Two Perspectives on Fighting Structural Racism

The following pieces are two perspectives and recent narratives on the ways that race and racial justice have informed the work of the Caucus of Working Educators for the last year.

Caucus of Working Educators Centralizes Race in our Social Justice Analysis

Ismael Jimenez (Caucus of Working Educators, Kensington CAPA)

This past spring, Caucus Member and UPenn Ph.D. Candidate Rhiannon Maton facilitated an Inquiry to Action (ItAG) group to think about the connection between structural racism and the work of the Caucus of Working Educators (WE). The ItAG was run as a research study for Rhiannon’s doctoral dissertation.

The ItAG was made up of several members of WE, including myself, who came together to participate in dialogue surrounding race within the caucus. We thought it was important to think about race because of how much race frames the conversation about education consciously and unconsciously. After meeting for an intensive seven sessions, our group developed actions to be utilized within the Caucus of Working Educators and the larger education community in Philadelphia.

One of the actions that our group developed was a professional development session for other teachers and educator allies. We developed and facilitated over five professional development sessions that got people thinking more deeply about the effects of structural racism on education. Along with other members of our ItAG group, I participated in facilitating sessions at Central High School's citywide professional development day, the Teacher Lead Philly Summer Institute, as well as within my own school with my fellow staff-members during the beginning of the school year. I also plan to facilitate sessions surrounding structural racism at as many education gatherings as possible in the upcoming year.

Although race is an extremely difficult subject to dialogue about with others, I find that dialogue is a fruitful and an effective organizing tool. to utilize in bringing others Our conversations brought people together into the work of building a network of racially conscious educators who are dedicated to speaking honestly about the current racial reality that taints our understanding of ourselves and each other.

What is Structural Racism?

According to Lawrence and Keleher (2004), Structural Racism is the normalization and legitimization of an array of entrenched dynamics – historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal – that advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color which reinforce existent racially developed societal structures. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time. This definition reflects the distribution of material and symbolic advantage and disadvantage along racial lines while acknowledging the realignment of socio-political institutions developed throughout time to maintain continuity of racialized power systems.

What brought us together to do this work?

Our inquiry group was motivated to think about the effect of structural racism on education, our schools, and our organizing practice because of the continued deficits of a truly informed racial analysis being purposefully applied to understanding issues related to teaching and learning.Over the last 30 years, there has been a concerted effort in America to roll back gains achieved during the Civil Rights Movement like the ending of the enforcement clause of the Voting Rights Act and desegregation requirements within the School District of Philadelphia. Our society can no longer simply assume that racial progress is a natural occurrence without it necessitating purposeful struggle.

Schools in Philadelphia represent a microcosm of the nation’s failure overall orientation toward failing to confront structural racism in our nation. This failure to confront structural racism is demonstrated by the increase of racially isolated schools and the creation of new learning networks that reinforce structures of racism. With this knowledge at the forefront of constructing a viable analysis in order to build a sustainable collective movement, Any sustainable movement to transform education in Philadelphia a truly transformative program needs to be centered on race.

The Caucus of Working Educators has already began the work of providing a space to discuss and develop actions that take on surrounding structural racism. We have done this by:

We have done this first by engaging in the ItAG group to think about the connections between structural racism and our organization.
We have done this by creating a racial justice committee involving community members, parents, college professors, and teachers in Philadelphia.
SAnd we have done this by seeking out input from various individuals and organizations that already perform work surrounding structural racism. I am no way naive about the difficulty of changing patterns that have existed and reinforce structural racism, but the need to face our collective demon is obvious and evident.

I believe that in order to systematically create the conditions for transformation in our society, it is necessary to address the root causes of racism. This means recognizing those things that continue to restrict real progress in our society and those things which inspired past historical collective action and have created lasting change in our society. I contend that race exists at the intersection of all social issues affecting the American political economy, including issues ranging from class to gender. My contention is derived from an historical analysis of past and present social movements dedicated to addressing social justice concerns.

The strategy of addressing surface problems from neoliberal deform to resisting school closings simply continues to be an exercise of futility due to the issue of race as a driving motivation for the ability of our society to exploit people of color being neglected. This neglect in recognizing race as central to the problems in education creates the space for the majority of Americans to be shielded from the treatment of marginalization our children face.

Racism does not simply function as individual manifestations of overt bigoted diatribes, but as a structural force that informs our collective perceptions of each other, while preventing substantive modification to the socio-economic status quo tied to race. Therefore, the need to address structural racism through many angles is necessary for movement toward a more racially equitable society.

So, what can we do about it?

After meeting for an intensive seven sessions, our group developed actions to be utilized within the Caucus of Working Educators and the larger education community in Philadelphia.

Making Racial Justice a Launching Point

Shira Cohen (Caucus of Working Educators Supporting Member, Wissahickon Charter School)

As the 2015-2016 school year begins, students, families and educators feel the crisis in Philadelphia’s public education system acutely This September, the district, whose numbers surpass 130,000 students, will open without full staffs and resource bases. In this era of continued neighborhood racialized and economic segregation, a majority of students attending Philadelphia’s schools are young people of color whose educational opportunities continue to experience the de-funding of public education; divestment against sustained growth; school closures; and systematic attacks against students, families, and teachers.

Simultaneously across the nation, social and racial justice leaders have continued to amplify stories of police abuse against people of color, the New Jim Crow of mass incarceration, and constructed segregation around access to space and systems. #BlackLivesMatter, founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, has uplifted the movement to dismantle the systems that sustain white supremacy and institutional racism in the public and private sectors of American life. In order to effectively engage with educational justice movements in our own community, we must move to centralize discussions and actions around understanding and dismantling racism at individual and structural levels in our work.

For the last several months, conversations around racial justice have driven the work of the Caucus of Working Educators. We have attended marches, rallies, and meetings as individuals and as organizations in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter and the Philadelphia Coalition for Racial and Economic Justice. Nine of our members participated in a research study led by Rhiannon Maton examining the significance of racial justice for our organizing work in the Caucus. An inquiry to action group oriented around social justice unionism met in May with a focus on the racial demographics of caucus membership, meetings and work. Caucus members have led workshops on dismantling racism at personal, school-based, and organizational levels. A book series this past summer included twelve texts that focused specifically on the impacts and realities of structural racism, movements to dismantle it, and radical activist work in our current times in education systems and additional social institutions. In these varied spaces, we dissect how structural racism informs organizing practices; how building leadership of people of color must be central to the work of organizing that is rooted in communities of color; and how individuals must do their own personal work of targeting their own racism that can uphold the institutional structures at play.

Now, where are we going with this work?

On August 23, leaders in Caucus and the Teacher Action Group gathered for a retreat to continue the organizing and movement building work of these organizations’ visions. Throughout the day, we thought and moved around the eight point plan developed by early founders of TAG National; brainstormed forms of leadership and action at varying levels of the movement for educational justice; read and discussed the introduction to What’s Race Got to Do with It, (ed. Bree Picower and Edwin Mayorga); and developed plans for continuing to galvanize the Opt-Out movement, build the base of support for our movement, and create spaces for work around radical pedagogy. As an organization, the Caucus is striving to, centering race and racial justice in our organizing, and in our members’ personal and professional lives. We are striving to continue to grow joy and empowerment in our schools and classrooms.

This work comes to a head this year as we begin to think about what’s coming for a larger movement, the specific organizations to which we ally ourselves and work, and our own ongoing work as individuals. In order for our movement to intersect fully with a national push for racial justice, our personal understandings of privilege, power, and race must continue to evolve. This work occurs on our own, in small group conversations, larger mobilization spaces, and in meetings to plan for campaigns and actions. This work also takes place, in our critical analysis of the public education system where we breathe, live, teach, and learn.

Citations:

Lawrence, K., & Keleher, T. (2004, October 20). Chronic Disparity: Strong and Pervasive Evidence of Racial Inequalities/POVERTY OUTCOMES/Structural Racism. Lecture presented at Race and Public Policy Conference in Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation., Berkeley.