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Anti-Racism Teach-Ins:
Safe Spaces to Tackle White Supremacy
By Lynne Hamer, Ph.D.,
Special to The Truth
A series of teach-ins open to the community hosted via
Zoom and especially intended for teachers will explore
white supremacy. Rooted in the 1950s and ‘60s civil rights
and Vietnam war protests, a teach-in is simply an
activity intended to share knowledge and generate energy
toward confronting an important political issue.
That political issue is white supremacy. As the event flyer
notes, “Formal education represents and reproduces the white
supremacy that is inherent to the material taught, the
discipline dispensed, and the teaching and administrative
faculty hired and fired.” Yet, the organizers find, formal
educational institutions—that is, P-12 schools, colleges and
universities—find it risky even to voice the words “white
supremacy.” |
Shingi Mavima, PhD |
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That is why this series is not sponsored by a school or
university, but is instead led by individuals who teach and
study at the University of Toledo. Following the killing of
George Floyd in Minneapolis, faculty and students came
together in weekly Zoom meetings and crafted a plan
with a purpose: “The purpose of this ongoing series of
teach-ins is to collaborate with teachers in P-12, higher
education and community settings to name, describe, and undo
the white supremacy that structurally constitutes and
culturally informs the organizations in which we work.”
The series is not limited to UToledo leadership. The group
hopes that the teach-ins will gather momentum and be
ongoing. Teach-ins typically recognize a wide variety of
types of expertise and sources of knowledge—street
knowledge, life knowledge, ancestral knowledge, and book
knowledge. At each teach-in, participants will think about
what further information and knowledge they would like to
pursue.
Shingi Mavima, PhD, assistant professor in the UToledo
history department, kicks off the series on Monday, August 3
at 5 pm on the topic, Why Afrocentricity? The Importance
of an African-Centered Approach. Mavima emphasizes that
“pluriversalism is the answer—not white supremacy nor
black supremacy, which seems to be the fear. Marginalized
kids need to see themselves in positive positions of power,
but mainstream white kids also need to see marginalized kids
in positions of power.”
As Mavima indicates, talking about white supremacy and
figuring out how it affects teaching in our schools and
universities does not have to feel dangerous. As stated on
the teach-in flyer, “We need to work through the problem of
white supremacy at all levels of education and these
teach-ins are safe spaces to do that—offering tools to use,
knowledge we haven’t had, and the opportunity to practice
discussion in a skillfully facilitated space.”
Dale Snauweart, PhD, professor and co-coordinator of peace
studies at UToledo, will present the second teach-in on
Wednesday, August 5 at 5 pm. With the title Pedagogy of
Reflective Inquiry: Racist Policy and Anti-Racist Teaching,
Snauweart describes, “The
purpose of this session is to engage participants in a
pedagogy of ethical, critical, and contemplative reflective
inquiry concerning the nature of Racial Inequity, Racist
Policy, and Racism.” Snauwaert will draw on the work of
Ibram X. Kendi, whose book How to be an Anti-Racist
has become very popular in the past few months and whose
ideas provide a framework for the teach-in series.
Snauwaert’s session will offer participants an opportunity
to engage in a form of Anti-Racist teaching.
The series continues with a range of topics, all addressing
white supremacy from different angles.
Political
science professor Renee Heberle, PhD, emphasizes,
“We must not be naïve about how white supremacy produces and
reproduces itself through channels of economic, social and
political power. Understanding how it works through the
institutions and practices of teaching is one critical piece
of coming to terms with how to end it.” Heberle will address
Teaching About White Violence in Black Communities in
a teach-in session. She explains, “While discourse and
language don’t themselves change the world, shifting how we
remember and describe white violence, the topic of my
workshop, can help expose the ways white supremacy hides and
reproduces itself in discourse and language.”
Chelsea Griffis, PhD, assistant professor in the UToledo
history department, will address Exposing and Challenging
White Privilege as her teach-in. Griffis plans to
provide
"actionable tools to begin or facilitate classroom
discussions, while recognizing the myriad other identities
also embodied by communities and people of color." Griffis’
commitment to a practical approach to challenging topics is
shared among the presenters of the ten sessions.
UToledo art education professor Jason Cox, PhD, an organizer
of the series, quotes artist-teacher
Alyssa Liles-Amponsah as saying, "Acknowledgement is the
first step to change." Cox feels that “for education to meet
its promise, it requires critical reflection on and
confrontation of the part we educators have played in
perpetuating systems that fail to provide the equity we
claim to believe in. Once our flaws have been seen and
acknowledged, we can begin to act and become the
institutions our students need instead of the ones they have
been given."
Appropriately, Cox’s session later in the month will be
entitled, Crap, my curriculum is racist? What do I do?
He will share strategies for identifying how inherited
racist practices infiltrate curriculum even when a teacher,
like himself, does not want to be racist. Cox says, “Don’t
panic when you find everything you’re doing is racist”;
instead, just start taking
little steps to make everything anti-racist.
The 10 faculty and students who have banded together to
organize the Anti-Racism Teach-Ins as a safe space in
which all participants—including themselves—can begin or
continue to take small but substantial steps. White
supremacy won’t be cracked in ten sessions, and none of the
presenters imagine that they know all the answers. The
organizers hope that other presenters and topics will emerge
as the teach-ins progress and the work will be ongoing.
The author is one of the organizers
Anti-Racism Teach-Ins. She is professor of educational
theory and social foundations and will be contributing
Knowing the Past Makes Sense of the Present: White Violence
and School Segregation in Toledo later in the series. The
teach-ins are open to the public with a special invitation
to teachers who want a safe space to work together to learn
about, challenge and change white supremacy in schools.
Join in Zoom meetings, 5-6 pm Mondays and Wednesdays, August
3 until Labor Day, at
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87347454267,
meeting ID: 873 4745 4267. On Facebook, follow
Anti-Racism Teach-Ins at
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100053978557767
for the schedule and links to materials shared in teach-ins.
When the coronavirus is under control and limitations on
gatherings are lifted, sessions will take place at the Mott
Branch Library and continue to be accessible via Zoom. The
Anti-Racism Teach-Ins are supported by The
Sojourner’s Truth, which will make resources from the
sessions available on its website.
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