CRT Discussion Leadership

Discussion Leader: Kim Everett

What is the overall purpose to Critical Race Theory?
What do you think the purpose is?
  • Purpose of CRT is based on action/praxis – Race is endemic – it moves further — what are the actions we will take to 
Ladson-Billings, Tate — It is a step to take to get rid of all parts of oppression – are there any thoughts there?
  • We have a long way to go…
  • If it is not race it will be something else
  • Race is a good place to start… racial identity is a good place to start
  • I like to optimistic about things… other forms of oppression — the race piece – formation and construction – are different thing — tied to property
Why do we need to unpack race?
  • Race is complex because it is changing constantly… 
  • Because of the dominant narrative it is hard to unpack it
If race is socially constructed – why do we want to base something on the phantom thing called race?
  • Because it is real…
  • It still informs decisions we make…
  • It is my identity… I want a theory that helps describe my culture
What does it mean to be socially constructed?
  • There is no biological underpinnings for it – a set of rules were established for the sake of classification – there are no real rules — they are constantly changing
  • We all follow it – we all buy into it – it may look different from generation to generation but it is still there…
What are some of the tenets behind CRT

Key Assumptions Underlying Critical Race Theory
Handout from Critical Race Theory on July 9, 2008

  • Race is socially constructed product of social thought and relations.
  • Racism is normal, ordinary and ingrained into society, making it difficult to recognize.
  • Traditional claims of neutrality, objectivity, and color-blindness must be contested in order to reveal the self-interests of dominant groups.
  • Social justice platforms and practices are the only way to eliminate racism and other forms of oppression and injustice.
  • The experiential knowledge of communities of colors or their “unique voice” is valid, legitimate, and critical toward understanding the persistence of racial inequality.
  • Communities of color are differentially racialized depending on the interests of the dominant group.
  • History and historical contexts must be taken into consideration in order to challenge policies and practices that affect people in color.
  • The ideological contestation, deconstruction, and reconstruction of race is often demonstrated through storytelling and counter-narratives.

Peobeus Discussion: The Beginning of CRT

Dr. Leigh’s discussion

Derrick Bell, University of New York

Richard Delgado
Kimberly Crenshaw
William Tate
Author’s for next week
William H. Watkins, University of Illinois
“The White Architects of Black Education: Idealogy and Power in America 1865-1954”
Did we find anything challenging?
Terms & Constructs
What does the term pedagogy mean to you?
  • The method in which I teach others
  • method of teaching
What does the term epistemology mean to you?
  • The way in which I know — method of knowing
What is Hegemony?
  • Ruling/Authority
  • Dominant Narrative
  • Power/Controlling
  • Deemed Normative
  • Never-ending
Hegemony
Stock Story
Grand Narratives
Majoritarian Stories
Dominant Ideas
Ideas diffused through and infiltrated in society

“Hegemony supposes the existence of something which is truly total, which is not merely secondary or superstructural… but what is lived at such a depth, which saturates the society to such an extend, and which… even constitutes the substance and limit of common sense for most people under its sway, that it corresponds to the reality of social experience…” (Williams, 1980, p. 37 as cited in Martusewicz & Reynolds, 1994, p. 71).

What do you know about Critical Theory?
  • Challenge the status quo
  • Power and dominance
  • Oppressed and the oppressor
  • Marxist Philosophy — economic base and means and production || hierarchy of production || socioeconomic class
  • Exposing power relationships, dominance and injustices
  • Reproduction Theory: The way our relationships are set-up – we will continue to have the system
  • Resistance Theory
  • Critical Theory Spin-offs: Feminist THeory || Critical Legal Studies || Critical Race Theory || Black Feminist Thought || Queer Theory

Creating an Integrative, Consonant Pedagogy

Creating an Integrative, Consonant Pedagogy
January 2009

Laura I. Rendón
Professor & Chair
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Iowa State University
My Learning Inquiry: Core Question
What is the experience of working with an integrative, nondual, consonant pedagogy in higher education?

Core Agreements About Research

  • The agreement that quantitative research is superior to all other research methods.
  • The agreement that truth results when the researcher remains a detached observer.
  • The agreement that intellectual training and analysis alone provide the road to understanding.
  • The agreement that non-Western views of truth as espoused by Third World perspectives, as well as Indigenous Knowledge, are at best objectified as “the other” and at worst, as primitive and anti-intellectual.

Marginalization of Indigenous Knowledge

Ontological Perspectives in Anti-Colonial Research

  • We are whole human beings–intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual
  • We exist in relationship
  • Humanity seeks belonging

Epistemic Perspectives in Anti-Colonial Research

  • Knowing is fluid, a journey, a process, a quest for knowledge and understanding
  • Transdisciplinarity–learning occurs across, between, beyond and outside all disciplines.
  • Honors diverse ways of knowing and recognizes that truth comes in many forms
  • Trusts the ways of knowing of Indigenous People, as well as the power of traditional knowledge

Epistemic Perspectives in Anti-Colonial Research

  • Grounded in not knowing and openess to knowing
  • Union/deep engagement of the knower with what is to be known
  • Unitive nature of science and the divine
  • Self-reflexivity–focus on introspection. What is the truth I seek to find? How is this study related to me and the world? What is the deeper meaning of this study? How will this study truly make a difference?
  • Grounded in subjectivity of the researcher, and the relationship between the researcher and what is being researched

Epistemic Perspectives in Anti-Colonial Research

  • Truth evolves in the relationship between conventional knowing (i.e. Western ways of knowing, scientific method in social and behavioral sciences, objectivity, etc.) and postconventional knowing (i.e., intuitive, multiperspectival, engaged, participatory, etc.)
  • Feeling and thinking are simply “a choice of ways and explorations” (Lorde, 1984, p. 101) to seek knowledge and form truths.

Spiritual/Theoretical Framework Based on Indigenous Knowledge


  • The Quiche Maya view dualities as complementary, rather than opposed, and believe that the realms of the divine and human actions are connected through mutual attraction–Tedlock, 1996
  • The Maya cosmos is based on the principle of the unity of existence
  • For the Aztecs, a creative act results from the interaction and exchange between two opposites.

Aztec Philosophy of Flor Y Canto/Flower and Song

  • In the Aztec cosmos, there is the principle of in xochitl,
  • in cuicatl (flor y canto/flower and song). Principle of 
  • employing the heart in search for individual 
  • growth and universal truth
  • What is the poetic character of teaching and learning? What is the flor y canto of teaching and learning?

Methodological Approach
Heuristic Research (Moustakas, 1990). Heuristic research is a:

  • “[P]rocess of internal search through which one discovers the nature and meaning of experience and develops methods and procedures for further investigation and analysis. The self of the researcher is present throughout the process and, while understanding the phenomenon with increasing depth, the researcher also experiences growing self-awareness and self knowledge (p. 9)
  • Like phenomenology, heuristic inquiry involves understanding a phenomenon in human experience. However, heuristics puts equal emphasis on both the persons experiencing the phenomenon and on the researcher. It requires that the researcher have the experience being explored, has researcher self-awareness in the foreground, and portrays the intrigue and personal significance involved with the search to know.

Methodological Approach
Transpersonal Research

  • Grew out of the field of transpersonal psychology “epicentered” in northern California
  • One early innovator was Abraham H. Maslow
  • “Transpersonal psychology seeks to honor human experience in its fullest and most transformative expressions. It is usually identified as the ‘fourth force’ in psychology, with psychoanalytic, behaviorist, and humanistic psychologies as its historical predecessors…Whenever possible, transpersonal psychology seeks to delve deeply into the most profound aspects of human experience, such as mystical and unitive experiences, personal transformation, meditative awareness, experiences of wonder and ecstasy, and alternative and expansive states of consciousness”–Anderson (1998) p. xxi

Position I: Creating an Integrative, Consonant Pedagogy

  • Connects inner learning (working with emotion, reflective processes, subjective views, etc.) and outer learning (working with intellectual activities such as reasoning problem-solving, etc.)
  • Diverse forms of contemplative practice used to engage the learner deeply in the material

Contemplative Practice

  • “Contemplative practices quiet the mind in order to cultivate a personal capacity for deep concentration and insight” Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
  • “Contemplative education unlocks the power of deep inward observation, enabling the learner to tap into a wellspring of knowledge about the nature of the mind, self and other that has been largely overlooked by traditional, Western-oriented liberal education” Naropa University
  • Examples: meditation, mindful walking, ritual, storytelling, poetry, music, communing with nature, free-writing, photographs, community work where social justice themes are highlighted, etc.

Uses of Contemplative Practice

  • Professor Norma Cantu, English, UTSA || Using guided imagery in writing
  • Professor Alberto Pulido, Ethnic Studies, University of San Diego || Cajitas (sacred boxes) Project

Difrasismo

  • Aztec literary device
  • Dialectical space where two concepts, critically examined to reveal both how they differ and complement each other, illuminate a larger reality.
  • Examples: 
  • Sky.earth.world
  • You.me.belong
  • in xochitl.in cuicatl.beauty

Knowledge & Wisdom
Knowledge

  • Goal is to acquire facts
  • Focus on outer experience
  • Begins from “objective” space
  • Based on rationality
  • Interpreted by detached observers

Purchasing Life

What our group chose:
Community 5
Health 5
Happiness 5
Education 10
Identity 5
Peace 5
Love 10
Awareness 5

Choices Given:
Health 5
Happiness 5
Hope 10
Wealth 20
Wisdom 10
Culture 10
Fame 15
Identity 5
Community 5
POwer 20
Intelligence 5
Respect 10
Physical Ability 10
Courage 5
Religion 10
Acceptance 10
Talent 10
Awareness 10
Safety 10
Leadership 5
Understanding 5
Peace 5
Family 10
Adjustment 5
Education 10
Humor 5
Mental Ability 5
Motivation 5
Social Status 20
Resiliency 10
Beauty 15

U.S. Constitution and U.S. Slavery, Discussion Starter

Dr. Leigh Discussion Leader
  • Davis, A. Y. (1983). Women, race & class. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
  • Bell, D. (1987). And we are not saved: The elusive quest for racial justice. New York, NY: BasicBooks

Genderless and sexually abused

  • Using rape as a weapon
  • Breeding ability for women
  • Slave owner had an agenda when it came to the type of ideas
  • Did not want one gender to get authoritative 
  • Jobs were given out to people no matter what the gender is with respect to work
  • Black Women were not seen as women — they were not deemed fit
  • True White Womanhood were dainty, and Black Women were not considered any gender
  • Black Women suffered in a different way… sexual abuse and having children taken away… 
Explain how it was possible for this contradiction to play out in reality
What connections can be made between those descriptors of the enslaved Black female? (How did these characteristics benefit the slave owner?)
Status of children determined by mother (Lerner)
  • “party sequiter ventrum” child follows condition of the mother (Davis) **
  • ** Partus sequitur ventrem. The offspring follow the condition of the mother. This is the law in the case of slaves and animals; 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 167, 502; but with regard to freemen, children follow the condition of the father.
In your opinion are Black families today more or less matriarchal than patriarchal (or neither)? Explain.
  • Is it a perception that they are matriarchal? (Many people nodded).
  • Davis’s piece speaks to how Black women are not written about in history because of the White power. 
  • If there is no man, the perception is it is matriarchal.
  • Lerner spoke about “Fighting and Kicking” the mother refused to be dominated by the master.
  • Davis made mention of the Black male role as isolated
  • If it is matriarchal – so what… why does it matter? why should we allow men to be in power?
What is Davis’s stance on the notion that the Black slave family was ‘matriarchal’?
Was there evidence in the slave narrative you read to support or refute this view?
If you liked Bell, what was appealing?
  • V, “When I first started reading Black authors, I only read women. When I read Bell, he captured the essence. It made me think about it.”
  • R, “It is a fascinating what if…”
  • A, “One is the storytelling bringing fact and fiction together; Secondly, I wondered why he chose a Black woman to defend everything he does… You could have chose a Black male, or child – why a Black woman? If Black men were 3/5 of a man then Black women were not anything…” 
  • K, “It makes you think of all the different sides, history, and how it all may have played out differently.”
If you didn’t like Bell, what hindered your understanding?
If you could send Geneva anywhere, where would it be?
  • Sit in on the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and how Black women should have been a part of the experience.
  • A H.S. staff meeting or in-service
  • Brown
  • Black Church and addressing the role of Women Preachers
  • Talk to Bill Clinton about welfare reform
What was the nature of slavery before the transatlantic slave trade?

• American slavery was property driven, and African’s were not considered people
• Slavery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
What do you know about Triangle Trade?

http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces

In what ways did the U.S. Constitution protect slavery?
The Constitution and Slavery:
Provisions in the Original Constitution
Article I, Section. 2 [Slaves count as 3/5 persons]
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons [i.e., slaves].
Article I, Section. 9, clause 1.  [No power to ban slavery until 1808]
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. Article IV, Section. 2. [Free states cannot protect slaves]
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article V [No Constitutional Amendment to Ban Slavery Until 1808]
…No Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article.

The Thirteenth Amendment
Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

What motivated them?
Profit
To create a Federal Government that all the states would sign

Reflections on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution
Thurgood Marshall , May 6, 1987
http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=1142

How did Black slaves resist?
  • Giving up life before getting here
  • Women killing their children so they do not have to live in slavery
  • Dropping white children
  • Grinding up glass and putting it in the Master’s food

Ch. 1 In Secret Places: Acquiring Literacy in Slave Communities
Self-taught
Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

  • free-enslaved father, free mother
  • Called for armed resistance
  • Linked literary to slavery’s demise
  • 60 copies confiscated in Georgia
  • Quarantined ships passed new laws in punishments
Africans in America: America’s Journey THrough Slavery [videorecording] PBS/WGBH Boston Video

“See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand your won language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776 — “We hold these truths to be self evident — that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! ! that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! !” Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Indep
endence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us — men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation! ! ! ! ! “

David Walker’s Appeal, In Four Articles: Together With A Preamble To The Coloured Citizens Of The World, But In Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those Of The United States Of America, revised Edition with an Introduction by Sean Wilentz
Hill and Wang, New York, 1995
A Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Shattering the Institutional Belief System: New Agreements for Higher Education

Laura I. Rendón
Professor & Chair
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Iowa State University

A Question About Learning

  • Think about education in general. What are the most important things you would like for students to learn?

Creating a Pedagogy of Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation

  • What are the characteristics of a teaching and learning model that speaks to wholeness, social justice and liberation?
  • What works against this kind of pedagogy in American higher education?
  • How would students be impacted by this kind of pedagogy?
  • Transforming Teaching & Learning
  • If we can see it is our agreements which rule our life, and we don’t like the dream of life, we need to change the agreements–Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements (1997)
Transformation: Confronting and Challenging the Institutional Belief System

  • Each institution has a shared belief system (overt and covert) that we agree to follow
  • Rewards and punishments based on following these beliefs and values
  • Many fear punishment for going against the belief system 
  • The dominant belief system is powerful, entrenched, validated and constantly rewarded
  • It is the consciousness with which institutions operate
Shattering the Belief System About Diversity

Moving Forward in Affirming Diversity

  • Interrogate prevailing belief system
  • Beliefs (agreements) are part of the hegemonic structures*/norms that perpetuate the status quo
  • Developing new beliefs or modifying present agreements can result in a new institutional consciousness that affirms diversity and inclusive learning environments
  • “Hegemony refers to the maintenance of domination not by the sheer exercise of force but primarily through consensual social practices, social forms, and social structures produced in specific sites such as the church, the state, the school, the mass media, the political system, and the family”–McLaren, 1989. 

The Agreement to 
Resist Engaging the Topic of Diversity

  • Diversity cannot be discussed openly because the topic creates tensions and makes people feel uncomfortable (hooks, 1994)
  • New Agreement: Diversity is an institutional value which may create discomfort for some; however, working through and resolving difficult issues can be liberating and rewarding. Diversity is a concept that disrupts complacent and unexamined attitudes to move forward with institutional transformation to affirm all people.
The Agreement to 
Minimize Diversity

  • Diversity requires only minor changes to the institution.
  • New Agreement: Diversity involves making structural changes throughout the institution (i.e., faculty and staff hires, student recruitment, curriculum, campus climate, planning and accountability, scholarship of diversity)–(Rendón,et al., 2007) 

Shattering the Belief System About 
Teaching and Learning


The Agreement of Monoculturalism

  • Almost exclusive validation of Western structures of knowledge (i.e., individual achievement, rationality, and subjugation of knowledge created by women, indigenous people and people of color)
  • Course offerings which preserve the superiority of Western civilization (i.e., belief that Western science contains the history of all science, adherence to conceptions of scientific rationality, objectivity and progress to distinguish the “civilized” from the “primitive”)
  • Dominance of faculty and administrators who subscribe to monocultural paradigms
  • Tuhiwai Smith (1999); Churchill (1982); Hills Collins (2000) Hurtado (1996); Arredondo, et al., 2003; Osei-Kofi, et al., (2004)
Recasting the Agreement

  • We need to change the agreement that Western ways of knowing are superior to all other forms of knowledge
  • What agreement would speak to the notion of embracing traditional, mainstream perspectives as well as knowledge generated by diverse people?
  • New Agreement: The agreement of multiculturalism and respect for diverse cultures

The Agreement to Privilege Mental Knowing

  • Privileges cerebral abilities such as verbal, scientific and mathematical ability
  • Prizes and rewards outer knowing (intellectual reasoning, rationality, and objectivity) at the expense of inner knowing (deep wisdom, wonder, sense of the sacred, intuition and emotions)
  • Yet, there are more than one or two intelligences
Diverse Ways of Knowing

  • Howard Gardner’s (1993) theory of multiple intelligences is predicated on 7 diverse ways of knowing. The first two–linguistic and logical-mathematical–are usually employed to construct IQ.
  • Gardner theorizes that linguistic and mathematical forms of intelligence may get a student into college, but that college achievement and success in life depend on all intelligences. 

Diverse Ways of Knowing

  • Daniel Goleman (1998) identified emotional intelligence (EQ) and its connection to neural systems in the brain. 
  • Goleman believes that EQ is more important than IQ for job performance and leadership. 
  • EQ has five elements:
  • Self-Awareness
  • Motivation
  • Self-regulation
  • Empathy
  • Adeptness in Relationships

Recasting the Agreement

  • We need to reframe the agreement that educational achievement and success in life depend solely on linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities.
  • What would be an example of a reframed agreement that is based not on a single approach to learning, but on multiple ways of knowing?
  • New Agreement: The agreement to work with diverse ways of knowing in the classroom.

Group Assignment

  • Identify an agreement (belief) that is present in higher education which needs to be transformed.
  • What different agreement would you like to see in place?

My Learning Inquiry: Core Question

  • What is the experience of working with an integrative, nondual, consonant pedagogy in higher education?

1000 Marbles

1000 Marbles

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time.

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind. He sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles”.

I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. “Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital.”

He continued, “Let me tell you something, Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities.” And that’s when he began to explain his theory of “a thousand marbles”.

“You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.” “Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part.”

“It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail” he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.”

“So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away.”

“I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”

“Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.”

“It was nice to meet you, Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 75 year Old Man, this is D9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!”

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.”

“What brought this on?” she asked with a smile. “Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids.” “Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.”

Peobeus Reflective Writing: Week One

In Bell’s book “Are We Not Saved” we are introduced to the concept of what if? and why not? and how the decisions were made for the Constitution. It is troubling to even think back to the time in which the Constitution of the United States was written, and how the country was constructed for its foundation for the future. Why were Black people still enslaved? In fact, why are Black people are still enslaved today.
One of the most powerful passages in the book was in regards to how the pattern of slavery may not be broken if it is allowed within the Constitution. In retrospect, I wonder if the founding leaders who wrote the Constitution understood the context of the words? 
Women 
3. What are the important issues that Lerner discusses in her writings about slavery and the struggle for survival? (from previous week)
4. Discuss Davis’ stance on the role of the Black female and Black male in the Black slave family. Do her views seem in line or at odds with what Lerner reports?
5. What were your intellectual and/or emotional reactions to the Lerner and Davis writings?
6. When possible, connect the Bell and Davis (and Lerner) readings and the Constitution to the following:
An important issue or discovery that surfaced during the class discussion on slavery (week 1).
A personal life experience (i.e. interaction with someone directly involved in slavery, a trip to a notable museum or to the African slave forts, etc.)
7. What implications do the issues addressed in Bell and Davis (and Lerner) have for the analysis or understanding of the education of Blacks in the U.S.? What impact does/did the Constitution and the attitudes of its framers have on the education of Blacks in the U.S.?

CI 578: Dr. Ladson-Billings

How did you come to this work and how did you come to view this as important – what are essential issues for education of Blacks today?
Norman Rockwell painting is an emblem of education of blacks.
My dad went through 3 years of grade school when there were only 4 months of school for Black children.
My mom had a decent education, and when she migrated to Philadelphia she did have a better education – a high school diploma.
My dad was incredibly smart – he could read – he didn’;t have any credentials. I was always fascinated with what it means to be an educated person.
You are shaped by personal
Emmet Till, was a 14 year old Chicago boy to go to visit relatives – he shared with his cousin and friends that he went to school with white children. the kids thought they were lying – he had an array of photos of classmates – and he said one of the white girls was his girlfriend (1954). The kids said, if you talk to white girls – you go talk to those white women… and he said,”Bye baby” to the white woman. That statement got him killed – the white owner of the store, and a friend – went to the home – shot him, mutilated his body, and then threw him in the creek. He had a ring, and that was the only way to know it was him. His mother said, we will have an open casket – people said, why are you doing it – she said, i want the world to see what they did to my baby. 
I was 7 years old.
I did not venture south until i was 25.
They would send me to NY with my great aunt.
If you look at the series of events when I was growing up – 
I went off to college in 1965, and in February Malcom X was killed, MLK in 68, RFK in 68.

My love affair with theory – was when I was a graduate student.
One of the things I wanted to do is theorize this thing called race.
William Tate is how I fell into Critical Race Theory – Tate was married to a lawyer, and read a lot of law stuff – and she was the first one to introduce us to Kimberly Crenshaw. Critical Race Theory was developed in law in UW-Madison.
What is CRT and why is it in education? Please read the tough stuff… when I checked the emails today – I received an email about wanting to do the right thing — when learning about CRT. Read the law articles… 
When I wrote a law article – it was about education (North Carolina Law Review)… I gave the talk – can we please have Plessey – I would rather have Plessey than a fake brown — 
The sky is blue and they will check every fact — who told you that?
What really drew me to CRT is that you can be — you can break boundaries – you can be intellectually playful – it was not formulated the same way as everything else… I found a theoretical perspective that showed stories were important – that you can use imagination – Hudland Brothers – Cosmic Slop — you could really speculate it.
The one book I really love – is are we not saved?

What part of South Carolina?
Dillon County, and the city. I was called to be an expert witness in the SC case — 8 counties being sued with district equality. It wasn’t just the rich districts – $10,000 differential between districts – and board certified – the case would be heard in Columbia in the capitol – the firm included… (name of firm: Reilly) they heard the case in Claredon county – same room… as Brown, etc. It was amazing to be in the same room as where the Brown case took place. The first thing was to discredit you – I had done a deposition first – I had the state attorney come and try to discredit me – by having it about class and not race. Who is William Ayers and what is your relationship to him? She said, you should ask the man next to you – he works with him every day. I had my own emails supeonad – death threats, etc. If this case would have gotten to trial – I said to the judge – I do a lot about race – and it went hand in hand… I said to the judge, “I am not from SC, other than visiting these schools – however – if my own father was permitted to go to school – The judge decided it was enough for me… It is amazing how much money is spent in law… I was mad at the guy… I was proud of the fact — the way the case is heard… they schedule them – there were not many people in the courtroom themselves – the first day was an accountant… when I did get off the stands – there were some elderly African-Americans – and they said, “we wanted to come to the courthouse, and were grateful it was you…” One of the challenges of testimony – is … leave all the academic stuff alone, trust the lawyers… shared story of equity – even if the schools think they are doing the right thing – they could still not being equitable… My daughter in 6th grade – they were doing math cognitive problems – one of the tasks was to make the toothpick bridge – it can still be inequitable – gave all the kids with 100 toothpicks — if you do not have a hot glue gun you cannot make a toothprick bridge… I am not someone who does crafts – my daughter asked me to get a glue gun – and it is HOT… I am a middle income parent who can do that – I can see how much it costs – she had classmates who lived in areas that they had to go home and close the door – if those kids asked for a glue gun – it would have to wait till pay day… Not everyone can make a prototype – the parents may have access to resources – the test of the bridge is to hold your math book – all 3 of us were working on this bridge – the daughter needed to go to bed to get on the bus – and my husband said – no, you are not going on this bus — made it safe in the car to drive it to school — even if you think you are doing the right thing — you have to bring it to the notice of the teachers… you are trying to teach the kids – but it was inequitable… When I got to court – they had built a toothprick bridge – and a powerpoint with a picture of a toothprick bridge — with the bridge to nowhere… 

Law is a fascinating subject…

In AERA I gave a discussion about landing on the wrong foot – talking about Brown – we pay the price for accepting Brown… I was at teh Center for Advanced Studies – and my cohort colleagues — in law – said, the law cannot do anything… the others were panicked but — the law does not need to get activated until you have to use it… There are laws that exist that have not been activated… California laws… 209, 227… 163 Proposition – making English the official language passed – what does it mean? No one knows what it means – until someone brings a case. Does the state name need to be changes? street names? city names? Brown is on the books – and there have been cases – but I thought — I thought it would be happening… 

Question: Chronicle to sacrifice Black children
Chronicle to sacrifice Black Children Part 2. Urban Redevelopment and revitalization in the cities – the school is always teh stumbling block – you can blow up all the housing projects – but what you bring back is not moderate housing – Urban Projects live in amazing places – the stumbling block is usually the school – the city fathers and mothers have to think about everything – they have a plan for housing, a plan for zoning — you do not have a plan for schools — instead, they add stringent policies – lots of choice, lots of ways to opt out of system – I inserted it in an article – everything has happened in a particular city.

About New Orleans…
It is absolutely horrible… I am telling you… the volume we did for AERA. The old man and the storm — our connection to that – is one of his daughters lived in Madison – when you watch it you get so angry…

Brown was an international policy — it was about putting things into place – it was a foreign policy. What it did for us was minimal… 50th anniversary – all of the authors said Brown was good… and Derrick Bell said, no… it wasn’t good.

Diana Hess – social studies educator – has done work with Supreme Court – one of the questions she has asked – out of all the cases, which one should all kids know about – they say: Brown.  Brown is a very revered piece of Americana – for me to speak against Brown is sacreligious – it came at a cost. Those black teachers knew they would lose their jobs – 38,000 jobs were lost and that did not include administrators – MS was impacted with no black teachers.

Talk at Chapel Hill, many years before – African American adults who left their segregated schools and went to integrate into the other schools. One of the things that happened – was we just came, but our history did not come with us… the teachers did not come, no trophies, nothing that we had done migrated to this place. They talked about how lonely the experience had been. 

My own undergraduates – my folks are going to be teachers… I use children and young adult literature – one of the books they are going to read is New Boy – it is about a kid who gets selected to go up to Conneticut  – and he is ambivilant to being there…

Question: There is more than just Black and white – how do you see things changing in Critical Race Theory?
Conceptual Blackness, and Conceptual Whiteness — these are shifting and changing — you do not have to have this colour skin to have conceptual blackness… it does not matter what colour those people are on Jerry Springer… On the other end – Barack Obama is being constructed… This is why Michelle is such a problem – he done married a black woman – these tensions… Hip-hop culture is a way to show the shifting — it has to do with the embodiment of what is Black and White — I went to Ghana and I was at a rural school way out in the country – and I was reading with a little girl on my lap, and she said, “you are a nice White lady…” and she thought… I went out to my roots and they rejected me… then, I thought – I traveled 6000 miles – I had the money to be there — the Whiteness – the Whiteness… White is a state of mind – (James Baldwin). It has become more apparent now… the person who opened my mind (Sylvia Winter) Sylvia said something (1980), Well, you know – OJ Simpson is a White man… because these things that we call race, class and gender are imaginary social indications – they mean what we want them to mean – because OJ has these things we will forgive the one thing he does not have… When all the craziness jumped off… and I called Syvlia, and I said, Are you watching this stuff… she said, “it is absolutely fascinating… it is marvelous… The thing that OJ did was betray the honorary Whiteness…. there was something about it…” There was a betrayal… Michael Jordan – it is not about Michael’s skin colour – he was conceptualized as White – 

This thing called race is very problematic — the binary for me is… when you think about a continuum – everyone else gets lined up on the continuum – we will put people closer to Conceptual Whiteness or Conceptual Whiteness… Latinos are Conceptually Black, and Asians are Conceptually White… these things are not static — Eminem is with Blackness – not Whiteness – it is hard to get your mind around when you think – this is white – this is black…

Gregory Howard – Life on the Colour Line

Group Dialogue: Speaking Broadly about Education

Speaking broadly about education, what do you think all students should learn?
To be good to each other
To share
To create
To collaborate
To learn knowledge
To develop knowledge
To grow
To be oneself
To listen
To reflect
To be…

What is the dream of education you seek to realize?
To be…
I think the greatest challenge in my life is to know I will always “be” and who and what I am should always be authentic. To not be someone I am not… To be true to myself and oneself…

Who in your life has fostered this learning?
My mother — teaching me to always learn from others, and to always strive to learn new things about myself
Ms. Hooley, 6th grade teacher, taught me I have paths to choose from — to be a positive leader or to be a negative leader
The people I have been surrounded by as I was learning… and knowing I would be something more one day