better positioned to help students develop a broader cultural understanding of the world. Yvonne
reflected on how the attention and concern shown by her high school teacher helped to not only
shape her racial identity, but also helped to shape the educator she became. She credited a
positive and racially supportive educational environment with motivating her to become an
educator who practices with racial awareness and spoke of this transformation as an integral part
of her identity as an educational practitioner and human being. Yvonne took me through the
period which she considered herself to have been “self-hating”:
I was 16, recently turned 16, and a teacher recommended I read a book called The Bluest
Eye by the phenomenal Toni Morrison, and I can say that it was a powerful read that
disrupted many of the unhealthy and toxic ways I had been socialized around race and
color. I identified so deeply with Pecola’s story. And so, after that, I read The
Autobiography of Malcolm X, and They Came Before Columbus. So, by the time I was
17, I was very revolutionary-minded. I was a very politicized high schooler. I had
teachers who would have me write journals. So, teachers and school gave me the
opportunity to actually do the reflection. I don’t know that I would have gotten there on
my own. And that’s why I hold schools in such high regard…The self-reflection, the self-
critique, the thinking about, analyzing the world around me, the questioning the systems
and structures, it didn’t come from my family. It didn’t come from my friends. It came
from school.

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Yvonne points to the following personal, and evolving insights for her deep connection with
Morrison’s story:
I was a girl who grew up wishing that I had straighter hair. I was perming my hair as
young as 8 years old to have straighter hair that I could sort of toss over my shoulder. I
was a girl who was self-hating, who wanted blue eyes and blond hair, who wanted to be
white, I guess you could say, because white represented having money, having two
parents, and this wonderful, beautiful life — ‘cause that’s how it looked on T.V. That’s
how it looked. White folks seemed to be happy, and all the Black folks I knew were
suffering and struggling so. And, also this idea, you know, that blond hair and blue eyes,
and thin nose was beautiful. That dark skin was ugly, nappy hair and all these things that
I was taught. I’ll never forget the first time I discovered these things called colored
contact lenses, and there was a full-page ad with literally an array from different shades
of blues and greens and even lilac color. And I remember cutting out the pictures of these
ads and saying that one day I was going to save enough money so that I could buy those
colored contacts.
As a K-12 educator, Yvonne recognized that early interactions with race shape one’s
perspectives in very profound ways. Yvonne’s high school experience left a positive imprint on
her and are actually what she says led her to seek higher education at an Historically Black
College or University (HBCU) and ultimately find her pathway to teacher education:
I started teaching with the intention of it being my active revolution, my contribution to
liberation, because I got politicized as a teenager, so education was, I thought, the way to
go and, like, start to transform the world. And so, that was how I went into the classroom
— because of that, and there were other teachers who were also activist-minded, and we

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would find each other. Then, there was a group of us who were taking [sic] part in a
teacher inquiry group in the 90’s, through UCLA. They brought us together and they had
a reader for us, and it was all about like things that I had never heard of, but they were
sort of the theoretical piece behind what all of us were trying to do in our cases, but we
didn’t have the names for it, right? So, that’s when I really started thinking about – so,
it’s great that I’m working in the class, but… the seed was planted: Imagine how many
people, how many students, you could impact, if you can impact teachers. So, at the time,
I was an elementary teacher and I’m like, I got 35 kids a year, and multiply that by
however many teachers, and think about the impact. It really got me thinking beyond
just my classroom and my students and thinking about how I could engage with other
teachers. So basically, the conversation was, “How can you get people to do what you try
to do?”
Yvonne talked candidly about what it was like for her during the early years as a self-described
teacher-activist coming to terms with what it means, as a Black educator, to do racial and social
justice work. I specifically inquired about how her perspectives and beliefs shifted as her
awareness of the need to address race and racism more directly in education grew. Yvonne
explained:
I got into it because I wanted to dismantle white supremacy. Like, that was my whole,
really, point of being a teacher. What’s happened is just, as I’ve learned more, I think my
analysis has become more sophisticated. I’m more aware of nuance. I’m less either-or and
more both-and. I realize that compassion is really, really critical in this work to try to
disrupt anti-Blackness.
Yvonne’s thoughts shifted toward a more introspective discourse as she continued:

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I think there’s a level of spiritual transcendence that has really caused the biggest shift in my
perspective. So, I went from very anti, anti, anti, to more, what I’m for, and what I want to see.
So, there’s less of what I don’t want to see. And at some point, in my spiritual path, I learned that
where your focus goes is where your energy goes. So, even though I wanted to see justice, I was
still putting energy into being these things. Like, anti-homelessness, anti-hunger, anti-colorist,
anti-racism, so I was still putting energy into racism and into colorism, and so at some point, I
started to shift to what do I want to see? And I want to see racial justice. I want to see, you know,
equal respect of all kinds of identities, and putting my energy there, was probably the biggest
shift, because it allowed me to be more compassionate, I think. It allowed me to move from
tolerance to acceptance, because I think that we need to be pushing more for acceptance and less
for intolerance. I’ve never liked that word any way.
I wanted to gather more insights into the greater challenges that Yvonne encountered as
she moved through the transformative stages of developing a greater understanding of the
intersectionality of race and racism within education. I asked Yvonne to tell me what she
considered to be the most difficult part of coming to terms with her changing or expanding
understanding of race as an educator. Yvonne took a long pause before responding:
I think the most difficult part is wondering if I’m going too easy. If I’m going too easy on
the oppressor. I know like there are things that I do and say that people are probably like
“Oh, she’s a coon, because she’s talking all this forgiveness, and this touchy-feely
compassion,” so that’s a difficult part. It’s wanting folks to know how ‘down ’I am, but
my ‘down ’is a little different. My ‘down ’is still one, at the end of the day, of, “We gotta
have these conversations, and if people think that they aren’t going to be able to redeem
themselves, no matter what, then they aren’t gonna want to talk to you.” You always

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want to give the enemy an out, as graciously as possible. And so, I think that’s the biggest
challenge. Negotiating being that way in a world where folks are, you know, they want
you to be more hardcore, more ‘bout it’, you know what I mean? So, I always joke and
say, I’m too Black for most white folks, but not Black enough for a lot of the
revolutionary Black folks. I’m like somewhere in the middle, and that is the biggest
challenge, I think, for me. It’s walking those lines of not wanting to feel like I have
assimilated, but sometimes I wonder, “Oh, am I assimilating?” You know what I mean?
So that’s the challenge for me.
Yvonne’s candor about the question of assimilation demonstrates the negative existential
experiences that often accompany any suspected instances of assimilation. She spoke of trying to
find the pathway to expanding her own understanding and way of practicing education in a way
that honored who she knew herself to be, as well as the anti-racist educator within. Yvonne
described looking at the current racial climate from a perspective heavily reliant on her past
experiences and her knowledge of American history. Being cognizant of her continually growing
self-awareness and expanding racial ideology, Yvonne provided a perspective of the racial
climate of today’s society that is unapologetic in its characterization and raw understandings of
the phenomenon.
I think that on the surface, we all intellectually believe that race is not a real thing. I think
intellectually most people say, you know, we’re all the same…our blood is the same, it’s
just skin. But I think that folks underestimate the deliberate centuries-old campaign to
promote and socialize folks to believe that there is this hierarchy based on race, hair
texture, skin color, all of these things that we consider I guess, a part of race.

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Yvonne explained her views about the ways tropes of race, hair texture, and skin color persists in
influencing racial perspectives. In doing so, she expressed a rare view of internal dialogue that
most often remains little more than the constricted thoughts of Black educators:
I believe that it [racism] is literally a part of our DNA, to be honest. I just — and I tell
folks this all the time, like, I just assume you’re a racist until you prove to me that you’re
not. And so again, I don’t feel stressed out, or particularly bothered when someone makes
an overtly racist comment, or by the micro-aggressions. Because my expectation is,
unless you show me that you’re not a racist, and you’ve done the work to be “anti-racist,”
as opposed to “non-racist,” then my assumption is that you’re gonna say and do dumb
shit all the time. And so, it takes away the element of surprise — like, I’m not caught off
guard by any of the things that I see and hear going on in society, because it’s my
expectation that that’s what it is.
The sentiments that Yvonne presented speak to the innumerable examples of Black
thought and emotion that are typically not allowed to become a fully developed conversation in
the racial dialogues of teacher education. Although she initially offered a very direct indictment
of non-Black racial behaviors, it later became apparent through her conversation that she also
remained hopeful. Continuing on with her consideration of the current racial climate and the
impact of societal contexts of race, Yvonne offered the following:
I think that what’s also happening is the deep-rooted, centuries-old regime is bubbling out
to the surface, and I feel that there are people who…in their gut, really do believe that
white people are superior, and the closer you are to Black…. Black folks are the most
inferior. I believe that there are these people just as much as I know that that’s a lie. I
believe that there are people who would say that I’m a lie. Like, people who really believe,

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and nothing we could say will ever convince them that Black people are human or
equal…they are coming out, revealing themselves. I like that they are emboldened. I like
that because I like to know what’s going on. I prefer to see what I’m working with. You
know what I mean? I like the racists that, you know, versus the racist…well, for me, I
know they’re all racist, but for the masses, I think it’s better to know the racists, rather
than the racists that you don’t know.
We shared a brief, relaxed laughter at the common understanding of the power that comes from
that particular type of knowing. With our conversation taking place in mid-January of 2018, just
a few months after the inauguration of America’s 45
th
President, a man who won his party’s
nomination despite the very public, world-wide disclosure of his vulgar admissions of sexually
harassing and assaulting women. And he won despite, or because of his expert machination of
American racism. The levity of the above shared moment, as is often the case when Black
educators are able to share those rare, stolen moments of Black unity, was also heavily weighted
by the truths about anti-Black racial hatred that lay just beneath the surface. Yvonne continued
with her very revealing perspective on the contemporary situation of race within society and
education:
So that’s what I like, I feel that everybody’s being more real than they’ve ever been.
What I don’t like though, is that the majority of people, I think are somewhere in the
middle. Between “we’re all equal” and “no, Black people are not equal,” and so my
concern is that the current climate is one where the people in the middle are going into
the dark side of the force. Meaning, the side that thinks, yeah, Black people are not as
good, are not as smart, not as whatever. And I think in part, it’s because you’ve got too

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many folks who are not willing to engage with those people in the middle in a healthy
way.
Even though many of Yvonne’s statements may appear to be very harsh criticisms of American
racism, the notion of compassion came through clearly:
There’s this climate where, even a white person who means well and has good intentions,
if they slip up, even a little bit, there are folks who are just shutting them down. People
who are just like, ‘you ain’t an ally; white people, your little white tears…you’ll never
understand’. And again, I’m talking about white people who really do want to understand
how they can be anti-racist. They want to understand how they can promote justice. And
I don’t like this conversation around ‘it’s not my job as a Black or brown person to
educate white people’. Like, that whole mentality of ‘y’all better figure it out and I hope
you make the right decision ’kind of thing. I feel that there are these sides that have been
chosen, and even people who mean well, by virtue of the fact that they are white, it’s
almost like they are being pushed to the side of the Neo-Nazi’s and the more sort of
overt, like, die-hard, you know, ‘Black people are not human ’crew, when they really
would love to be on this side, but they’re not being accepted or embraced. It’s hard to
explain, but yeah, that’s what I think the current sort of climate is. And I see it in the
schools, too.
Yvonne cautioned against being non-receptive to the efforts of white ally educators who are
brave enough to take part in racial dialogues.
A lot of white teachers who really mean well are afraid to speak up or say anything
because they don’t want to be shut down. They don’t want to be publicly shamed and
publicly humiliated because they might use the wrong word, or they may not be aware of

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all of the nuances and micro-aggressions, and they’re trying, and so, they are just shutting
down because they are being shut down. And so, I think that’s really problematic. Right?
We’re not creating spaces where everybody can be heard. There’s a time for white allies
to be quiet, but there’s also a time for white allies to speak and not be shut down. Because
if not, we’re going to lose all those potential allies. Then, there are people who say,
“Well, then if they would go to that side then they are not allies,” which again, I don’t
know how to describe it, but its…I haven’t figured out the term to describe that sort of
cultural thing that’s happening, but I see it every day, every day, and it really troubles me.
And I don’t know if that made any sense. I can’t quite explain it.
Yvonne espoused a compassionate understanding of just how much self-awareness and genuine
desire for racial awareness it takes to begin to disarm some of the blockades to racial dialogue.
Her recognition, although not specifically articulated, speaks to the need for Black people not
beaten down by the day-to-day struggle of living while Black to show compassion for
themselves. It is also true that without conscious efforts to make positive change, we will
continue to normalize conditions that cause hurt.
Linda. Our interview began with getting to know a little about how she became involved
with educational work that focuses on racial equity and social justice at the teacher education
level.
I came into teacher education already with this as my passion. I actually think it’s why
they hired me. How I got into this was because I was a teacher who got challenged about
how I showed up to the school, and quite thankfully. And not just of my own, there was a
good opportunity to take it seriously. I had some really wonderful people take me under
their wing and really press me, even when I was showing all of my resistances, and

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confusions and what not. And so, I learned about how deeply race impacts teachers and
teaching — the teaching profession when I was a teacher. I then left teaching to go work
on a doctorate and during the doctorate, I focused further into identity processes around
race, and it was finishing that work and having much deeper understanding of where I fit
within it, and whatnot… but it was when the dissertation was finished that I applied to be
in higher education. So, by then, all of my language was around this topic, so in that
sense, um, I brought it to education, as opposed to teacher education bringing it to me.
Linda demonstrated a clear understanding of the stages of change that she underwent while
taking on this very personal journey. I asked Linda to describe the processes or shifts in
perspectives and beliefs that she experienced as her awareness of the need to address anti-Black
racism in the field of education shifted. She responded:
Um, yeah. So, that’s like a 10-year history there. Not related to teacher education
necessarily, but just my personal process. I think the first phase was me just wanting to
do a good job with my students and being told that I was messing up. Starting to
understand that there was some way of how I carried myself, assumptions I was making,
statements I would make, relationship approaches that were undermining my students of
color. And specifically, there were Black teachers telling me that. They didn’t say,
“You’re undermining Black students” specifically, so I didn’t have a sense of it being a
Black/white issue, I understood it as a white versus students of color issue, because the
school I was at it was heavily Latino, and I think the same issues kind of applied in their
own way. But that was just the first step, was just, I want to be a better teacher. Second
step was, ‘huh, that means I have to be a better person in relationship to this’. And that’s
where I actually took a step away from the classroom and went into the dissertation

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phase. And um, really went to explore, 'what is this racial identity development thing’.
Who knows about it, cause no one in my world at that time was talking about it, this was
the late nineties, and this conversation on whiteness and allyship was not regular; they
did not have white ally groups at that time. They did not exist.
Linda described her early experiences with learning about white allyship as eye-opening and
leaving her with many more questions as the evolution of her racial identity took shape.
[T]he people I was hanging out with were almost exclusively Black and brown folks from
Watts and Inglewood. So, I’m going to a woman in Watts at the Community Institute,
like, “Have you heard of this thing called the white allies?” She’s like, “Uh-huh,” and I’m
like, “What does that mean?” She’s like, “It’s an anti-racist activist.” I was like, “Oh.
OK.” Well, number one, “activist” was not part of my identity process at that time. I
mean, I was really not a political person. I identified as a spiritual person, and an
educator, but the whole idea of getting involved with politics was nowhere on my radar.
So that scared me, but then I went to my friends and my family, my white folks — “Have
you ever heard of this ‘white ally?’” Nobody knew what a white ally was. I mean it was
just not language that was at all in the vocabulary banks.
I probed her to speak a bit further about the conversations she had with white friends and family.
I was curious about whether she had approached them with any preconceived ideas of what she
might hear from them. What were some of their responses, and did they surprise her?
They just…it was just an absolute blank wall of not knowing. There was nothing. There
was no sense of having to ever consider white identity, much less, allyship, much less,
our responsibility to do anything. It was just, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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Oh yeah. That’s still true for many white families who haven’t been exposed to people
doing any sort of social justice, bringing in that language.
Continuing to expound on the transformative process she experienced, Linda spoke easily about
how she turned what could have been a harsh criticism into purposeful action toward
understanding herself, with the new dimension of educator-activist as part of her self-identity.
So…from a stage perspective, I think that stage was really about that self-exploration.
I’m supposed to take this seriously. I’m not where I need to be yet, but I really want to be
doing better, you know? But in a larger way, a really important thing happened when I
was getting ready to conduct the dissertation process…I got an email from someone,
cause I’d been doing community work that was trying to do, like, multi-cultural events
for women, which was great. But here we were, a bunch of ‘do-gooder ’white women
trying to connect with and do multiracial stuff and we didn’t know enough about our
racial identity work. So now, I look back at it and think, oh man, these were really
generous folks working with us. But one of the women who’d been part of that outreach
emailed me and said, there’s this meeting, here’s this flyer for this meeting, and you
might be interested. And it was a flyer for white anti-racists, come together and let’s talk
about, you know, x,y, and z…Well, that sounds like a meeting I’m supposed to be at. So,
I went to it and it ended up being…the first meeting of what has now been a 14-year
history organization called AWARE L.A. So, AWARE, L.A. stands for Alliance of
White Anti-Racists Everywhere, Los Angeles, and um, there were six of us in the room,
then there were eight of us, then there were ten of us, and then it just started growing
from there, and developed a name, developed different work groups, and that’s its own

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14 history. But I’ve been a part of it ever since, and that has really been a cauldron of
growth.
It was evident that Linda had undergone an extensive process of self-examination and reflection
as she searched for greater understanding of who she is as a white person and educator. I asked
her what she felt was the most difficult part of coming to terms with her changing or expanding
racial understanding:
It was really the beginning part. It was hearing that my good intentions and the work I
had put into trying to be a decent, equitable person wasn’t enough. And to some people’s
opinions, it didn’t even count. That was hard to hear, ‘cause I didn’t believe it. I mean, I
thought that your intentions count, that it mattered. I was very clear about that then. I
actually know people who are doing horrible things, I’m not that bad! There’s something
still very valid about that. But it took a lot, and it was very hard to hear the point
underneath that point.
Linda shared some of the greatest insights that she gained from becoming involved with anti-
racist organizations and embracing the fullness of doing anti-racist work:
For me, the biggest takeaways there…was we started really naming, this is why white
people need to get together to do this work. For each other, because we have this healing
work that we need to do, from how racism is dehumanizing everybody. It differently
impacts people of color, clearly, with the abject violence, but white people get put in their
place, too. And so, this is where we could disentangle the muck and the yuck, and really
work through the unconscious biases, and the stuff that was coming up that we were
confused about, in a space that wasn’t injuring the people next to us, who had to listen to
us ‘process ’it. I mean, we could have our feelings. We could explain where we were

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hurting, or upset, or angry, without feeling like we’re taking up space from someone else.
So that was huge.
An important consideration that emerged from Linda’s narrative was the need for white people to
demonstrate self-compassion while going through the process of deepening the understanding of
their racialized existences, while simultaneously coming to terms with the historical, yet
personal, implications of guilt that are inherently attached to their whiteness:
A big insight that came during that time period was really learning that, if I couldn’t
figure out how to love myself and have a healthy and positive identity around me being a
white person in the world, like, another way to be a white person in the world, I was
never going to be able to effectively reach out to other white people, ‘cause it would
always be with a measure of disdain for myself and the person I have been, as an
unconscious person around race. Then, all I’m gonna do is project that onto anybody else
who’s still in that position. Yeah, it was really powerful, deep, deep understanding that
even in the very early 2000’s when it was still not popular to have white affinity groups,
this group really kind of came out in various national points, and said, “No, we have to do
this. We understand that there are groups that think it’s unaccountable. We understand
that meeting by ourselves, just white people in the room,” has typically not gone well for
people of color. Yeah, I’ll let you laugh that one out for a while.
Linda’s frankness and bold honesty in acknowledging the accountability and trust issues that go
along with this discourse, elicited an initial moment of spontaneous laughter between Linda and
me that faded into an almost somber reality. The weight of the outcomes of past clandestine
meetings that convened only white people profoundly settled onto both of our minds. My own
thoughts are immediately accompanied by a myriad of equally troubling realities. The reality of

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the historical weights that work to keep the social, political, and economic scales unbalanced; the
ontological and existential extraction of Blackness from the realms of humanity; the white fear of
losing absolute power to continue racist, oppressive, and hate-filled practices in its dealings with
Black people; the 400 years of white men and women, of late, attempting to form their perfect
union within these United States at the expense, and on the backs of Black people. It took a few
moments for the full range of thoughts and emotions to make their ways through my
consciousness.
After a few more moments of reflective consensus about the historical inequity in the
relationships and dealings between Black and white people, Linda returned the conversation to
sharing the truths about the discussions around race that she gathered as she became more
involved with anti-racist work. Speaking of the need for white allies to have their own space for
dialogue, Linda offered the following:
[I]f we build a model that we have to have a person of color sitting at the back of the
room to evaluate us, and tell us where we’re right or wrong, number one, we’re burning
out people of color. Number two, it’s not their work to be done. And number three,
there’s way too many of us white people who need to do this work. So, while it’s
wonderful to have those close accountability partners, we need to be able to do, ‘two
steps forward, one step back. We have to be able to make those mistakes with ourselves,
and know we’re not going to be perfect at it but keep striving anyway. So that changed
everything for me because it wasn’t so much about ‘I just want to be a good person’, it
was more like, oh, there’s a mission to be done. This is a healing mission that’s way
bigger than me. This is way bigger than just education, this is about a culture-wide shift
that needs to happen.

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Linda’s ease and comfort, as a white woman, educator and activist, sharing what felt like deeply
personal and private conversations with herself, was at first a little surprising. When Linda spoke
of learning to love herself as a white woman, it felt as if she was boldly sharing what it looks and
feels like as one begins tearing down the wall of racial blindness. It is not often that Black
women are invited into this part of their white counterparts ’journey. Without hesitation, Linda
opened conversations about how white people interpreted their positionality to anti-Black racism.
Through her stories it became a little easier for me to agree with my prior assessment of white
society’s racial stance. There is definitely white apathy, but there is also so much more.
As these personal reflections indicate, the initial pathway to racial awareness is difficult
and undefined. There is no specific order or manner in which one must set about gaining this
most elusive and subjective form of insight. These two stories suggest that although the two
educators shared a common goal of being the best educators they could be, they came to that
goal from different starting points and with different backgrounds, carrying different forms of
existential knowledge which presented their own unique sets of challenges. As I noted in my
research journal, the conversation with Linda centered more around issues of “race” while the
conversation with Yvonne centered more around anti-Blackness.
Thematic Discussion
Each thematic discussion explores the data by analyzing anti-Black racism through the
structures of the four themes that arose from the interpretation of data. The themes explored are
(1) Doing the Hard Work of Becoming Anti-Racist, (2) Confronting the Existential Quandary of
Anti-Black Racism, (3) Intersectionality of Racial Knowledges, and (4) Situating Anti-Racism
Awareness Within Teacher Education.

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Table 3

Theme and Rationale Connection

Research
Question
Theme Rationale for Connection
RQ1 • Doing the Hard Work of
Becoming Anti-Racist
• Confronting the
Existential Quandary of
Anti-Black Racism
In learning about the various aspects of racial
development, one experiences many challenges.
RQ2 • Intersectionality of
Racial Knowledges
The development of racial knowledges crosses
many aspects of our human and personal
development.
RQ3 • Situating Anti-Black
Racism Awareness in
Teacher Education
Operationalizing the learning experience of
developing greater efficacy in teaching about
anti-Black racism.

The words of the participants allowed for their very powerful narratives to stand on their
own and deliver these crucial, and most needed messages in a way that lend themselves as tools
allowing for intensive scrutiny using critical theories. In association with this first discussion
related to how teacher-educators develop awareness of anti-Black racism, two themes, Doing the
Hard Work of Becoming Anti-Racist and Confronting the Existential Quandary of Anti-Black
Racism, are closely identified.
Theme one: doing the hard work of becoming anti-racist. Although some educators
take the initiative to develop greater awareness of how anti-Black racism informs their behaviors,
the data indicate that most educators will not. Although some educators are willing to take part in
less pointed discussions of race, the data show they are reluctant to dig deeply into understanding
anti-Black racism. Furthermore, they are often confused about what anti-racist work entails, or
what is required once one has decided to take up this process of racial growth. Little existing
academic literature speaks directly to the shared experiences of Black and white anti-racist

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educators, and even less documentation exists documenting their search for an authentic
understanding of who they are as individuals and educators. The participants in this study openly
discussed the deeply personal reflection and self-interrogation that forced them to question
everything they thought they understood about race and racism as it exists within their own
being. Each participant described their process of transformation into activist-educators as a
natural outgrowth of their desire and search for personal racial development. They spoke of
turning onto avenues where the racial self-knowledge they sought seemed as elusive as a whisper
in the wind. And they spoke of times when their journeys required them to mercilessly stand face
to face with and interrogate their personal and professional biases in order fully access the
educator and person they wanted to be. Linda and Yvonne also shared moments when the vision
of their racialized selves held the power to generate both a sense of comfort and a sense of
unease. Throughout their narratives regarding the challenges associated with understanding
themselves racially, there was a recognition that the journey toward greater racial awareness
requires one to embrace the concepts of self-compassion and healing. Their narratives remind us
that compassion for others and for ourselves is the first step to healing. If we do not care for
ourselves first, we will not have the stamina and endurance to care for others.
The process of self-questioning — during which the educators discovered their
motivation for understanding their racial self-prepared them to traverse the challenging road
toward racial development. During this time, the educators found their motivation for
understanding their racial self became clearer. Their journey toward greater racial efficacy was
highly reliant on the fortitude of each educator’s character and their ability to overcome the
tendency to embrace fragility, which was tested in the most personal of ways.

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The data from this study show that, despite the tendency of many to preface racial
dialogue with statements such as, “Don’t take this personally” or “I don’t mean this to be a
personal thing,”, and no matter how much we attempt to distance ourselves from this way of
thinking, the discourse of race is very personal. It cannot help being so, and that is one of the
most difficult parts of the journey to educator-activist. Because the subject of race is so personal,
the data indicate that for some educators, the journey to educator-activist often feels isolating.
Being confident enough to stand or act alone in your awareness of anti-Black racism is an
important aspect of the character fortification of an anti-racist educator. Finally, although there is
no required process or pathway to racial awareness, it is clear that one must understand the need
to become anti-racist in order to see the intentionality and intersectionality of anti-Black racism
and understand how it appears and operates within educational spaces.
Theme two: confronting the existential quandary of anti-Black racism. Examining
the similarities and differences in Yvonne and Linda's experiences through the lens of the
Black/white binary makes evident the importance of building accurate knowledge among all
races and ethnicities how structural anti-Blackness shapes our epistemologies. We cannot ignore
the existential nature of race because the construct of race was designed to disparage and
disavow Black humanity. The participant narratives highlighted the importance of being willing
to approach the internal dialogue with themselves in a brutally frank manner to confront
internalized anti-Blackness. Their stories revealed experiences that can be compared those of
very young children having racial revelations for the very first time.
Educators must be willing to challenge themselves on a personal and racial level and
authentically pursue racial understanding by committing to naming the far-reaching, thickly
entangled elements of racism residing within our personal and professional biases and the

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educational spaces to which we bring those biases. White educators, who are the majority, must
accept that white people can never feel the sting of being viewed as existentially inferior. Those
who comprise the “racial buffer zone,” as participant Linda identified the racial groups that
increase the social divides may not be conscious that they experience race, or the concept of it as
a conscious thought throughout the day. Most do not have to ponder how their racial
positionality impacts the experiences that become a reality of their existence. A societal structure
based on what I call privilege by proximity – the ability of non-white minorities to appreciate the
benefits of white privilege based on the closeness of their skin color to white skin, helps to
ensure this.
This study’s discussion of existence also considers the paradigm of anti-Blackness from
the perspective of shame versus guilt. A large part of this existential quandary is the challenge of
distinguishing responses and reactions that come from a place of racial guilt versus those that
come from a place of racial shame. Both participants acknowledged that shame and guilt
certainly visit both Black and white educators as they develop racial self-understanding and
expansion, but it takes its impetus from vastly different places. Yvonne asserted that Black
shame often is often expressed in the form of self-denigrating practices, as a residual of the
shame that lingers in the in the spirit in the wake the centuries of forced bondage and sanctioned
inhumane treatment. Linda spoke to white shame, often experienced as emotions that stem from
knowing that whites are heirs to an inseverable and indelible legacy of historic, existential
domination that continues to oppress Black people and benefit white people. The participants
provided great insight into their experiences of walking through their own feelings of shame.
In their observed capacities as co-facilitators of an online webinar with the specific intent
of addressing white guilt, the participants offered the following profound questions for attendees

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to ponder:“ How big is your ball of guilt?” “Is it so large that it feels like you’re carrying the
weight of the world on your shoulders, or is it small enough to fit in a backpack?” Both Linda
and Yvonne agreed that while large amounts of shame and guilt are not useful, they can have
ultimately positive effects when they compel the feeler to build recognition of the role that white
heritage has played in shaping systems of domination and oppression. Learning how to unpack
racial guilt and shame requires one to also learn the practice of self-compassion and develop the
capacity to demonstrate compassion in ways that challenge us to stretch our ability to embrace
humanity. The participants’ word choices are helpful in illustrating the degree to which each of
these words, feelings, and emotions figure prominently in racial discourse. They indicate a
repetition of themes carried over from their face-to-face interviews that encourage those who
seek to understand their racial feelings to approach this work from a perspective that recognizes
the immense harm anti-Black racism causes.
Table 4
Word/Phrase Co-Occurrence
Word/ Phrase Times Used Participant Usage
Compassion/Compassionate 10
3
Interview/Survey
Joint Workshop
Empathy 3
1
Interview/Survey
Joint Workshop
Healing 8
0
Interview/Survey
Joint Workshop
Shame (shamed, shameful, shaming) 8
19
Interview/Survey
Joint Workshop
Guilt (guilty) 4
14
Interview/Survey
Joint Workshop

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Case Narrative: Research Question Two
In looking at how educators in teacher education programs fight anti-Black racism in
educational settings, I was eager to talk with the participants about how they maintain their
commitment and stamina while doing the deeply personal, emotional, confrontational work of
disrupting systems of racism within teacher education and other classroom environments.
The participants’ responses to the second research question frame the discussion around
the personal commitment required of teacher-educators who are cultivating a pedagogical
practice informed by a greater knowledge of the points of intersectionality between race and anti-
Blackness in contemporary American society. They speak to the largely inadequate discourse
that is often the outcome of efforts within the field of education. Openly, these educators shared
their experiences as educator-activists who have recognized how academic discourse attempts to
interchange the ideologies and principles of multiculturalism and diversity with the very unique
and specific dialogue that is needed around anti-Black racism. Their narratives speak to their
positionalities as educators living through politically and racially charged times, and their roles
as educators asked to censor their analyses of racism, despite the fact that they are integral to
who they are as human beings and are feature narratives in the lives of their students. These
elements figure prominently into the understandings that educators bring with them as they begin
the processes of developing racial awareness and of integrating that knowledge into their
pedagogical practices. The following table is representative of questions posed to participants in
connection to research question number two.

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Table 5
Sampling of Interview and Survey Questions Related to RQ2
How do educators in teacher education programs demonstrate and maintain the
commitment to fighting anti-Black racism within education, given the pervasiveness of
colonial views of Blackness within American society?
How crucial is the discussion of historical practices of racism to the building of greater
understanding of Black human existence?
What makes the work of teacher activism important to the field of education?
How do you see your pedagogical choices as encouraging activities of cultural truth-
seeking and reflective consciousness?
What motivates you to continue your work as a teacher-activist?
Probing/Follow-Up Questions
How would you describe the racial climate of today?
How do you respond to those who say it is not appropriate to equate colonial ideologies
of race with the disrespect we see of Black people today?

Yvonne narrative for research question two. Yvonne was very forthcoming in sharing
what has motivated and sustained her in doing this work of disrupting racism within and outside
spaces of education. Although a large part of our more than two-hour long conversation focused
on understanding the transformative journey that educators must commit to when developing
greater racial efficacy, there was another highly important aspect to the work of anti-racism
educators that I was curious to hear Yvonne’s perspective about. During our talk, our
conversation moved to another highly important aspect to the work of anti-racism educators.
Living while Black, even at its most fundamental level, is always a complicated societal
experience. Living and teaching while Black becomes an experiential balancing act. Living,

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teaching, and openly advocating for social justice and equality for Black people, while Black, is
yet another level of complexity. It was important to the study to understand how Yvonne, as a
Black teacher-activist, found the support to sustain her while doing this racial work. I asked her
about the level of support that she received from her institutions relative to pedagogical
knowledge of racism and the challenges that it brings to the academic discourse. Here is what
she had to say:
Up North, I had absolute support, so total support of the lead instructors, of my
supervisors. I feel that they respected me. I feel like they respected the way that I thought.
Um, they didn’t always know how to support me, but if there was something specifically
that I was able to explain as something that I needed, they would do what they could to
support me in that. Here, currently, um, I don’t feel the support in words like “we support
you; we think it’s a good idea.” I feel like it’s a lot of lip service. I don’t know-I feel like
I have to present things in a certain way…I’m constantly, here, being reminded of how
things might be received by – so, it’s like kind of ‘tone your language down’, ‘think
about how it might be received by others. So yeah, I think that it’s this idea that we all
want, or we say we want this racial justice and equity, but I don’t think we’re having the
conversations about what that looks like, because those would be very difficult
conversations, number one. And I’m not convinced that people are yet, fully willing to do
the internal sort of self-work to make it, make these things happen. And again, it just
makes me reluctant to really be a team player. In fact, for one of the positions now, um, I
expressed how I thought that we had to include conversations around when talking about
racial justice, we need to include conversations around trauma, and I was summarily shut
down. In a very polite way, but I was still shut down, and I felt it. I definitely bristled,

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and so I realized that even folks who have the best intentions, who will say, like, we want
equity and equality, that they’re still, maybe all not ready to have the conversations, the
really uncomfortable, difficult, painful conversations.
The discussion with Yvonne opened several different avenues related to the varying levels of
support that she has received as an anti-racist teacher. She described receiving what she called
“behind the scenes support” in the form of emails after a meeting, or having colleagues and
classmates come up to her after a class to offer words of support and appreciation for her having
spoken up about racial issues in the group setting. She recalled being referred to as “brave.”
I often felt like the “anti” of “anti-anti-racism” if that makes any sense. So that was very
frustrating for me…there were many conversations where I felt like I put myself out on a
limb, hoping that somebody else would come and at least reach their hand, or join me.
Often there was silence. But, then again, in private, that’s when I would get the “I’m
really glad that you said something.” I mean, I got that more times than I can imagine
counting. I would get emails, and that was in every domain, literally. So, I honestly don’t
feel that there was enough public support. And I’m not sure why. And I never asked why,
actually. I would just try to be gracious and accept, but inside, I would be seething, and
frustrated, and wondering “why didn’t you say something in the session?”
I inquired about how that made her feel as a Black educator.
Early on, when it happened…it still happens, so it’s something I’ve gotten used to. But
early on, there was a level of indignation, and it sort of became this badge of courage.
And it created rifts between me and people, and it made me sort of distrustful of people.
It made me feel very brave though, honestly, and strong. But the damage was it did start
to make me feel distant from people and not very trusting of people. A lot of disdain.

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There were moments of where I think I became a bit cocky with it, just because I
assumed, like, “You’re all cowards.” And so, I don’t feel good about that at all, but I
guess that was sort of my coping mechanism, because if I didn’t start to, unfortunately,
create this me vs. them mentality, I would probably not have continued doing it. So, I
kind of took it as another part of this battle. And I started labeling people, like, yeah- you
know, people who say one thing and do another. Kind of “fake-tivists.” I mean, I came up
with all kinds of terms in my head, because that’s what I needed in order to not feel like I
should be quiet. Because that was the original, the initial feeling was embarrassment and
shame because no one’s agreeing with me…and I’m getting these blank looks from
people, and I’m getting it in front of our superiors, our supervisors, sometimes other
colleagues… It did impact how I saw and viewed people who did not speak up…So to
this day, I’m really ambivalent about people because of it. So, I just kind of have a
somewhat of a bunker mentality, and so it does make me less willing to be a team player,
because I don’t trust the team, based on those experiences with so many people just
leaving me out there, just sticking me out there by myself. So yeah, it makes it hard to be
a team player. It makes me not even really think about working with other people to be
honest. It’s like, “What can I do without help?” And, if I need help, then I’m not going to
do it…so it definitely has diffused my desire to collaborate.
I wanted to hear what exactly it was about social justice and anti-racism work that encouraged
her to continue to take up the banner of teacher-activism. My next question focused on what
motivated her to continue in the struggle for equality.
Like I said, it’s my active revolution, and so, I’m very committed. I’m not committed to
just sort of the microwave culture, like I don’t need instant results. I don’t even really

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need or look for instant gratification. I’m well aware that this work will probably not
come to fruition until long, generations after I’m gone, and so, yeah, that’s why. So, I’m
not just committed to immediate results. You know, I’m very much committed to, as I’ve
heard some indigenous folks say, that you know, they’re committed to seven generations
out. That’s kind of my mentality. So yeah, it’s not even nothing I have to force or
compel, it’s more of a -there’s no way that we are going to begin to undo the damage; I
mean, we can , like, chip away at it, but it is going to take…it’s taken us centuries to get
here, so there’s no way for me to think that in my lifetime it’s all going to be upended.
So, what keeps me going is just my commitment to about seven generations, eight
generations out. And so, I don’t feel pressured, I don’t feel the sense of urgency. Urgency
makes sense if you feel you’re running out of time. But, like I say, we’ll all be long gone,
our great-great-grandchildren will be long gone, in my mind, before we even begin to
really see the kind of sustainable change that we want to see. So, I don’t have this sense
of urgency. I mean, I have a sense of commitment and dedication which is why every
day, I live, breathe, eat, and think toward liberation. But it is not with a sense of urgency,
like, now, now, now, because I know it’s not going to happen now. And, so, I’m ok with
that. I’m in no rush in other words.
In this societal climate of rampant anti-Black racism, one of the additional things that I
felt would be important to understand about educators who do the work to become anti-racist
teachers was what makes the work of activist-educators important to the field of education — to
educators and for learners? Yvonne answered:
I think that because in education, I see it’s still the one place, number one, where we have
a captive audience, no pun intended, of course, ‘cause lots of people say schools are like

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prisons, which I understand that. But I think it’s the one place where we have access to
our most precious resource and to our future, which is the children, like the kind of world
that we want to create is going to be based on the way that we teach. Like, I believe that.
Yeah. Teach. Teach, yeah, that’s what I believe. I believe the world becomes what we
teach, as someone said. I didn’t make that up, unfortunately. But the world becomes what
we teach, so yeah. It is the most important, yeah. The most important, as far as I’m
concerned. I mean, schools are microcosms of society, and all the same things we see.
Students look to their teachers to help them learn how to engage with the world in different
ways, especially in this climate when racially charged events in society can spill over into
classrooms and educational spaces at any time. If teachers shy away from the dialogue around
anti-Black racism for lack of preparation, or for whatever reasons, then the student is left trying
to utilize information and unexamined devices when making critical inferences and choices that
shape how they will view the world, racially. As Yvonne stated in her interview, “dialogue is the
key to finding solutions” to racial discord, and educators must be aware of how critical it is that
they develop the capacity to facilitate this type of learning. They must be willing to go the
distance when committing to do the work of an anti-racist educator.
Linda narrative for research question two. Linda’s conceptualization of anti-racism
within education came through a lens that acknowledges the magnitude of work in identifying
and combatting the problem while simultaneously embracing the deeply emotional and personal
nature of it all. Her discussion put a different face to those that society most readily view as most
likely to take on the commitment to anti-racism education. I asked Linda what keeps her
motivated to continue her work as a teacher-activist:

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I don’t tend to show up in the classroom as one who says, ‘here’s the reality, here’s what
you need to know’, and kind of beat people over the head with it. That’s not what I do. I
tend to say, ‘there are some perspectives that you may or may not be aware of. Let’s start
looking at them’. And so, when I’m in the class, I may tell people about my activism, but
I don’t force them to feel that if they are not doing it, that they’re bad teachers. I feel like
that was important to say, because I’ve heard too many people who’ve had these
experiences, and it actually turns them off of the conversation all together. So that’s
where I stake my claim, in terms of why I show up to do this.
In staking out her grounds as an anti-racist activist, Linda offered the following insights
into how her understanding and positionality as a white woman often take a down-played role in
the structures that stratify society. Linda explained it this way:
I think the story I want to tell you about is based on an experience I had with Paul
Kivel…I think he self-identifies as Jewish, White, he’s a long-term activist; works in the
Bay, and he wrote Uprooting Racism…But Uprooting Racism is really targeting what
white people can do against racism. And I went to a workshop of his, it has to be almost
fifteen years ago, now. And he was so clear about, whose shoulders are you standing on?
What do you hope for the future? Who are you working for, you know? You’re working
for the kids of today, and the kids of tomorrow. And then, he said something really
powerful. He set out this entire structure of how the system is operating to reproduce the
inequities that we have, not just social reproduction. But he utilized his book, he also
wrote the book, You Call This A Democracy, and there’s a real deep thread of a kind of
anti-capitalist frame of ‘this is how capitalism has been instituted in our Country in order
to keep X number of individuals, mostly people of color, impoverished and unable to

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achieve that economic rise on a regular basis’. Because capitalism can’t have anything
but the triangle, where the majority is at the bottom, right? So, he did that whole thing,
and then he also did an analysis around, ‘so here’s this top elite, folks, demographics,
clearly what we know. And then here’s this middle-class layer, demographics, slightly
shifted, but still pretty much what we now, so the middle-class is acting as a buffer zone.
And that’s where he went, and this was very new for me at the time, because he very
clearly named all the people that I knew and loved in my world, including my father’s
position-occupation, my mother’s occupation, and my occupation as a teacher, as being
part of that buffer zone that was helping to control and placate the populous into
believing that the upward movement was viable, when in fact, for too many people, it
wasn’t. It was a deep lesson, and then he wrapped it up by basically saying, if you think
you’re gonna change the system within your four walls, as a classroom teacher, please
understand that the State will never pay you to disrupt it. You will have to do activism
outside of that position. And that was huge! He said, “Look, the system isn’t gonna pay
you to disrupt it. It’s not. So, even if you’re teaching and doing good work within it, that
might teach people about it, it’s still not the disruption that’s necessary to change things.”
And I have utilized that frame, that entire scope of logic, and put it up against the
textbook that we use…And so, for all of my years here, I have taken that very impactful
workshop and replicated portions of it so that those who come through my class are asked
those very same questions. And it doesn’t mean you have to be an activist, but you truly
are concerned, and you truly are dismayed by the system as it is. It will take more than
just being a high-quality educator. So, in that sense, that’s where I think that teacher-
activism idea, or plan starts.

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I asked Linda to look retrospectively at how she has, in her own way, taken steps to
confront the inclinations to evade facing her racial perceptions, beliefs, or practices in either her
personal or professional life.
I think through A.W.A.R.E. I think I’ve spent fourteen years going to a place every single
month, that is dedicated to doing that self-awareness work. If anything, I’ve done so
much of that that I haven’t done much of the ‘activist ’work that I feel also called to do.
Because now, I’ve ended up in a position where I’m helping other people do that type of
work. So, it’s kind of become more of a niche for me, that I try to recognize the value of
doing that. Um, more recently, a colleague and I wrote a paper…it’s specific to white
people, but it says, ‘Look, just because you started paying attention, doesn’t actually
mean that you know enough to not do damage’. I think that having done the level of
introspection I have on all of the ways that dominant whiteness has infused itself in my
psyche, and untangling those patterns, has allowed me to show up to the conversation on
race and equity in schools in a way that knows where I need to undermine certain patterns
that are out there, that I wouldn’t otherwise know how to do. And I think it allows me to
have a more forthright and balanced conversation with students of color, whereas, if I
were still locked in a framework of all white people “bad, oppressors” and all people of
color “oppressed” and therefore, really to be the “saviors of our country,” I wouldn’t be
able to be as honest with were all of us actually have work to do.
Linda's deep understanding of the issues of race that have plagued this nation since its
very beginning was evident in her conversation. Her conversation around race naturally
intersected with the greater implications and experiences of race which we all must deal with.
The intersectionality of societal and educational issues is often an uncomfortable space for

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educators to attempt to work within. Highly charged race relations that exist between white and
Black people: white people see the degradation, humiliation, and murder of Black people as the
only way to retain dominant social and economic status; and Black people continue the
centuries-long fight to be recognized as equals in this world and to be free from the threat to
emotional and bodily harm at the whims of a largely racist society. When I asked Linda to talk to
me about how she saw the racial climate today, she said: “Oh, it’s just- we are in such a
reactionary phase right now. It’s… it’s horrifying. Um, we could list them all, but…Do you
know the book White Rage by Carol Anderson?” I acknowledged that I had read only excerpts
from the book, which offers a brutally candid examination of the structures of American society
that work to sustain systemic inequities. Linda explained the insights and expanded perspective
that she received from reading the text:
I thought it really helped me to understand this pendulum swing back and forth, between
progress and then the, huge, white backlash anytime there is Black progress. And I think
that’s exactly what we’re seeing. And I- most people I know, are quite aware of that. In
terms of education, I know a lot of teachers who are really, really suffering and struggling
under how to have conversations with their students. Especially, those who are working
in private schools or suburban schools, where the white students are feeling so free to say
such horrible things. And, given our current Administration’s approach to care, which is a
lack of one, it’s hard to convince kids that you actually need to watch what you say, and
that’s not even getting to the ‘why are you saying what you’re saying? ’You know, I
mean, there’s just – the levels – it’s like, can we even get to a place of decorum and
civility? That even seems to be lost. Even beyond, cutting underneath the actual deep,
deep, deep misunderstandings, and the vitriol, and the hatred, and the blaming and all of

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that. And it’s, it’s – yeah, it’s so wrapped up right now. They are so interconnected and
tied up in terms of the anti-Blackness and then, moving into anti-immigration, and the
antisemitism that’s coming up. Because the other thing that’s happened here locally, is
the White Nationalist, and the Alt-Right folks have really felt very empowered. And so,
I’ve ended up at meetings where they’ve shown up, and we’ve had to like rally people
together to try to create barriers so that they couldn’t get in. and, the fact that we have to
do that, it’s just horrifying. And a lot of the people who are part of this community that
I’m a part of are also educators, they are also teachers. So, I mean, we saw, what is it? —
the week or two after the last election where just hundreds of examples of schools where
the anti-Black racism, antisemitic racism, and anti-immigrant sentiments were just
plastered everywhere. It’s horrifying.
In seeing that Linda applied her knowledge of the inseparable nature of racism and
colonial ideologies within her daily life and her pedagogical practice, I asked her how she
responded to those who say that it is not appropriate to link historical colonial ideologies of race
to the violence and disrespect toward Black people in the present. Linda had this to say:
Oh well, they just don’t know the historical thread that makes it linear. I mean, it really
has- the thread has absolutely been there. And so, how I respond is, I give them Chapter 3
of my book…that explains the development of the white race, both from an economic,
political, and psychological perspective. And, yeah, I do actually assign it now to one of
my classes. So, I mean, multiple answers to the actual question. Number one, I don’t
usually get asked that. Most of the people around me are already on a similar page. So
that’s not a question I get. But I do get a question from other people about ‘how do I
navigate this? ’And so, I mean, at this point, without giving you a three-minute speech on

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how we got from colonial, um 1500’s or 1600’s conceptions of race to here, and how the
same threads go all the way through.
Speaking to Linda’s deep understanding of the challenges associated with implementing
standards that specifically address anti-Blackness, I asked Linda what makes educator-activist
work important to the field of education, for educators and learners.
I’m trying to figure out how to find a statement of how it is important, because I – it’s so
ingrained as just what I do, it’s actually kind of had to nail down a ‘why is it important’.
Ok, I’ll say it this way. Our United States history of education has been woefully
incomplete. We’ve given so much miseducation out to our students. I’m a product of
miseducation, and so, if we’re not, as educators, going back to uncover the errors that we
were taught, we will perpetuate the same problems and that will allow the system to
continue just as it currently is, and inequity will not be able to be addressed because
people will continue to walk through the world thinking that the status quo is just fine,
and reasonable, and makes sense, given the history that we woefully misunderstand. For
example, because we’ve just been talking about this recently, is this whole promotion of
the current Administration’s idea of merit-based, you know, which groups get to come
in... Our students do not understand that our legal immigration system up until the 1950’s
was ridiculously racist, and the only reason we actually addressed it in the 40’s is ‘cause
we started looking like Nazis, and we were embarrassed, and to have the President of the
United States look at that as the model? We don’t know the history enough to be
offended wholesale and recognize what’s happening.

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Linda continued on to share an experience that demonstrated how critiques of anti-Black
racism are dismissed within the educational system as academic jargon, which has the effect of
weakening most efforts by teacher education programs to actively address race and racism.
I will say that it’s only been within maybe the last one to two years that the explicit
term, “anti-Blackness” has even come into my consciousness. I’ve been into anti-
racism for years, but the specificity of anti-Blackness didn’t really arise in the
organizations I’m a part of until more recently. And I would say it’s probably been
because of the Black Lives Matter Movement that I think the distinctions have
been crystalized more specifically.
Linda was reminded of an experience in which she was introduced to the jargonization of social
equity issues in the administrative ranks of education. Linda recalled the following:
When I was applying for this job, coming out the middle school into higher education,
my frame of reference for what social justice education needed to be was particular, and
it was about hitting these topics in a very explicit way. And I remember speaking to the
former chair, who was doing the interviews with me, and she said, “You know, around
here, social justice education means that everybody’s getting a good, quality education.”
It was interesting, because I didn’t know how to take it at that time, and I think I was a bit
skeptical and kind of felt like, ‘well, that’s not explicit enough, and you’re clearly not
doing the work’. And then I started to understand as I got here, ‘Oh, I see what you
mean’. There’s a lot that gets embedded in what we do that is about ensuring that we’re
not dropping our standards, and that we’re insuring that appropriate resources, and
etcetera, etcetera. That is a lot of work, but the program’s never championed itself as
explicitly social justice education, so it’s been fascinating to watch, and then over the

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course of years, be in a position where seeing the teacher performance expectations shift
and change over time and seeing that within them there are some really important
standards that treat these issues. And also having the frame of reference of ‘ok, here are
all of the classes somebody needs to teach. Here’s everything that has to be squashed into
this time’, and here’s the expectations for how quickly it’s going to happen. And 70% of
our candidates are already teaching full time. So, we have to get all of that in there. It’s
like, it’s really caused me to understand the challenge of covering everything, even
though my passion might be very, very, narrowly particular to the equity question. It’s
fascinating.
Because of her close work with administrators within teacher education programs and her
proximity to the types of frank and uncensored statements that yield insights into the mindsets
that influence teacher education programs, I wondered if Linda had ever suggested or introduced
any dialogue with her Administrators or peers about anti-Black racism. And, if she had, what
was the response that she had received? Had any of her colleagues ever spoken up for her when
she approached them with ideas or knowledge that was intended to begin a racial dialogue
among her colleagues?
The degree of participation is variable, but never any pushback. But additionally, our
institution is one where we haven’t had systems to address race, culture, class, like any of
the diversity-oriented issues. Right, we have not had a multicultural center, we have not
had any office that handled any of this stuff from a professional development or student
support aspect at all. In that sense, this Institution has been behind the curve. And so, I’ve
been very vocal for many years about that. Even when it comes to staff or faculty
relations, you know? There’s just, all the way down, there’s stuff that happens that hasn’t

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had a place for an educational response. Keeping in mind that like 60-ish percent is
Latina, another good chunk of Filipina students, and maybe equal to that, white students,
and then a small subset of African American students. Well, the African American
students feel just as marginalized as anything. The white students do too. But, for very
different reasons, in very different ways, that require different responses. But there hasn’t
necessarily been a deep collective understanding about that here, in my opinion.
I haven’t necessarily suggested it to my colleagues because my class is where it would
show up most. Um, my closest colleague…I have not spoken to her directly of it…So, I
mention it in classes with my students, in a couple of points within our work, but I don’t
necessarily bring it in as a conceptual topic that we address at this point. In terms of other
faculty, I think the majority of the faculty have been very supportive, and even glad that
I’m doing the work that I’m doing. Even if it’s not their focus or expertise…For the last x
number of years, could be 6 or 7, could be more, I don’t remember, I’ve held some
voluntary, post-faculty assembly dialogues that are open to all faculty at the University.
Just volunteer-based; come and let’s talk about race, and power and culture, and how it’s
playing out here at this institution. And several of my colleagues have come to those
discussions. Similarly, that many years ago, there was a book club that was developed –
book group study group…based on a book that I wrote about whiteness and
understanding race issues. And six out of my eight colleagues participated in that, and it
was a monthly dialogue for an entire academic year commitment. We read the whole
thing…there were a couple who didn’t participate. One who had been a part of an
interracial marriage and swears she knows everything about it. [laughter] Whether or not
that’s true, is a different issue, but she walks in a multiracial world, and it’s like, I try to

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take that with a grain of salt. I’ve never experienced her, or anybody else saying a
negative word about these issues.
I’ve had many conversations with the President, and the various Provosts over time, and
that’s why it’s actually the Provost's office that would pay for the dinners for the
volunteer dialogues that I have been hosting. So again, all volunteered, not so structured,
but at least six or seven years, up to 5 times a year. Either they’d show up, or they’d tell
me why they weren’t showing up. And so, the usual suspects would come, and there is a
sense of who on this campus cares about these things. Who are the ones who are paying
attention…? But, of the four different Provosts, at least three of them have come at least
once, if not more – sometimes regularly. Not that many administrators. It is privileging
faculty for sure, so staff would sometimes show up when [social] issues were happening.
Linda took a realistic approach to understanding her process toward greater racial
understanding, and this honest perspective carried over to her assessment of higher education’s
desire and efforts to bring greater attention to the anti-Black racism that continues to live, thrive,
and morph like an interbreeding organism in this country. What Linda’s narrative accomplished
was to help explicate, through a white educator’s perspective, how to maintain the stamina and
commitment to anti-racist education despite the dismissive responses anti-Black racism work
receives in educational spaces. Linda recalled attending a workshop that helped strengthen her
ability to incorporate new knowledge into her teaching practice. She noted that this shift was
most notable in the joint webinar the two participants co-facilitated.
Theme three: intersectionality of anti-Black racism knowledges. There are quite a
few areas of knowledge that must be situated within our understandings if we are to make
meaningful and transformational racial change. Anti-Black racism has been a taboo and avoided

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subject in academic settings and society at large. The honest, unrestrained perspectives offered
by the participants which speak to centuries old distrust of white people and to a contemporary
interpretation of white privilege and supremacy that cause a sense of mistrust that lingers in the
corner of the anti-racists mind. The participants described how their personal experiences with,
and intellectual knowledge about systemic racism and historical oppression, have presented
challenges for them as they attempted to merge their new racial perspectives with their previous,
racially unchallenged selves. In order for teacher-educators to fully grow in racial awareness,
they must accept that, although they have been trained in the knowledge of their domains of
study, they have not been trained in task of interrogation of their racial self. Educators who
attempt to expand racial awareness must also be ready to re-examine their knowledge and how
they apply it. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) have stated that “there are radically different
views of what ‘knowing more’ and ‘teaching better’ mean” When beginning the thought process
of understanding what “more” is needed for one’s own personal growth, there are three forms of
knowledge that are important to engage. First, there is knowledge that is Known to Be Known,
which comprises the racial understandings that one is aware of having. Second, there is
knowledge that is Known to Be Unknown, which is made up of those areas of understanding that
one is aware are missing from their knowledge base. Third, there is knowledge that is Unknown
to Be Unknown, which relates to knowledge that one is unaware is missing form their
information base.

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Table 6
Accessing the Three Forms of Racial Knowledge

Accessing the Three Forms of Racial Knowledge
KNOWN TO BE
KNOWN
Definition:
Knowledge that we
are certain we have
been exposed to, in
ways that provide
more than a
superficial or passing
insight into the
situation, problem or
phenomenon.
Thought Position:
Typically, a broad knowledge or familiarity
with certain aspects related to race. You are
aware of the need to have this knowledge,
and you know that you have spent at least
some amount of time giving it consideration.
Example:
We know that colonial racism has deeply
impacted contemporary racial views. The
issues that we are dealing with now related
to anti-Black racism stem from the views of
Blackness that have historically accepted
been as fundamentals for this nation.
KNOWN TO BE
UNKNOWN
Definition:
Knowledge that we
are certain we have
very little to no prior
insights or
experiences with.
Thought Position:
A more specifically identified racial
knowledge or understanding that you
recognize as clearly lacking from your
knowledge base.

Example:
The current curriculum prioritizes diversity
and multicultural education as a means to
divert attention from the lack of a more
meaningful racial discourse, yet they still
fail to teach historical contexts of race that
provide foundational knowledge on the
subject.

Most educators, regardless of their cultural
or ethnic background, recognize that they
have very specific experiences with race,
many of which have resulted in sheltered,
and more often, uninformed understandings
about racism.

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UNKNOWN TO
BE UNKNOWN
Definition:
Lacking the
knowledge that there
are insights that exist,
of which they have
no knowledge related
to context, purpose or
meaning.
Thought Position:
Having been disallowed opportunities to
expand the realm of racial understandings
that you possess, to the point of not having
the ability to recognize the missing
knowledge.

Example:
Having not yet begun to see the racial
aspects of society and everyday life. Things
that one may not be aware that we do not
know about race and racial situations.

Case Narrative: Response to Research Question Three
The final set of questions seeks to gain information about how the complex and nuanced
nature of racial awareness development can be operationalized by teacher education programs.
Table 7
Sampling of Interview and Survey Questions Related to RQ3
Sampling of Interview/Survey Question/Observation
Relative to Research Question-3

How do educators operationalize the transformational learning that
accompanies the journey to anti-Black racism awareness?
How would you describe the inclusion of materials that challenge anti-Black
racism within teacher education?
How does your knowledge of systemic inequities influence your pedagogical
choices?
How do you overcome resistance from learners?
How do you help learners overcome the discomfort of racial dialogue?
Probing/Follow-Up Questions

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How do you respond to those who say it is not appropriate to equate colonial
ideologies of race with the disrespect we see of Black people today?

Yvonne narrative response to research question three. Yvonne clearly spent time
considering the ways in which she could purposefully apply her growing understandings of how
to dismantle racism in educational spaces. Her personal insights on race were enlightening. It
was important to gain insight into how Yvonne utilized the knowledge she has gained from
personal experiences as a way to inform and bring the discourse of anti-Black racism into her
practice. Getting further into our discussion of the current racial climate, I asked Yvonne how
she thought her knowledge of systemic inequalities and injustices influenced her decisions
regarding curriculum resources and materials:
It completely informs it. I think having understanding of how we’ve gotten here, of the
institution of slavery, the institution of white supremacy, sort of the origin of those
understandings…to a fair degree…the political system, the church, basically, how the
church and the state historically colluded to create these systems – systems that have been
sustained, granted they have changed forms a bit, but we can definitely see that these
ideas have been instantiated in society, clearly. So that pretty much informs everything I
do. I think what might make my classes somewhat unique is that I’m probably as
politicized and aware and knowledgeable of the institution of white supremacy and the
different levels of racism from institutional to internalized, that I understand it. Yet,
there’s still this space in me that strives to acknowledge the humanity of not just the
oppressed, but also the oppressor.
What I also understand is that it’s not just about looking at the structures as if these
structures and institutions created themselves. I understand that they were created by

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people, and so I’m more interested often, in what motivates people to create said
structures and institutions. Things like greed, things like fear, things like sense of not
having enough, you know, fear of a Black planet. You know, there’s a real fear that white
folks have, and granted, I think it’s ridiculous, but I also understand how white folks
could have that fear. Especially white folks who have been socialized more into believing
that they are superior to other races.
Yvonne’s perspective as an educator conscious of the need for greater racial efficacy
within education allowed her to bridge her social understanding of race to what she saw daily in
her practice as a teacher. She recognized the ways in which the desire for developing greater
racial efficacy, or engaging in allyship, did not always find an open pathway. Yvonne recounted
her observations and experiences with a form of white self-censoring among potential white
allies in the discourse of race in educational spaces:
A lot of white teachers who really mean well, are afraid to speak up or say anything
because they don’t want to be shut down. They don’t want to be publicly shamed and
publicly humiliated because they might use the wrong word, or they may not be aware of
all of the nuances and micro-aggressions, and they’re trying, and so, they are just shutting
down because they are being shut down. And so, I think that’s really problematic. Right?
We’re not creating spaces where everybody can be heard. There’s a time for white allies
to be quiet, but there’s also a time for white allies to speak and not be shut down. Because
if not, we’re going to lose all those potential allies. Then, there are people who say “well,
then if they would go to that side then they are not allies,” which again, I don’t know
how to describe it, but its- I haven’t figured out the term to describe that sort of cultural

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thing that’s happening, but I see it every day, every day, and it really troubles me. And I
don’t know if that made any sense…I can’t quite explain it.
Black Studies scholar Lewis Gordon described human proclivity toward self-evasion as one of
the core problems facing the study of racism. One of the many ways that we see self-evasion in
academia is in conversations around the existence of a legacy of colonial ideologies of race.
Yvonne offered this insight on those who would claim that it is not appropriate to make such
comparisons:
I think that’s foolish, because that’s part of those difficult conversations that people don’t
want to have, right? And so, let’s say there’s a white person, a white liberal, because
people love these labels, a white liberal who voted for Bernie Sanders, who goes to Back
Lives Matter rallies and are on some ‘end police brutality’, ‘Black people are equal ’
thing, right? I know a lot of them, and I can see them being uncomfortable having to be
able to admit and say, “Yeah, I have white privilege, yeah, I’m the descendent of, you
know, the slave master,” basically. There’s a level of guilt and shame that even the most
mildly conscious or aware white person is going to have, I believe. And again, which is
why I think, and people would probably disagree, but I think in order for us to have
meaningful conversations, I think that a white person should be allowed to ask that
question and receive a thoughtful and critical response, as opposed to the shutdown, and
the shaming. You know what I mean?
And so, I think it basically gets down to respecting other people’s humanity, even people
who are privileged. Even people who are a part of the oppressive class. Somehow the
conversations seem to spiral to ‘us and them’, ‘I’m more human than you’, ‘you’re not
human enough’. And so, I think it’s insane for someone to say, “Why are we talking

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about slavery? That was then, this is now; you’re not slaves.” And it speaks to someone,
who has, in my opinion, very underdeveloped understanding of the history and legacy of
white supremacy and colonialism, because everything we see now is the direct result of a
very successful campaign of white supremacy. I think that the white folks who ask that
question, many of them could reach an understanding if they just met the right person
who will allow them to engage in that conversation. I think it’s a reasonable question to
ask, as a surface question. If you don’t understand the legacy of white supremacy, then I
think it’s reasonable to say, ‘what does slavery have to do with this? ’I mean, if you
believe in the ideas of meritocracy, and we had a Black president, then I totally see why
somebody might have that question. And that’s what we need — is folks, Black folks
who are enlightened and compassionate enough, and patient enough, and who are not yet,
sick, and tired of being sick and tired to say, ‘O.K., I understand why you might ask that
question, but let me explain’. You know what I mean?
After spending, a while getting to understand the personal ways in which teacher-educators
develop a greater sense of racial awareness, further conversation led us to a discussion about the
activity of truth-seeking. I asked Yvonne to consider the characterization of truth-seeking in the
context of Lewis Gordon, who says that truth-seeking is closely related to the power of choice
and reflective consciousness. I asked Yvonne how she saw her pedagogical choices as
encouraging activities of truth-seeking and reflective consciousness. A few pensive moments
later she offered the following insight:
Again, I think it is my mindset, and that’s what I’m really realizing, is the kind of teacher
I am is the kind of person I am. Like, this is how I am at home, this is how I am at the
club, even. Like, this really is who I am, and so, part of it is that there’s a level of

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authenticity that I attempt to present to my students and to my colleagues. So…I think it
was Howard…yeah, Howard Zinn…I went to hear him speak and he said…he wanted to
be the kind of person that basically his students would know, like, there’d be no surprises,
they’d be like ‘this is what Professor Zinn would say, this is what Professor Zinn would
do’. And that’s how I strive to be…What I do with my students in class is not a
curriculum choice, it’s not even a strategy, you know what I mean? It’s just trying to be
consistent across every domain of my person, every domain of my life. Um, and so I
think that comes across to my students…that the know that if they see me out and about,
or if we have one on one conversations, or in class, that I’m pretty much the same, that
I’m always, even in the moment of fun, I’m going to be raising questions and I’m going
to try to raise critical questions. I’m going to try to get you to think beyond the surface,
beneath the surface. I’m going to think, to try to ask you, well what are the implications
of that? So, it’s a lot of questioning that happens probably in moments where people just
want to chill out and be easy. So, I think it’s really a lot of questioning, and a constant
state of reflection of the world and of myself, and I’m very transparent, and I make my
thinking, I make my internal process, I externalize it so that people can see it. I think
that’s what it is. And so, I think that it’s like a dialogic process that’s always going. Yeah.
After hearing thoughts about truth-seeking and authenticity in her pedagogy, I asked
Yvonne how she saw the choices she made with her pedagogy as having an impact on the ability
of her students to use reflexive practices as a way to interrogate their own racial perspectives:
I ask. I really do. There’s one lesson that I do, a conversation that I facilitate about
intentions and intentionality, and I use the example of like the most vile, racist words that
they can think of [to say to someone] and I say, I want you to imagine that person as a

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two-year old. And it’s pretty dramatic, I mean it wasn’t ever meant to be really deep, but
it really gets folks thinking. So, we kind of talk through maybe the experiences that child
may have had, we talk through sort of what that child’s life trajectory might have been to
get them to that point, and so I really attempt to let them know that again, this
humanizing aspect, that’s really what it is- it’s the humanizing aspect…I strive to get
them comfortable asking questions, interrogating themselves. Not to indict themselves,
but just to transform and evolve themselves. And so, it’s rally about the language that I
try to use around the work. Again, I probably use what’s considered soft language, you
know, um, because I want to tap into, I want them to be open and receptive, and so I feel
that if I used, you know, some of the more, what I consider the more violent language,
that I think has its place, but if I used it in a teacher ed program, or with folks who I’m
trying to get to be more self-critical and thoughtful and reflexive, that I don’t want to shut
them down. I don’t want to make them uncomfortable, and so, yeah, I use words like
‘unpacking’, and I always include myself- like, we, we, we, and I talk about my struggle,
and my issues around race, and I really try to model what I want them to do. That’s a big
part of it too. So, I always kind of make myself vulnerable in front of them, and I attempt
to be really empathetic. And then, I try to always get ahead of it and say, ‘I know some of
might feel this, or you might be thinking this.
I probed further, asking about the way that this lesson comes across to her students. I asked her,
how she has overcome the resistance that she has received from learners who have rejected this
type of truth-seeking in their education.
I accept it. Yeah, the people who accept, accept, the ones who reject it, do it quietly, to be
honest. I can’t think of anyone who has overtly or openly rejected it, to be honest. They

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may quietly, but I think that overwhelmingly, they accept it. And I think in part it’s
because I really…it’s not an indictment. I create a critical space, but I also separate the
actions from the actors. So, I think I do a lot to just try to create a safe space where
people feel comfortable deconstructing, not just systems, but also themselves and their
belief systems and their ideologies and things.
After gaining a good amount of insight into how Yvonne facilitated discussions that
allowed her students to take part in a deep, reflective and introspective process, I was interested
in how this practice had been experienced in the classroom. I asked Yvonne the following
question: How do you suggest that other teachers try to help learners overcome or work through
the discomfort that they may feel in these discussions of race?
I think teacher-educators need to go through the process themselves. I think it’s that, um,
that arrogance and, I don’t know what the other word is for someone to try to take people
through a process that they haven’t gone through, personally. And so, it’s this work, I
think that is easier for me, and I love it. And I can do it authentically because I’ve gone
through a process. It gives you insight into how other people… some of the things that
also came up for you as you were going through the process. You know what I mean?
And reading a book is not going through the process. So, yeah, to me, this work is sort of,
there’s a spiritual component to this work, and by spiritual, I don’t mean, God. I don’t
mean religious, but there’s this sense of deep reflection and human kindness and all those
really touchy-feely words that I think are part of this work, if it is to be successful and
sustainable. If the change is to be sustainable.
In trying to understand how a complex topic such as anti-Black racism can become an
important part of teacher education programs, I asked Yvonne what she thought teacher

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education programs can do to bring more attention to the awareness of anti-Black racism in
educational environments. She offered these thoughts:
I think they need to, again, and I know you’re gonna get tired of me saying this- they
need to themselves go through this process of interrogation and honest, difficult, sort of
brave, conversation, and dialogue. But that, I mean, that’s kind of my thin, is like, what
have you done to do the work? What work have you done? You know? What hard
conversations have you had with yourself? What were the revelations you’ve had about
yourself? How do you, how have you internalized racism and oppression? You know?
How- what about- what have you done that perpetuates these systems that you say you’re
fighting against? Because like I say, unless you were raised by Beverly Tatum, maybe, or
someone where from day one, you were taught about white supremacy and institutional
racism, and all these things, and how to deconstruct them, and what they mean, and how
to develop a healthy identity and self-concept. I mean, unless you’ve done all of these
things, chances are that you have some work to do, and you’ve internalized, even
inadvertently, and it’s hard not to, so I think that teacher-educators need to spend time
doing that work. Collectively having those conversations, encouraging the members of
the faculty and staff to do work before trying to engage students around it. Otherwise, it’s
just not going to be very authentic or meaningful. Because again, this is not, we’re not
talking about, ‘oh, we’re going to teach them how to sew or draw’. We’re talking about
completely disrupting centuries old paradigms, you know? Ideologies and culture. We’re
talking about changing the culture, and that’s not something you just do because you read
a book about racism, and now you’re equipped to go and tell teachers how to be an anti-
racist educator. It just doesn’t work that way. At the best, the best we can be for the most

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part is in recovery, anyway. I mean, that’s the thing, I mean, I’m in recovery, and I think
I’m pretty good at this, but I know there’s still things that I’m unpacking. Maybe not so
much, not as much, but I’m in recovery, you know? I’m in recovery.
Yvonne’s statements about needing to walk through this process of racial awareness with
compassion, and her acknowledgement of being in racial “recovery” struck me with an intensity
that caused me to have a period of discomfort that would not be alleviated. One day, as I looked
over my notes, an understanding stopped me in my tracks. I realized as I looked at my coded
documents again, that my personal biases had emerged in what seemed to be an over emphasized
effort to not appear overly sympathetic toward the Black point of view and had actually formed
an initial blind spot. I then went back through the coded data that referred specifically to Black
people with the code “compassion.” This presented several questions for me. First, how did this
reflect my own internalized sense of having “too Black” a focus in carrying out my study?
Second, what did this say about my own ability to see the need for compassion toward the Black
point of view? The idea that Black people have been seriously emotionally wounded, brought me
instantly back to the concept of Post-traumatic Slave Syndrome, of which Dr. Joy DeGruy
(2005) has written, and reminded me of the many ways it shows up in not only my own life, but
that of my students, as well. The ideas of Black emotional recovery, Black pride, and
overcoming self-hate most definitely would require having great compassion for oneself; and yet
we, as Black people, still have difficulty being gracious to ourselves, in spite of learning how to
stand, and even thrive, in the face of the legacies of hate. It occurred to me that Yvonne’s
acknowledgement was also a call to action, a reminder that even as we embrace the concept of
compassion for others, we must also learn to afford ourselves the same emotional and existential
care.

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As we drew near the end of our conversation, I had one final question for Yvonne:“ What
is Blackness?” Her voice softened to an almost awe-struck whisper, as she began to speak.
“Black is beautiful,” she said. She continued:
What is Blackness? Hmmm, how would I describe and define…For me, so, the reason I
say Black, as opposed to or even African, or you know, “I’m not Black, I’m human,” is
that I think of Black as the origin, and the source of all things. Which is why I think I’m
so vehemently opposed to ideas of white supremacy and Black inferiority, because I see
Blackness as the origin of all, as the beginning of all, from where everything came. And
so, that’s sort of my metaphysical answer, but as a Black person, for me, it represents a
way of capturing, it is a political term for me, so Black is literally what I choose in protest
of whiteness. Whiteness being a construct that has been an oppressive construct that is
the source and root of all the pain, much of it, if not all of the pain and suffering of folks
who were enslaved, who were colonized, who were beaten and brutalized. So, Black is
my way of, it’s a label of pride, because it’s letting, it’s me saying I’m not assimilating,
I’m not trying to fit in, I’m not going to be whatever it is that you want. Like, you say
that this whiteness and this white is beauty and goodness and all of those things, but it
really is a political term for me, and it’s a term that is diametrically opposed to what I’ve
been taught I’m supposed to be. And it’s me saying, fuck you, like, fuck you— I’m
Black, and I’m proud of it, and it’s beautiful, and it’s wonderful, and it’s powerful, and
it’s everything you say it’s not.
Yvonne ended our time together with a very powerful statement that spoke to not only the
significant personal racial growth that she has undergone over the years, but also her growth as a

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Black educator who understands the delicate balance needed in order to maintain strength and
stamina in an educational system that is not always ready to hear her voice.
Linda narrative response to research question three. In considering the curriculum
that is used in teacher education, I asked Linda about how the materials used in teacher education
courses speak to, or challenge, anti-Blackness.
I think there are spots. I think it takes the teacher-educator to make it explicit.
That’s certainly true for me, and I’m sure there are some educators who have found
resources, and implement resources that are very, very specifically uplifting issues of
anti-Blackness. I’ve not heard of that many. I mean, if I’m thinking wide, that is also not
a conversation that I’ve been in a lot with other practitioners.
Continuing with that same line of discussion, I asked her how she has responded to those who
say that curriculum that encourages Black culture and Black unity threatens the goals of
diversity. This drew a big laugh from her, before she answered at length:
I think I tend to use storytelling, and a short way of answering that question is I speak of
all groups in the United States as having been separated from one another because of
racism. All of us have healing processes to do. We all have to find ways to enrich and
support one another, and we can best do that collectively. When we’ve done that as group
specific healing work as well. So, I then use gender as an alternate way of thinking about
it. Our culture does not seem to be upset by women’s groups. They don’t seem to be
upset about men’s groups, and people seem to realize that men and women have to deal
with their own stuff so that they can come together and do things more equitably. So, in a
society that tends to oppress people of color, for those very specific people of color
groups, to have areas, spaces, times and moments, and whole communities that can come

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together in order to uplift themselves and heal out of what has been part of dominant
society, that must be uplifted, and validated, and appreciated. And as that healing can
occur, then there’s that capacity for multi-racial groups to have healthy relationships with
one another. It’s kind of the same argument that doesn’t happen at public schools very
much, but is common in independent schools, which is, ‘What’s the value of affinity
groups?’…more common on the East Coast than the West. We are particularly prone to
reject that on the West Coast, especially in California. But, it’s having, you know, the
Village. You know, it’s having the African American affinity group, the Latino affinity
group, the Asian-American, so they can actually have their time, support one another,
appreciate cultural elements, etcetera. And what I’ve often gotten called in to do, is—
well, what about the white kids? They’re feeling left out. And I think the history of
affinity groups in schooling has been with the argument that ‘well students that are in the
minority need a place to be able to, you know, have time for themselves, and white
people are the majority, so they can just go to the supermarket, or they can just go to the
soccer team. That’s their affinity space. And that’s a little simplistic, because actually
working on your identity, especially from an anti-racist frame does not happen at the
grocery store, or at soccer practice, and so for students who actually want to dig into
identity process, that needs its own space, and especially from a white perspective, it
needs to have an anti-racist lens. That’s very particular, and it’s also pushing against the
dominant norm. So that’s the argument that all affinity spaces are acknowledged for all
groups.

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I asked Linda how she has helped white students who were feeling left out of these
critical discussions because of the intense focus on immigration or the multiple aggressions
against Black people.
I think what we tend to, and I’ve not been part of that direct programming- I know people
who have, but um, but from what I understand, the programming that’s been most
effective has been about like, evaluating racial identity, looking at white culture. Where
do you fit? Where do you not fit? What are the stereotypes? Who do you want to be?
What is the culture you want to live in? And what does ally-ship look like? So, it’s a real
concrete discussion of what are our connections, and how do we want to be in service to
create the world that we all want to live in? So, it’s finding their personal stake in justice
work, so that it doesn’t come through as either a pity party, or this is just your moral
responsibility, but that you actually have a personal investment. And this is going to
make us all better off.
I attempted to dig deeper into Linda’s perspective of how teacher education, overall, has treated
the importance of the narrative of Black people.
Oh, I don’t know if it does, explicitly. Um, I don’t think it’s in there explicitly at all. I
think it really, truly depends on the individual practitioner, or how they take up the
standards, and interpret the standards. I think that’s for sure. There’s room in the
standards for a very robust appreciation for Black voices and Black narratives, but it’s not
set in there.
I asked Linda whether she felt there was a place in the academic arena in which she saw value
being placed on Black narratives. Her response:

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I’m not that great of an academic, I’m much more of a lay practitioner-oriented person
so…at the White Privilege Conference, I think there’s a healthy- a healthy group of
people who arrive, that express multiple voices…at least an uplifting of Black voices
there. The founder and executive director, and continued organizer around this is a Black
man, who very explicitly talks about this being an Afrocentric space… So, a lot of white
people who are showing up for the very first time, they have their questions about that,
and ‘shouldn’t you, or ‘we’ call it something different? You know, all that sort of stuff.
But he very effectively pushes back on that narrative. And then, the POCC
Conference…It’s huge, and mostly supports teachers from independent schools, and it
was created out of the National Association of Independent Schools, it happens annually,
travels all over the country. And it is specifically designed to support teachers of color.
How do they stay strong, and you know, support their schools? Um, yeah. I know that
there’s that track too, a lot of white people going too, ‘cause they can’t keep white people
from wanting to show up. Right? Even if it is in the best of intentions of good ally-
forming, you still gotta create that track.
While speaking about the work that is to be done in teacher education, and academic
spaces in general, I read to Linda the following quotation by Lewis Gordon: “The activity of
truth-seeking is closely associated with the power of choice and reflective consciousness.” I
asked Linda to consider how, in her practice as an educator, she saw her pedagogical choices as
encouraging activities of truth-seeking and reflective consciousness.
I think this is relative to my comments about really wanting to provide my students with
varied opinions, critical information that they may not have thought of before, and then
give them time to think about how it relates to their worlds, and their practice, as opposed

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to just offering a lecture, or an article to say, “Here, this is what you should think?” I like
to say, “Here’s what dominant culture taught. Where are you?” “Here’s what other
people are experiencing, what do you think about all of this?” And just really, to get as
much time for reflection as possible, when they are in my class. And I hear that from
them — especially, because I teach undergrads, too, and they find it very challenging
because they’re just at the point where they’re making sense of the world, and I’m asking
them to think critically and deep about it- how they’re going to navigate the world as
adults. And I feel like I hear regularly that they don’t think I’m telling them what they’re
supposed to think, as much as asking them what they think.
Wanting to get more information about how the practices of reflection on racial inequity
have played out with her student population, I asked Linda what impact these types of activities
have had on her students ’ability to use reflective practices to interrogate their racial perspectives
and beliefs.
Yeah, I think that’s – and very specifically, there’s a field work task that students are
asked to do in the teacher preparation program, where the whole thing, it’s like a month-
long project where they’re asked to do a demographic study and then after they’ve done
all the demographics from an internet, web search, type of data gathering perspective, I
ask them what they think. What did they expect to find? And we name who the racial
characters are, you know. What are the racial demographics of the space, and then, they
have to pick one of the two to go to. And…pushing them to have that critical thought of
what did you expect to find, and how is it different? And where does bias show up? And
they have to address the question, “How would you need to understand or interrogate

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your biases in order to teach this at this school?” They have to actually answer this
question.
Understanding that there is much discomfort in discussing race, my next question for
Linda targeted one of the ways in which this discomfort may show up in the classroom. I asked
her how she has overcome resistance from learners who reject this racial aspect of truth-seeking.
Oh, I haven’t had one in years. And I think it’s because more than 75% of my students
are students of color. They’re already paying attention to this. Most of my students show
up knowing that this is a big issue. Those that don’t, become influenced by the people
around them, or they’re just quiet. But, in fact, you know, some of the white students I’ve
had that I would typically expect to be more resistant are actually really politicized, and
on fire about these issues, and really care. Um, even my students who are more
conservatively leaning, tend, from the social perspective, to care about equity. And, I’m
thinking particularly of some Latino students, who might even have been Trump
supporters, but still care about these issues. So yeah, unlike some of my colleagues in
institutions across the country, and other places, I don’t feel like I get that kind of
pushback that they have to experience, and I know that. I know that some, who have 80%
white students, who just do not have any experience with diversity, they come from very
segregated, privileged lives, and they just reject the whole – everything. It’s not the same
situation; it’s not the same teacher education that I have. I have a very different student
population, with very different understanding coming into the classroom. The
demographics, it’s who they are. They as students are just showing up with a different
understanding, because of their life experience.

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With the understanding that the discussion of race is difficult, even when the students
identify as students of color, I asked Linda to share her suggestions for teachers trying to help
learners overcome or work through the levels of discomfort that they may experience when
talking about race in academic settings. She responded this way:
The first thing I always talk about is sharing what I start out with, which is that multiple
social identity thing. I feel like it’s so important for any educator, whether it’s at the
university level or high school, even dipping down into middle school, to help students
realize that even if we’re talking about one particular identity aspect for one day, it’s not
to erase all the other complexity. So, starting with the idea of the complexity, starting
with intersectionalities, starting with this – creating as best of a level playing field as we
can about all of us. Our experiencing advantages and disadvantages allows us to move
into a particularity without any one group being made to feel like they’re being made to
be the bad guy. Um, that’s one key. I think also, really explicitly naming that it’s not
about shaming people, and that this work isn’t about making people feel bad. It’s not in
any way either intended to create a shame or guilt complex around it, mostly because the
people who want us to do this work, don’t find it useful for people to have shame or guilt.
So, fully undermining those that are the most common resistances, I think is useful.
I asked Linda what she thought teacher education programs can do to bring more attention to,
and address aspects of their programs that overlook and/or encourage anti-Blackness. Her
response provided a thoughtful and honest assessment.
Number one, I don’t think they would think that they do that. Um, ‘cause I think the way
that anti-Blackness shows up is more subtle now, in teacher education. But I actually
think that maybe teacher education programs that are doing it well, um, offering

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presentations and offering conferences on what they’re doing, as models for others. I
have found personally, that attending teacher education conferences and learning what
other schools are doing, allows me to reflect on ‘oh, I thought I was doing a good job’,
and I start to see my holes. I think that is actually valid because all of us are so busy
doing the work we’re doing, and when we put our heart and soul into it, and we’ve really
researched it, and we’ve checked in with some people, we start feeling really good about
it. And that’s positive, and there may be good things about it, but it doesn’t mean we’ve
captured everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if a next iteration of standards mentioned
anti-Blackness specifically, but I don’t think, wholesale, all of California’s teacher prep
programs will treat the issue until it is actually stated in the standards.
I asked Linda whether she thought it was crucial to address historical practices of racism when
collaborating with others working toward building greater understanding about Black existence
within teacher education.
Oh, well, I think it’s essential, because any time any Black person stands up to say, you
know, “I want my humanity,” there’s such a backlash. It’s just ridiculous. And so, if we
don’t understand how the Black/white binary in the United States is just a front piece of
how we’ve maneuvered everything, then we’re not going to be able to understand where
the sensitivities are. Where somebody is being really offensive, with an entire historical
lineage underlying it. Where the average white person doesn’t know the history, doesn’t
understand the deep rootedness of why its offensive, and so people of color are looking at
a white person like, “You’re out of your mind.” You know? “How in the world do you
not see this?” Because there’s just a whole different historical bank of knowledge. So, the
one I talk about most, because it really, deeply affected me, and I do like an hour-long

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presentation on it. At this point is the history of using primate imagery and whatnot
against people of color, and there’s- you just have such centuries-long history of that
imagery used for multiple purposes, and so, I’ll then show – anyway, cut to the end of it,
a number of more contemporary pieces of that same imagery being used in contemporary
ways, or you know, just the term monkey being associated. It just happened las week, or
two weeks ago. Remember the H & M incident? [Me: Yes], I mean, it’s constantly
happening. But most white people, who haven’t dug into the history, don’t – only are
looking at it from today. They’re only looking at it like, “Oh well, that’s cute. He’s
African, like, why is that a big deal?” They do not understand what a deep and
unconscious power that that actually has. And it holds for Black and white people. And
there’s really important cognitive research that yeah, people have to understand, to make
the linkages, because we can’t have real thoughtful discussions if we only know five
percent of the story.
Linda's insights provide an in-depth understanding about what it means to experience
race as a racially conscious white educator. I presented the following question for her
consideration: In many ways, the existences of Black people have been violated by the practices
of systemic denials of humanity. What do you think that it means as an educator, to expose your
students to the violated experiences of Black people? Here is what she had to say:
Yeah, I think what it means is that it’s a correcting of the record in the sense that even my
students, who – my non-Black students, and that includes my Latino students, or Asian-
American students, or white students, um, continue to walk through a world where the
dominant culture tells them that not paying attention to race is the better way to go; that,
as long as we get along, that everything’s good; that, as long as we don’t have hate in our

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heart, that we’ve overcome. And that’s not how the systems work. So, it has to be made
explicit. And I have to convince them that there’s more to it than just what’s in our heart.
I had one final question for Linda: What is Blackness?
Historically, Blackness has been the shadow of what white people saw of themselves.
The negative, the unfree, the what not to be. Period. In order for Black people to survive,
Blackness has had to become deep strength and resilience, and love, and continuing
extension of care for community, and all of the stereotypes that come with soulful
expression, etcetera, etcetera.
Linda’s deep understanding of America’s racial history and its inseparable connection to
anti-Black racism mirrors that of her colleague, Yvonne. The insights shared, both individually
and collectively, illuminate the action and commitment that goes into attempting to transform
one’s pedagogical practice from one of tolerance of anti-Black racism to one that works to
dismantle its presence in educational spaces.
Journal Notes (undated- approx. May 2019)
Another emerging thought is that both educators began their careers with, and still hold
the desire to do what is best for helping to expand the knowledge of students and to be
good educators. What is indicated from the narrative stories of these two educators is that
the line that separates teachers from activists is becoming less distinct. In a world where
we see an emergence of white supremacist organizations, teachers must be the front-line
for logic and reasoning to prevail. It is not, in my belief, the job of an educator to
inculcate or indoctrinate any learner to any particular sway. The job of an educator, as I
see it, should be to help learners become facilitators in the use of basic critical thinking
skills, and learn to apply them in increasingly complex situations as they grow in

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knowledge and life experiences. For learners to develop these skills, they must be given
opportunities to examine, discuss, practice, and demonstrate the desired abilities. This
challenge is becoming more critically necessary in light of the incessant discrediting and
distortion of facts. It is becoming more and more important that educators are able to
create an academic discourse that can sustain intense direct scrutiny of our societal
reality, and bring to bear, a dialogue that brings about a transformation of the educational
intent. No longer, can our educators feel as if they are protected behind some invisible
division that separates our professional, personal, and civic selves. The same selves that
we all bring with us into the classrooms on a daily basis.
Theme four: situating anti-Black racism awareness within teacher education. Of
the many insights garnered from the narratives of Linda and Yvonne about their practice of anti-
racist education, is the unveiling of plain-sight understandings that we know exist but have yet
had the courage to confront head-on. A common thread in the participants’ sharing of insights is
the knowledge that white people, both those within education and those who work outside of the
field, are largely comfortable where they are in their racial knowledges. And so too, are a good
number of Black people. This mindset is woefully insufficient for the new generation of learners
entering teacher education programs, who appear ready and willing to change those paradigms.
The participants’ input provides a lens through which educators might begin to develop new
imperatives for use in trying to enhance their knowledge of race.
A final aspect of the theme that the participant narratives bring to the forefront is the
harmful impact diversity and multicultural education have had on efforts to disrupt anti-
Blackness in education. As the participants both acknowledged, educators are comfortable with
“diversity” dialogue because it does not force the colonization conversation and allows the

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conversation within most academic spaces to remain superficial, with minimal lasting or
transformative merit.
As a final consideration of the theme of situating anti-Black racism awareness in
education, the participants offered the “both/and” strategy that was helpful to their growth in
racial awareness. This strategy is one that they acknowledged using to help ground them in the
knowledge that there will always be opportunity to hear the perspective of others. To help
facilitate this change in perspective, Yvonne and Linda used the “both/and” mindset to help shift
their perspectives from an “either/ or” mentality, which tends to only serve as a means for
separation and continued disagreement, to the “both/and” mindset, which allows room for
disparate ideas and ideologies to be validated.
Theorizing the Narrative Discussion
It is hard to put “steps” and specific processes to an abstract and personalized topic such
as race. Because of this difficulty, there has been little attention given to issues of process for
racial dialogue in educational settings. We cannot talk about race without the inclusion of issues
associated with racism, classism, sexism, and other systems of oppression (Tatum, 1992). When
we do, the dialogue of race is more easily diverted, a practice that is an accepted part of our
greater societal discourse. One of the biggest challenges for educators who are working toward
becoming more racially aware, is the uncertainty of how to operationalize that learning. We
educators must find ways of taking careful account of our experiences and becoming more
analytic about them. We must be critical, and yet caring (for ourselves and others), academic, yet
social, spiritual, yet irreverent. We must know how to be comfortable in the knowledge that we
will need to utilize all those aspects of ourselves, and that we cannot be thin-skinned. Our
feelings will need to be reinforced with a more sufficient and transformative, racial armor.

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Racial discourse is difficult, and no single theory is sufficient to fully discuss the issues
surrounding our complicated relationships with race. Racial discourse, in and of itself, is
difficult because the very definition calls on us to embrace or develop the capacity for applying
orderly thoughts and procedures to our acts of conducting meaningful dialogue. Most teacher
education programs have become comfortable with inserting lessons around critical race theory
into curriculum, as the key mechanism by which they theorize race in the classrooms. These
insufficient efforts serve as their “evidence” of exposing their learners to the difficult
conversations around race, all the while cloaking such discussions in the accepted racial “buzz
words” of multiculturalism and diversity, and side-stepping any deeper conversations around
racism, hegemony and the deep-rooted anti-Black racism that exists worldwide.
To help position the theorization of anti-Black racism within the curriculum of teacher
education programs, I begin from the premise that the theory is mathematical, and at its most
basic level, it can be applied as such: A + (B + C)= D. From this framework, I offer the
following:
Most of us, in our early experiences with mathematical functions, learned that we needed
to try and solve for “X” – that elusive factor for which we have all spent a significant amount of
time trying to locate. I have personally wondered, since my first algebra class why I had to look
for something, in this case, “X,” that no one could ever satisfactorily identify or explain to me.
However, as I contemplated the complexity of racial dialogue, understanding racism and our
own relationships to it, I began to understand how “X” could remain so very elusive. In the
discourse of race, “X” is the duality of Blackness. It is the fleeting moments when the
fundamental value of racial oppression and hegemony begin to take form and make enough sense
for us to even begin to consider a way such complex, personal, emotional, and intellectual factors

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can be operationalized in academic settings in ways that do not perpetuate and extend racial
harm.
To fully explore this case narrative on developing anti-Black racism awareness in the in-
depth manner described by the participants, I propose the use of FACEIT (Framework for
African American Critical Existential and Intersectionality Theorization) method, designed
specifically with the intention of understanding the unique existential positionality of African
American people, in the context of American proliferation of, and reliance on, the maintenance
of color lines, which result in anti-Black racism. This theoretical framework attempts to work
from the understanding of intersectionality that should be critical in considerations in the
discourse and dialogue of race. The FACEIT theoretical framework provides a lens through
which the popular critical theories are integrated with lesser known or utilized theories to help
educators explore the various knowledges that become critical to the efforts of disrupting anti-
Black racism wherever it resides. The FACEIT framework includes Critical Race Theory (CRT),
BlackCrit Theory, Bodies Out of Place (BOP) , Racial Identity Development, Intersectionality
Theory, and Post-Colonial theories. Each of these theories bring the focus directly onto a specific
aspect of Black existence. This framework becomes crucial because the complexity of racism
defies the limitations of a singular theory. This theory specifically, and unapologetically does not
seek to acquiesce to the “melting pot” notions of current theories (whether spoken or unspoken)
that situate Black existence and the racism associated with it into racially interchangeable
discourse. FACEIT theorization sees and honors the unique existence of African.
FACEIT Model for Theorizing the Conceptual Framework
To understand the foundation and principles behind this theory, it is important to look at
the influence of heuristics on the theoretical composition of this theory. To that end, I offer this

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personal experience: Early in my Ed.D studies, I struggled with understanding the explanations
of theory as they were being presented in class. I was able to grasp the more concrete aspects of
theory, but when it came to seeing how that theory could be used to make unspecified
conclusions and solve hypothetical situations, the connections I made refused to solidify to a
point that would help me to adequately explain how the theoretical connections aligned
themselves. Enter heuristics into the equation, long before I even had any ideas that there was an
element of research that would place such high value on the personal experiences that I was
having. I recall an incident, which happened at a friend’s gathering, that would alter the entire
way I looked at my data and the act of theorizing it. While enjoying our conversation, a close
friend inquired about my progress in the Ed.D. program. It was still very early in my first
semester, and I struggled with meeting the minimum score on the weekly multiple-choice tests.
My friend, knowing me very well, asked questions about my approaches and techniques. He
listened to me as I explained how I processed the questions and made my choices for answers.
Before long, my friend stopped me and said, “You’re struggling because you are an English
teacher, and you are trying to apply those principles.” Then he said something that immediately
caused a shift in my understanding. “Theory,” he said, “is mathematical,” and he went on
explaining that before I could make the literary “story” out of the questions, I needed to
understand it from the perspective in which theory was intended to be understood. “Theory is
mathematical. A plus B, plus C, equals D.” I grabbed some paper and jotted as quickly as my pen
and brain could move, all of the things he was explaining to me about theory. He talked, I wrote.
I questioned, he answered. I don’t know how much time elapsed, but he patiently helped me
figure out how I, the English teacher, could finally get comfortable enough with math to translate
narrative into those mathematical terms. I went home and taped those papers to a wall by my

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desk, and spent the next few days working through this new process. My troubles with the tests
began to subside, and soon I found myself able to apply the mathematical process with success.
Those notes sat taped to the side of that desk for nearly five years, until just recently, as I began
to recognize that my theoretical findings are best explained by applying those exact
mathematical principles. hooks (1994) has stated that any theory that is used in education must
be translatable into everyday language, or it cannot be used to educate the public. I consider the
FACEIT Theoretical Framework
as an actionable shift toward identifying a theory that can encompass and be accountable to the
many aspects of racial discourse. The FACEIT Theoretical Framework provides a way for
theorizing our interactions with race beyond discourse, and into action.
Table 8
FACEIT Theoretical Framework
A + B + C + D + E + F + = G
CRT Black
Crit
BOP
(Bodies Out
of Place)
RID
(Racial
Identity
Theory)
Intersectionality
Theory
Post-
Colonial
Theory

Comprehensive Theory

CONCEPTUALIZED

Basic Racial
Experiences
(legal, social,
academic)

EXISTENTIAL

Personal Racism, ABR,
Colonial History, Being in
the Buffer Zone

OPERATIONAL
Classroom Learning/Teaching;
Curriculum
Standards

=

GROUNDED THEORY

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Chapter Five: Findings
Miller and Fredericks (2003) have asserted that the data, in and of themselves, are not
evidence, but must instead, become evidence. It is helpful here, to recall how the authors connected
their application of the abduction process back to Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (Smith, 1989) premise
about abduction, which they describe ,according to the work of C.S. Peirce, as follows: “(a) facts
of type B have been observed: (b) a true statement of the form If A, then B can explain B.
Therefore, probably A.”
The authors acknowledged that the abduction process offers many benefits when
finalizing qualitative data. However, they also point out that this process meets its end at the
point of declaring the final statement or conclusion. The problem, as they see it, is the question
of how to proceed from there? To take the “evidence” further, toward proof. They ask, “How do
we test inductively the anomalies that we observed given our beliefs about the truths revealed
about A and B” (Miller and Fredericks, 2003) This line of thinking returned my attention to the
heuristic experience that helped me to connect the narrative and mathematical properties of
inquiry. I returned to my most basic understanding that a + b + c = d, and began there, looking
for ways that the deductive moved more finitely toward inductive data which could be used more
definitively within these mathematical frames.
From there, I revisited Miller and Fredericks’ (2003) dilemma of turning a proposition into
evidence. A proposition, they explained, asserts that something is the case, and then goes about
trying to show the truth or falseness of the proposition. To accomplish this purpose, I created a
charted template to show the reasoning behind my proposition. The mathematical process helps to
support (although does not exactly prove) the premise or grounds for the belief. At this point in
the process, it became important to add a layer of support for my proposed findings, using the

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associative property of mathematics, which says that when three or more ‘numbers ’are added
together, the sum remains the same, no matter how they are grouped together (i.e.: “(a + b) + c =
d” produces the same result as: “a + (b + c) = d). In this way, I searched for a way to translate the
narrative data into some form of literal “coefficient.” The following represents an example of the
ending process that was used to support evidence findings (Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4, and Figure
5). With these processes guiding the development of evidence, the study revealed the following
findings, which are discussed according to their associated research questions.
Teacher-Educators Forded Personal Paths in Cultivating Awareness of Anti-Black Racism
This research question begs that educators do a great deal of inner searching to find their
way to greater awareness of anti-Black racism. It also leaves us unable to ignore societal
inequities and injustices of the past. Educators must find the fortitude to move past their personal
sensitivities and understand that most of our racial experiences today are based on injustices,
inhumane treatment, and deficit views of Blackness from the past. The growing prevalence of
racism we are seeing in our society is simply the re-visitation of the racial past on a society that
has never had the courage, or the desire, to address its history. To begin to understand the
possible experiences that they may have, teacher-educators should consider the following:
• There is no set process for undertaking the changes that lead to this experience of racial
growth.
o This journey is one of personal discovery, re-affirmation of personal and
professional direction and purpose, and will cause each person to explore with
greater determination, the confrontational nature of racial self-identification.

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o Each person must go through this journey and have the related experiences for
themselves. Each person must allow themselves to feel the pains that go along
with developing in ways that are not always comfortable.
• As the study participants admonish, it is imperative that those on this particular journey
learn to live with the tensions. Those who undertake this effort must develop the capacity
to be comfortable standing in places that are hostile to the principles of anti-racism, and
they must be even more steadfast and able to stand up against anti-Black racism in ways
that will be, at times, extremely resistant.
• There are useful strategies and practical tools that can be useful as educators take the self-
determined steps toward greater racial efficacy.
o It is important to build a network of allies and a well-rounded support system of
critical friends and colleagues.
o We must learn to move from tolerance to acceptance. Tolerance simply means that
one will put up with that which they abhor, until they must no longer do so. This
is a core problem of our racial problems, as a nation. There is no urgency to fix
something that is tolerable. The urgency comes when we seek to fix that which
we cannot abide. In order to move from tolerance to acceptance, one must first
feel the discomfort of that which has been tolerated, before they are moved to the
sense of urgency that causes them to seek out a more acceptable position. Just as
one who sits in an uncomfortable chair must continually shift to find an
acceptable position, so too, will teacher-educators experience this uncomfortable
adjustment. Thus, educators, especially those who are shaping the practices of

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future educators, must, without option, be ushered through a decolonizing process
for understanding race and racism.
o Adopt a “Both/And” mindset, which gives room for more than one truth to be
relevant, while still seeking to find resolution to racial injustices.
Educator-Activism in Fighting Anti-Black Racism Is A Commitment to Confrontation
Educators who decide to take on this transformative fight as educator-activists working
toward dismantling of racism, do so with the awareness that this is no passive undertaking. The
work, itself, whether in the personal or professional space, is confrontational. You are either
confronting the world or yourself when hold yourself accountable for being aware of how you
carry yourself, racially, in the world. Each person must be accountable for checking their own
actions and behaviors and learn how to accept the lessons found in each step and misstep. And
even in our trial and error, we can remember that we are human, and therefore imperfect.
However, we can be perfectly accountable enough to our existences to demand that we hold to
our own truths. In these types of personal commitments, collective change becomes more readily
visible and possible.
• The commitment to a pedagogical practice that is anti-anti-Blackness will stretch you in
ways that you may not be prepared to experience.
o There is an inextricable connection between the personal work that the educator
will do toward practicing with anti-Blackness awareness, and the activist work
that must be done in order to fight against the phenomenon itself.
• It is important to understand that you are taking steps toward activism, simply because
you are advocating for racial educational change.

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o You must know what you are getting into. You will not be able to be able to watch
from the sidelines. You will not be able to sit back and silently accept the status
quo.
• The commitment will challenge your personal and professional relationships.
o As you embrace the process of challenging unexamined aspects of your racial self,
you must be prepared to possibly see family and friendship alignments shift.
o You must be willing to sometimes stand alone in your commitment to call out, and
fight against anti-Black activism.
The existential question becomes, “Do racist people really feel that Black people do not have the
right to exist?” This is an important question to know the answer to because the response drives
the methods and approaches that must be used in order to address and correct the problems we
see within our society, including our educational learning environments.
Theorizing and Operationalizing Development of Racial Efficacy
Lead to Authentic Racial Awareness
One must break away, even if for only a few moments, from the multicultural ideology.
Because there is such a great tendency for those who struggle to discuss racism in deep and
intimate ways to shift the racial dialogue away from Black and white racism, and onto other
groups of people who have also experienced oppression and discrimination, there remains a great
need for educational programs at all levels to find ways to resist encouraging this “hijacking” of
racial dialogue.
America’s teachers are woefully unprepared to navigate dialogue or classroom activities
that require an ability to interact authentically with the problem of anti-Black racism. Agreed, it
is a challenging and complex undertaking to operationalize the immensely varied and personal

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experiences that are associated with anti-Black racism; however, the knowledge that leads to
greater awareness of anti-Black racism among educators must be operationalized within the field
of teacher education. The many experiences that are associated with developing greater racial
understanding and the ability to recognize this often-nuanced form of racial aggressions must be
compiled into professional development efforts that can lead to authentic self-exploration.
• Teacher education programs offer learners very little interaction with theories of race
and racism. Students may read articles and examine the topics as they relate to a
specific text, but rarely get to work through connecting that theory to personal growth
and pedagogical practice.
• No one theory is sufficient in theorizing the complexities of race. In order to do
extensive and intensive work at expanding awareness of anti-Black racism, it is
important that educational curriculum does not shy away from creating space in their
academic programs that allow the Black focus to be separated from other discussions
of oppression and discrimination, so as to better understand the unique weight that
this particular topic carries, and its greater implications in society.
• Teachers and their students do not have the tools to take on the discourse of race in
deeply meaningful and transformative ways.
• Teacher education programs must take responsibility and accountability for the
teaching, or absence of teaching, about anti-Black racism.
o This is the one way to ensure that novice and in-service teachers are entering
classrooms with a better knowledge and understanding of who they are
racially.

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• Educators who attempt to bring the dialogue of anti-Black racism into their school
and classroom environments can expect resistance from both their peers and their
students.
• Educators will need to develop the capacity to recognize the racial knowledge needs
of their learners and be able to effectively facilitate their development of knowledge
as it relates to understanding anti-Black racism and its presence in everyday life.
Journal Notes Jan. 25, 2019
*written while watching a television show “Blackademics”on KCVR Texas/NPR-Ch.4.
A white woman (missed her name) talks about her child (a very young girl) being totally
distraught at learning that she was connected to whiteness, which therefore connected her
to atrocities against Black people. This lets me know that schools need to start having
discussions about race and racism with kids long before they get to that brief part of
history lessons that talk about Black people in America, primarily in terms of MLK, or
Rosa Parks, and now they can add Obama.
This woman continues speaking and says that she didn’t know how to respond at first, but
instead of shying away from her daughter’s obviously painful racial lesson, this mother
chose to speak to her child in a way that let her know that yes, these things did happen,
and no, they were not right to treat Black people that way. This lady went on to say that
“white kids are not fragile.” They can and should be taught these lessons early in life. The
way that this woman handled her daughter’s meltdown could be insightful for how
educators must begin to have conversations about race. We must treat the conversation
of race like we are speaking to very young kids who are having these revelations for the
very first time. Actually, if done properly, the course/discussion should make them feel as

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if this is “new” knowledge to be considered, because many of our teachers, and especially
the Pre-service teachers who are largely, young, white, and privileged, or they are Latino,
with little or no real knowledge or concept of Black people’s history, except from the
distorted perspective of learning environments. Many of them will be interrogating their
racial selves for the very first time. They will be challenging themselves on a personal
level that most have never considered necessary. Non-Black people just don’t have
“race” or the concept of it, as a conscious thought through the day. Most don’t have to
ponder the degree to which their skin color impacts the experiences that become a reality
of their existence (i.e., Those things that Black people have accustomed themselves to
chalking up to “well, it is what it is”), This type of unacknowledged self-deprecation, of
sorts, is a learned behavior that we as Black people have somehow fashioned into a
perspective that indicates a calm, accepting, non-combative, and even considered to be a
“spiritual” demeanor. Black people are accepting the burden for the world’s intolerance
of our Blackness through the absolution of whites for the acknowledgement, and
accepting accountability for initially and purposefully concocting/manufacturing the
problem of race just to satisfy a need to establish a false hierarchy in which white
existence and needs would forever be attained and maintained only when coupled with
the erasure of backs as people with a history and past that defies the imaginary racial
construct that became an accepted world view of Blackness.
Just as this woman learned when dealing with her young daughter, teacher-educators will need to
be prepared for their own students to have extreme reactions to the pedagogy of anti-Blackness
awareness. Many of them may break down crying the way this woman says her young daughter
did.

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Recommendations
Educators who are attempting to become more racially aware can be encouraged to
continue the process of developing racial awareness if they have access to the types of tools that
can help them come to terms with the difficult changes that will occur in their knowledge of who
they are as racialized individuals and educators. Although this study intentionally framed the
racial discourse around the Black/white binary, it is certain that educators, and anyone
attempting to gain insights into the racial problems that continue to plague America, can find
value and merit in the conversations within this study. The problems of racism do not end with
the color line that separates white from Black. Instead, just as much else in life, this problem
crosses over, intersects and blurs the visual perceptions of anti-Black racism. But we should not
be fooled into believing that any manipulations of the racial dialogue, no matter how contorted,
distorted or conflated they may be, can ever overshadow the fact that it is the proximity to
Blackness which has caused us to witness in the year 2020, an American society that rips small
babies from their parents’ arms and turns a deaf ear to their agonizing cries. An American
society that vilifies Black elected officials. That is an American story that is all too familiar in
the historical context of the Black/White binary. If those who identify as non-Black, either by
choice or social stratification, are in search of an understanding of the cruelty, the inhumanity,
and most of all, the existential fear that drives anti-black racism in America, the participants in
this study have offered much in the way of a starting point for that journey.
From the late 1940s until 1960 (history.com) there was a publication out of New York,
called The Green Book. This booklet was used by African American motorists as a tool to
navigate highways as they traversed a racist landscape that was ripe with danger. The Green
Book provided a listing of Black-owned, or Black friendly establishments where African

166

Americans could safely acquire lodging, food, entertainment beauty and health care, because
African American people were routinely refused served at white business establishments because
of their race. In comparison, just as no African American who traveled the country in 1940’s,
50’s, 60’s, and beyond would be surprised to encounter establishments where they would be
denied service, there should be no doubt that today’s educators who are attempting to develop
greater racial awareness will traverse contentious and perhaps devastatingly painful landscapes
of experiences in both their personal and professional dealings. There should also be no doubt
that just as African Americans once relied on The Green Book to offer suggestions as to where
Black motorists might find a respite from the socially ingrained racism with which they had to
constantly struggle, contemporary educators will also need a tool to help them navigate the
numerous understandings that must be called upon in order to conduct a thorough interrogation
of their racial positionality personally and professionally. The discussion of the case study is a
small conceptualization of this need, which provides insight into the experiences that educators
might encounter on their journeys toward greater awareness of anti-Black racism and how it
manifests in the practice of educators.
To accomplish this, I propose that educators will benefit from a curriculum that takes an
“inquiry as stance” approach, which has the belief that educators can generate new knowledge
above and beyond that which they actively interact with in their professional capacities (So,
2012). Using this approach will be helpful as a compass by which learners can determine which
track of learning they are interacting with.
Using the three paths of knowledge can help to situate the learning associated with
developing greater awareness of the far-reaching and impervious nature of anti-Black racism into
a practical and actionable form of racial growth.

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Table 9
Racial Knowledge as Stance Chart
RACIAL KNOWLEDGE AS STANCE CHART
INQUIRY OF
STANCE DOMAINS
CONNECTIONS TO
PATHWAYS FOR RACIAL KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge of Practice:
Demands
intersectionality between
personal and
professional (formal vs.
practical) knowledge.
Stands in contrast to the
other inquiry of stance
domains by insisting that
both knowledge
generation and
knowledge use are
inherently problematic.
Insists that knowledge
cannot be separated from
the “knower.”
Knowledge making is
viewed and understood
as a pedagogic act.

Known to be Known:
Knowing that you have specific forms of racial insights, gained
either through personal experience or professional learning
opportunities.

o These are the ideologies, principles, and values that a person
readily acknowledges as informing their racial perspectives
or positionality.

Unknown to be Known:
Not knowing that you possess insights about race that you might
routinely dismiss, overlook, or undervalue.
o These are insights and other knowledge about race that a
person does not recognize as having merit or value.

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Knowledge for
Practice:
Formal knowledge and
theory.
Deals with the types of
knowledge that teachers
need to know, which
gives them specific and
distinct forms of
knowledge that they can
use uniquely and
effectively, after they
master the skills that
they need to develop in
order to support students
in their learning about a
subject.
Known to be Unknown:
Knowing that there is information, or insight related to race, that
you know little, or nothing about.

o These are the understandings, ideologies, principles, and
values that a person recognizes as being unfamiliar, or vague
in the knowledgebase used to shape their perspectives or
positionality.
Knowledge in Practice:
Practical knowledge:
Assumes that teachers,
when given sufficient
time to interrogate their
existing and developing
knowledge and deepen
that knowledge toward
more efficacy in
designing rich
interactions that are
embedded in classroom
learning experiences;
Assumes that there is an
inherent spontaneous
and uncertain nature to
the practice of teaching.
Unknown to be Unknown:
Not knowing that there is information, or insight related to race that
you can readily recognize as missing from your frame of reference.

o These are ideologies, principles and understandings that
exist when a person does not realize that there is racial
knowledge to which they have not been exposed. It is not
knowing that you don’t know something.

Note. Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S.L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice:
teacher learning in communities. Review of Educational Research, 24, 249-305.

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Conclusion
Attempting to understand racism is a difficult undertaking that, when done properly,
leads to endless questioning. Before this study, it was my belief that those educators who were
successful in practicing their pedagogy in a way that did not ignore anti-Black racism were
primarily Black, and that knowledge about specifically Black issues remained primarily Black
knowledge. Coming into this study, I had only a small exposure to white educators who were
interested in becoming more racially aware, but I had not taken seriously the commitment to
anti-racism that many of my white and other non-Black peers had begun to embrace. What I
ended with was much more of a confirmation that anti-Black racism exists as the incubator and
womb for many other forms of racism, and that educators are willing to take decisive stands
against it. It is on the foundation of anti-Black racism that the hegemonic dominant society
stands and persists. As our educator-participants so strongly cautioned in their narratives, “The
world becomes what we teach.” The question for those who choose the profession of education
becomes, “What are we teaching the world about anti-Black racism?” The answer to that
question lies within each of us who is willing to do the extensive and challenging work of
extending our racial awareness.
At this very moment, we are again, at the apex of a racial crisis (Dauterive, 1966) that is
just as virulently bitter and violent toward Black people today as it has ever been in the history of
America. The violence visited upon Blacks today continues the American legacy of taking Black
lives without any expectation of punishment, or fear of accountability. Even amidst the fear and
concern of a world-wide viral pandemic, the year 2020, only six months old, continues telling
America’s racial story. Only this time, the whole world is watching. Literally. Through the haze
of a world-wide pandemic that is claiming lives at an alarming rate, the world was forced to stop

170

and be still. And while we all stood still, we were forced to watch as the centuries-long pandemic
of anti-Black racism kept going with business as usual. It kept going with all of its racism,
hegemony and white privilege fully loaded and ready to unleash on Black bodies.
Ahmaud Aubery, 25 years old, while out for a jog, was chased down by a truck driven by a
white father and son, and a friend of theirs riding shotgun in the rear. He is shot dead. Breonna
Taylor, 26, shot dead while she slept in her own bed, after police executed a no-knock warrant on
her home. While the world kept on going around us. No officers arrested. Then, the almost
unthinkable. May 25, 2020, the entire world exploded with anger after watching video recording
of a Missouri police officer suffocating 47-year-old George Floyd to death by kneeling on his
neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. America’s anti-Black racism is being fully illuminated by a
parallel pandemic that casts, for the world to see, light on the inexplicable and unacceptable
systemic racism that exists at all levels of American society. In a June 11, 2020 tragedy, the body
of a young Black man, Robert Fuller, was found swinging from a tree in a Palmdale, California,
tree. Police immediately ruled the incident a suicide, and despite high racial tensions taking place
across the country, they completely dismissed the greater likelihood of this horrid crime being
committed by the KKK. June 13, 2020, Rayshard Brooks, 27, in Atlanta, Ga., fell asleep while
waiting in a Wendy’s hamburger drive-thru line. A more than 20-minute peaceful interaction
with Brooks suddenly took a turn, and Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed after allegedly
pointing a non-lethal weapon toward an officer. The unnecessary use of deadly force against
Black bodies, and now, their allies as well, is once again on full display. In the few short days
that it has taken me to write this final closing commentary, the world has once again sat still to
watch another murder of an unarmed Black man. August 25, 2020, Jacob Black, age 29, walking

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away from police, returning to his own car. Blake was shot seven times in the back, as his three
children and the world watched.

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Figure 1
Code-to-Code Relationships

Note. Code to code relationship chart which shows the complex intersection of the issues
associated with race.

180

Figure 2
Findings Chart RQ 1 w/ Co-Efficient Translation

Note. Findings explained according to the codes (coded data) that comprised the Codes for
theme categories assigned co-efficient labels for use as variables in applying theorization model.

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Figure 3
Application of Associative Property -Theme 1

Note. Applying the associative property of mathematics to visually express the intersectionality
of thought, behavior, and actions, that create complex racial experiences and understandings

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Figure 4
Findings Premise RQ1(a)

Note. Theme categories and related sub-categories examined as support for findings related to
the nature of the growth process.

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Figure 5
Narrative Support for Findings (by CODE)

Note. Participant narrative used to support findings; examined through code relationship data.

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Appendix A: Interview Script

185

Appendix B: Interview Protocol

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Appendix C: Hand-Coded Interviews

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Appendix D: Initial Open Codes

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Appendix E: Course Artifact (Syllabus p.1) [GPS]

189

Appendix F: Course Artifact (Syllabus-p.2) [GPS]

190

Appendix G: Course Artifact- (Syllabus-p.1) –[TPS]

191

Appendix H: Course Artifact- (Syllabus-p.2) –[TPS]

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Appendix I: Original Journal Note-TPS

193

Appendix J: Journal Note-GPS

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The primary objectives of the study were to explore how two teacher-educators developed greater awareness of anti-Black racism in academic settings, and how they maintained a commitment to multicultural education and operationalized those knowledges despite working in educational systems that perpetuate anti-Black sentiments and practices. This qualitative study used personal interviews from participants, surveys, video observation, curricular resources, and researcher journals to aid in the extraction of the greatest amount of data for examination. A heuristic analysis procedure that required moving continually and consistently between inductive and deductive reasoning and between description and interpretation was applied. This study builds on the complicated relationships that exist across the critical theories that are commonly used to examine race and racism. Critical Race Theory (CRT), Racial Identity Development Theory (RID), Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), Bodies Out of Place (BOP), Intersectionality Theory and Post-Colonial Theory, individually and collectively, supported the examination of the phenomenon of anti-Black racism in educational spaces. They additionally helped to position the theorization of anti-Black racism within the practice of teacher education. The abduction process unexpectedly helped to shape the procedures used for changing data into evidence in order to state the study findings. The findings indicate that the very hard and deeply metacognitive work that each person commits to doing, both personally and professionally, is effective in combating anti-Black racism and disrupting hegemonic structures. The findings indicate strongly that there is no one process that is best, and no one road on this journey leads directly to greater racial understanding. The data indicate that a curriculum which takes a knowledge as stance approach may enhance opportunities for actionable racial awareness and growth.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Perkins, Trudi Lynne (author)

Core Title Out of the darkness into the marvelous light: anti-Black racism awareness in teacher education

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 12/14/2020

Defense Date 08/17/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag anti-Black racism,critical race theory,OAI-PMH Harvest,racial awareness,Teacher education

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Green, Alan (committee chair), Garcia-Montano, Guadalupe (committee member), Hinga, Briana (committee member)

Creator Email tlperkin@usc.edu,trudiperkins3@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-413668

Unique identifier UC11668228

Identifier etd-PerkinsTru-9041.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-413668 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-PerkinsTru-9041.pdf

Dmrecord 413668

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Perkins, Trudi Lynne

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA