I have been trying to work through some feelings I've been having about a Professional Development Project I am participating in with my School Board. This journal is a little jumbled and hard to understand- the learning session was very difficult for me. Since writing my thoughts out helps me both a) process my feelings and b) organize my thoughts, I am hoping that this entry will help me explain my struggle more eloquently, and help me make a decision on how to proceed (or not proceed) with this project.
One of my core beliefs in all Anti-Black Racism work is that: "being antiracist is not only about challenging racism, but supporting the people who have been traumatized by it."
I’m feeling very conflicted about the CCPI project for a variety of reasons:
1. During the virtual session, an affinity space was offered to Black educators for support. Given that I knew the material that was going to be presented— and that I had a problem with that material— I tried to access the affinity space. When the link for the room was shared, it was introduced as a support space for Black educators; when that support was needed. Usage and time restrictions were not communicated to group. So, I went to the group. There were no support people in the group. I wrote that the group was “not very helpful, tbh.”
During the breakout group time, there was a response from the affinity group. This response was not in the spirit of the learning we are supposed to be doing. I got a non-apology by one of the leaders of the project; along with an excuse-- I wasn’t accessing the space at the appropriate time. An opportunity for growth missed by that leader. A proper apology would have asked how to do better or how to improve. Instead, I was told ‘you’re using it wrong.’ Why wasn’t support for the entire session available? I needed support from my employer who was leading this session. Instead, I went to cry in a bathroom, and had to call/ text family and friends for my own support.
2. My team resorted to use of AI for a draft of the part of our project we need to complete while I was out of the room, trying to compose myself. Why even do the project if we’re not writing it ourselves? If we are not using this opportunity to reflect and examine what we harm we cause and how to change it. That is the true point of an inquiry like this.
3. I have lived experience in this subject, and I have significant academic expertise in this work; but I feel neither are recognized or valued in discussions. I tried to guide the team in writing our own preamble for the project, and my guidance was dismissed. I feel the group is perpetuating a common issue I have dealt with in every project I’ve ever participated in: no one listens to black women, no matter how much expertise is on the table. It is becoming clearer to me that this project is not for teachers of color; it’s about helping our white colleagues understand the basics of racism. Still.
4. When I offer ideas, no one is adding to them or offering input or feedback. I don’t want to do all the work while at the same time not being listened to in broader conversations about the academic portions of the project.
5. The content shown this session is dated and problematic. Eye of the Storm is 55 years old and the follow-up Blue Eyed is 30 years old. And it focusses on a white woman. There has been more significant and more recent research done by scholars of color that would better fit with this project. My problem with Jane Eliot's work in this series-- I don’t want people to experience racism to understand – that just perpetuates the cycle. I don't want anyone to be treated the way Black folks are treated in society. Watching a teacher perpetuate this treatment on children and adult learners does not make me feel good or vindicated or justified— I feel just the opposite.
Experience does not equal empathy. More recent scholarship is focussed on ensuring white people have to listen to black people’s experience. It is an exercise in listening and dealing with guilt and other feelings blocking progress.
6. I don’t want to be a prop that demonstrates how disadvantaged black people are. It reminds me of an activity in which I participated in Teacher’s College.
7. I am struggling with my coworkers’ stage in this journey. We’ve acknowledged racism has been a problem for over 40 years in our school board. I went through the HWDSB in the 1990s and I see students experiencing the same things now. Teachers seems to be in the same place they were then. I hate that students are going through the same things I had to go through. Martin Luther King wrote in Letters from a Birmingham Jail,
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is [...] the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season.”
8. I’m dying of multiple-system organ failure and this has been my life’s work. I fought to come back to work so that I can continue to try to create change. But it feels like nothing has changed and I’m just tired of it. I want the joy outlined in the book we are encouraged to read. I want to focus on that joy for my students.
9. I’d rather run a black student group on my own and do some good at the school-level, and bring in that joy that is missing. I want to work with the Black students and help them feel pride, and the winds of change- even if the institutions they exist in are taking too long to make that change.
10. How do I share these feelings with the well-meaning White folks in this project….? Do I leave the project in hopes of not disrupting the productivity of the group? I am reminded of a quote from Reni Eddo- Lodge's book Why I Am No Longer Talking to White People About Race, "This emotional disconnect is the conclusion of living a life oblivious to the fact that their skin colour is the norm and all others deviate from it.... At best, white people have been taught not to mention that people of colour are “different” in case it offends us. They truly believe that the experiences of their life as a result of their skin colour can and should be universal. I just can’t engage with the bewilderment and the defensiveness as they try to grapple with the fact that not everyone experiences the world in the way that they do."