Moving the Needle: (Re)Imagining Antiracist Education for Our Children

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the vast social-psychological, economic, and political inequities in our society. Education has become even more important than before to counter systemic oppression and institute justice. Parents, students, and educators are thrown into chaos where opportunity and access are diminished and dissipated. This essay reports on critical conversations between two mothers who are teacher-scholars whose children were subjected to the subtle but profound practices of othering in public schools. Using vignettes, we interrogate and (re)think the taken-for-granted Eurocentric approaches to education that arguably marginalized our children and insidiously masked their cultural heritage. We engage in auto-ethnographic narrative inquiry to capture how we, as social beings, live in relation to those whose words and actions impact us and shape our existence. We share four vignettes about our struggles with difference, othering, dismissal, and alienation: 1) “Thank You for Your Email”; 2) It takes quite a bit; 3) We can do more!; and 4) Our History, Our Existence, Redacted. This essay offers narratives that are contextual, temporal, partial, and becoming.

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Multicultural Perspectives

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