Teachers of Color Are 'Great!' as Long as Their Voices Are Not Too Black or Too Strong

Oct 26, 2016 12:00:00 AM

by Vivett Dukes

Negroes, Sweet and docile, Meek, humble and kind: Beware the day They change their mind!

—Langston Hughes

I've been getting some pushback about writing as a teacher of color and for focusing on Black and Brown issues within education. It is perceived by some as "separatist" and "divisive." I want to address this. There are White (and Black) teachers and administrators who teach students of color (SOCs) and work alongside teachers of color day in and day out who don't want to have the difficult conversations about race relations in this country. They are the ones who find my voice to be too Black, too strong. They, who are becoming an all-too-prominent portion of the teaching profession, do not want to be held accountable for teaching culturally-relevant pedagogy because it makes them feel "uncomfortable.” Yet they find it too political when TOCs like myself create and teach such curriculum. If you are guilty of believing this, [pullquote position="right"]please stop trying to wrangle and reel in our voices.[/pullquote] It's neither wanted nor welcomed. Quite frankly, it's too late for all of that! How can we not speak out when students of color are being gunned down and killed in the very neighborhoods where we teach them and live? I can't tell you how much pushback I have gotten over the course of my career as a teacher regarding my use of current events—specifically my use of news articles, pictures, and video footage about the killing of young men of color at the hands of police officers and each other—as a lens for teaching my students critical thinking, argumentative writing and debate skills. You know what's going on? I'll tell you: Systematic oppression and those who benefit from it or are mentally enslaved by such systems are scared because they know that teachers—particularly TOCs—have the unique power to start a long overdue paradigm shift in the way our students critically think about, process, and act on the environments in which they live. I just read an article on NPR last week by Anya Kamenetz that was all about how students of all ethnicities prefer and are more engaged with their teachers of color. [pullquote]Every time teachers of color take a stand and voice our concerns about the state of our schools and our communities, it's a problem.[/pullquote] I'm sick of it! If you have a problem with TOCs speaking out about the ways we and SOCs are marginalized and taken for granted, that speaks more to a society at large that degrades us and simultaneously strives to shut us up than it does about who we are. Some societal introspection is definitely warranted in such a case. The revolution might not be televised, but it will be "Duked" out on social media—pun intended. I, for one, have my cerebral boxing gloves on and my mind is well-sharpened and well-equipped for the battles and the war. I am a member of W.E.B DuBois' Talented Tenth (read "The Souls of Black Folk," if you don't know what I'm talking about) and my voice in the classroom and through blogging is not only my right, but my duty. It's part two of the Harlem Renaissance for people of color and I am fully engaged.
An original version of this post appeared on New York School Talk blog.

Vivett Dukes

Vivett Dukes (nèe Hemans) is in her eighth year as a middle and high school English Language Arts teacher. For her first four years in the DOE, she taught in an all-male, all minority, urban public school in Southside Jamaica, Queens erected for the express purpose of counteracting the pervasive school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown boys. Currently, she is teaching in a College Board middle and high school also in Jamaica, Queens, where the population of students she serves is diversified on cultural, religious and socio-economic planes. During her time as a teacher within the New York City Department of Education she has served as a member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Teacher Advisory Council 2014-2016 cohort, a classroom lab facilitator with Chancellor Carmen Fariña's Learning Partners Program, grade team leader, inquiry team leader, English Department Chairperson and Bethune Teaching Fellow for the New York Urban League. Currently, in additional to teaching seventh-grade English Language Arts, she serves as a Lead Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI) Reading Across All Disciplines (RAAD) Literacy Teacher, Advisor for the New York Times' Upfront magazine and Scholastic Inc., educational blogger for New York School Talk, and Co-CEO/Co-Founder of SpeakYaTruth.org and One Voice Online Blog Magazine. She also hosts a bi-weekly #SafeSpaceConvos Twitter chat about issues as the forefront of education. At her core, Vivett is a passionate wife, mom, teacher-leader, keynote speaker, public intellectual, social activist, social advocate, and humanitarian who is dedicated to taking her voice outside of the classroom and into the public arena in an effort to elevate authentic conversations and grassroots changes in educational equity and human rights advocacy.

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