Walking the Color Line: The Art and Practice of Anti-Racist Teaching (Teaching for Social Justice, 3)

208 Pages·2000·53.59 MB·English

by  Mark Perry

The Teaching for Social Justice Series
William Ayers Therese Quinn
Series Editor Associate Series Editor
Editorial Board: Hal Adams, BarbaraB owman, Lisa Delpit, Michelle Fine,
Maxine Greene, Caroline Heller, Annette Henry, Asa Hilliard, Rashid Khalidi,
Gloria Ladson-Billings, Charles Payne, Mark Perry, Luis Rodriguez,
Jonathan Silin, William Watkins
Walking the Color Line: ThAer t and Practice of Anti-Racist Teaching
MARKP ERRY
The Public Assault on America’s Children: Poverty, Violence,
and Juvenile Injustice
VALERIE POLAKOW, EDITOR
Construction Sites: Excavating Race, Class, and Gender Among UYrobuatnh s
LOISW EIS AND MICHELLFEIN E, EDITORS
A Simple Justice: The Challenogfe S mall Schools
WILLIAM AYERS, MICHAEL KLONSKAYN,D GABRIELLHE. LYONE, DITORS
Holler If You Hear Me: The Educationof a Teacher and His Students
GREGORY MICHIE
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
WALKING THE
COLORL INE
The Art and Practice of
Anti-Racist Teaching
MARKP ERRY
Teachers College, Columbia University
New York and London
In Memoryo f Edward Brown, Fanon Nickerson,
Mark and Ragna P e q a nd Laura Larsen
Published by Teachers College Press,1 234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027
Copyright 0 2000 by Teachers College,C olumbia University
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced otrr ansmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any
information storage and retrieval system,w ithout permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pew, Mark, 1948-
Walking the color line : the art and practice of anti-racist teaching / Mark Peq.
p. cm. - (The teaching for social justice series)
Includes bibliographical referencesa nd index.
ISBN 0-8077-3965-(0cl oth)- ISBN 0-8077-3964-(2pb k.)
1. Racism-Study and teaching-United States-Case studies. 2. Race relations-
United States-Case studies. 3. Teaching-Social aspects-United States-Case
studies. 4. Educational sociology-United States-Case studies. I. Title. II. Series.
LC192.2 .P47 2000
305.8'0071-d~21
00-02.3416
ISBN 0-8077-3964-(2p aper)
ISBN 0-8077-3965-(0c loth)
Printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in theU nited States of America
07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Series Forewordb y William Ayen and Therese Quinn vi i
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
PART I Setting the Stage i
PART II The Aztlan Alternative Years 13
Guidepost 15
I The SchoolY earB egins 17
2 Anthony 26
3 Rosa’s LostM oney 29
4 Claudio, Carmen, and Flora 31
5 Bobbya nd Willie 33
6 On Strike 38
Guidepost 46
7 TheC entrismD ebate 47
8 New Teachers’M eetings 53
9 Teacher Talka nd Culture 55
IO The StudentsR espond 62
I I Loisaa nd Jacobo 67
I2 Personal Thoughts 71
l3 The End of a Long Four Months 73
Guidepost 76
V
vi CONTENTS
14 Signs of Change 77
IS Jaime 84
16 Lucia 87
I7 Hitting Rock Bottom 89
I8 Dancing the Night Away 92
I9 StudentE valuation Committee 96
20 Talking with Teachers 98
2 l The Retreat 103
Guidepost I 09
22 Another Beginning I IO
23 Face to Face with Adolfo I l9
24 The Teachers Talk with Adolfo I 24
25 Javier 127
26 Danny 132
27 Benito ,134
28 MariaE lena 136
29 TheS mokingL ounge 137
30 Getting High at Lunch 138
31 Flaco 140
32 The Impact and Management Teams 142
33 Can We Save the School? I 46
34 The Sweat 150
35 FinaD l ays 156
36 Epilogue 164
PART 111 The Road Traveled Creatinga n Engaged Pedagogy I 67
References 185
Index 187
About the Author 191
Series Foreword
Teaching for social justice might be thought of as a kind of popular
education-of, by, and fort he people-something that lies at theh eart
of education in a democracy,e ducation toward a more vital, momreu s-
cular democratic society. It can propel us toward action, away from
complacency, remindingu s of the powerful commitment, persistence,
bravem and triumphs of our justice-seeking forebears-women and
men who sought to build a worldt hat worked for us all. Abolitionists,
suffragettes,l aboro rganizers,c ivil rights activists:W ithout them,
liberty would today be slighter, poorer, weaker-the American flag
wrapped around an empty shell-a democracy of form and symbol
over substance.
Rousseau argues in regard to justice that equality “must not be
understood to mean that degrees of power and wealth should be ex-
actly the same,” but only that with respect to power, equality renders
it “incapable of all violence” and only exertedi n thein terest of a freely
developed and participatory law and that with respect to wealth, “no
citizen should be so opulent that he can buy anothera,n d none so poor
that he is constrained to sell himself.” The quest for equality and social
justice over many centuries is worked out in the open spaces of that
proclamation, in thec oncrete struggleso f human beings constructing
and contesting all kinds of potential meanings within that ideal. Noth-
ing is settled, surely, once and for allb, ut a different ordero f question
presents itself: should be included? What do we owe onaen other?
Who
What is fair andu nfair?
This series gathers together exampleso f popular education being
practiced today, as well as clear and new thinking concerning issues
democracy, social justice, and educational activism. Many contri-
of
butions will be grounded in practice and will, we hope, focus on the
complexities built into popular education: difficulties, set-backs,s uc-
cesses, steps forward-work that reminds us of what Bernice Johnson
vii
viii SERIES FOREWORD
Reagon calls “the sweetness of struggle.” We seek as well, developing
theoretical work that might push us all forward as we labor to grasp
anew the meaning of democracy in changing times, the demands of
justice, and the imperatives of social change. We want to encourage
new voices and new ideas, and in all cases to contribute to a serious,
grounded, thoughtful exchange about the enduring questions in educa-
tion: Education fowr hat? Education forw hom? Education towardw hat
kind of social order?
If society cannot be changed under any circumstances, if there is
nothing to be done, not even small and humble gestures toward some-
thing better,w ell, that about ends all conversation. Our sense of
agency shrinks, our choices diminish. What more is there to say? But
if a fairer, more sane, and just social order is both desirable and pos-
sible, that is, if some of us can join one another to imagine and build
a participatory movement for justicea, public space fotrh e enactment
of democratic dreams, our field opens slightly. There would still be
much to be done, forn othing would bee ntirely settled. We would still
need to find ways to stir ourselves from passivity, cynicism, and de-
spair; to reach beyond the superficial barriers that wall us off from
one anotherj to resist the flattening effects of consumerism and the
blinding, mystdymg power of the familiar social evils( such as racism,
sexism, and homophobia); to shake off the anesthesizing impact of
most classrooms, most research,a nd the authoritative, official
of
voices that dominate the airwaves and the media; and to, as Maxine
Greene says, “release ouri maginations” and act on behalf of what the
known demands, linking our conduit firmly to our consciousness.W e
would be moving, then, without guarantees, but with purpose and
hope.
Education is an arena of struggle as well as hope-struggle because
it stirs in us the need to look at thew orld anew, to question what we
have created,t o wonder what is worthwhile for human beings to know
and experience-and hope because we gesture toward the future, to-
ward the impending, towardt he coming the new. Education is where
of
we ask how we might engage, enlarge, and change our lives, andi t is,
then, where we confront our dreams and fight ounro tions of the good
life, where wet ry to comprehend, apprehend, or possibly even change
the world. Education is contested space, a natural site of conflict-
sometimes restrained, other times in full eruption-over questions of
justice.
The work, of course, is never done. Democracyi s dynamic, a corn-
munity always in the making. Teachingf or social justice continues the
SERIES FOREWORD ix
difficult task of constructing and reinvigorating a public. It broadens
the table, so that more may sit together. Clearly, we have a long, long
way to go. And we begin.
William Ayers, Series Editor
l'lzerese Quinn, Associate Series Editor