After a morning of volunteering, I walked and chatted amicably with an educator.
The educator mentioned that she had recently attended a DEI session hosted by her school board. Seemingly eager to validate her thoughts with the only Black person within the vicinity, this educator casually expressed that she was genuinely surprised at how much focus the session had “still” put on anti-Black racism.
“Well I mean we don’t have a racism problem,” she remarked. “We don’t even have any Black teachers in the school.”
*Sigh*
In the aftermath of this conversation, and what I see all around me – my very real concerns linger. Despite the talk of the last four years, things aren’t where I thought they’d be.
I have to wonder – if it still ain’t woke, can we fix it?
First of all, I thought we were done “proving” racism exists?
In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 social uprisings, people’s desire for change was palpable. There was the kind of chatter that had me hoping that dialogues like the one I had with this educator would be a thing of the past.
There was a moment when I really thought I would no longer be put in the position of having to “prove” that racism exists. That that exhausting piece of my lived experience might be behind me. I envisioned 2020 to be an “awakening”. Like everyone had taken the Red Pill and we could move forward, rose-coloured glasses removed, and address how racism truly impacts lives.
Before you roll your eyes at me, please note – it wasn’t like I was completely naïve to the fact that anti-Black racism would not stay in the spotlight forever. I wrote about George Floyd’s name being the inaugural entry on my young daughter’s ‘Black List’. I sensed that the momentum to combat the systemic racism that underwrote his murder was likely to fizzle out.
What I did think was that even if anti-Black racism wasn’t in the “spotlight”, its existence would be a given. I hoped the “awakening” would eliminate the need to constantly lay the groundwork for meaningful conversations about racism.
However, I can admit when I am wrong.
Fast forward a few years and the hashtags that once trended have lost their resonance in the mainstream. Without the names of George Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Dafonte Miller or before that Andrew Loku in the news, attention to the systemic issues that led to their demise is drowned out. I find myself faced with folks “unaware” of or unwilling to recognize the existence of these issues.
Where is the space for addressing anti-Black racism?
In the absence of these glaring examples of overt and life-threatening racism, interest in acknowledging, never mind dismantling “subtler” and systemic anti-Black racism seems to have diminished.
But as a parent of school-aged Black children, the education system feels like an undeniably critical battleground for change.
Schools play an undeniable role in shaping who our children are as humans, shaping their minds and perspectives. It is within these institutions that young people form their identities, learn to navigate the world, and cultivate the skills necessary for adulthood.
The impact of a truly inclusive and ‘woke’ education system could be profound. With any luck, it would foster a generation that is empathetic and understanding. Equipped to challenge systemic issues like racism.
In short, schools are a place where I would expect ‘woke’ to be done right.
Yet, there remains a chasm between my hopes and expectations and my children’s experience within the education system.
For the most part, teachers I speak with are well-versed in anti-racism. Many educators see where the system is falling short and want to make a change. At the same time, many Black students are committed to working hard and succeeding in school. Statistics indicate that 94% of Black students aspire to post-secondary education.
So where are things falling off? Because statistically speaking outcomes for Black students do not seem to have improved since 2020.
Or, let’s be real, even since I was a student in this same system.
Schools are a place where I would expect ‘woke’to be done right.
Despite the 2020 “awakening”, incidents of overt racial violence and anti-Black racism persist. Reports indicate incidents of anti-Black racism are on the rise. In addition to these stats, watching them navigate their days in the school system, I see how my children still get subtle (and overt!) signals that they do not belong there.
My children and their friends bring home story after story painting an all-too-familiar picture of the Black student experience.
In a school club, my child, the sole Black student, was repeatedly singled out by the teacher during discussions about Black History Month. She was the only student pointedly asked how the club should celebrate. In another instance, a friend’s child was taunted and bullied for being “yucky brown”. When they raised their concern, the teacher simply brushed off the incident saying they couldn’t “police kindness”. My child’s eighth-grade teacher casually streamed him by suggesting we remain “open” to taking non-academic level courses in high school. Wrapping her low-ass expectations in praise, she asserted that with his “great personality”, he could get a job in sales and wouldn’t “need” a degree.
*sigh*. *slow blink*. *eye-roll*.
While my children and their friends seem to have simply adapted to being “picked on” and singled out in harmful ways, I ask myself should they have to?
I hear countless other stories from parents who feel sidelined by schools. These incidents might not make headlines, but they’re the everyday stuff that makes me question if we’re really moving forward.
After all the lessons of 2020, should targeted discouragement, microaggressions and bias really colour Black students’ everyday experience?
Not only have I not seen the changes I hoped for in those early days, I feel stuck trying to reignite the momentum that has faded since 2020.
But really, can I expect anything better from a system that still doesn’t reflect the makeup of its students? The 2020 awakening has not changed the fact that the Canadian school system operates from a place where Blackness is tolerated or, at best, tokenized.
Beyoncé posters adorning school walls during Black History Month cannot mask the glaring absence of Black teachers, the scarcity of everyday Black role models within our schools, the exclusion of our lived experience from the curriculum and the lack of Black educational leaders seated at the heads of our school boards.
I mean, the teacher I had spoken with was at least partially correct in her observation – there was not one single Black educator at that school.
Queue the “anti-woke” folks
As we navigate this challenging landscape there’s another movement further complicating the journey.
It seems the further we move away from 2020, and as demands for change grow quieter, the resistance to equitable treatment grows louder. We hear more from folks who have no interest in seeing the system evolve to better serve all the students within it.
This counter-movement – one that is “anti-woke” and hella resistant to acknowledging the deep-seated nature of inequity – wages campaigns to discredit, silence, and, in some instances, physically harm equity-seeking groups. Folks combatting anti-Black racism, colonialism and white supremacy culture are particularly at risk.
Discussions on equity quickly become battlegrounds, from calls to root out “critical race theory” to dehumanizing debates over pronouns.
When I connect with educators dedicated to making a change, they are doing the work – yet many feel ill-equipped to address this pushback. The uphill battle is real, especially in school boards outside major urban centers.
For those intentional about challenging the status quo and dismantling or at least disrupting anti-Black racism, the journey is undeniably exhausting.
If it still ain’t woke, can we fix it?
Black parents and educators who have eagerly joined committees, led groups and answered the call to be “involved” for generations find themselves unsure of what to do next.
Not only have I not seen the changes I had expected in those early days, I feel stuck trying to reignite the momentum that has faded since 2020. It’s no wonder that many more of us have started to seriously consider homeschooling.
Surviving the present is paramount, but hope for the future remains crucial. As a parent, it’s disheartening that the change I had hoped to see still seems out of reach for my children.
However, I have to believe better is ahead. I’m in desperate need of for light at the end of the racism tunnel.
I have to believe that 2020 is just another beginning.
Despite feeling tired and stuck my search for solutions and a better tomorrow is real.
It can’t be just me wondering… if it still ain’t woke, can we fix it?
