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lands on a black child, it brings an awareness at first, and a reminder thereafter, of his difference, how he is set apart, a member of the non-preferred class, and this reinforces, time and again, a sort of societal badge of servitude, which begets resentment and anger. This is not an isolated incident. In 2012, Seattle Public Schools was the subject of a federal investigation into the imbalanced severity and frequency of its discipline of black students. In the Greater Seattle area and nationally, the black male student demographic has consistently ranked as most often removed from the classroom, suspended, and expelled from school. “They would kick me out of class for talking too much, for 30 or 40 minutes at a time,” Logic Amen, assistant principal at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, told City Arts magazine of his time in grade school. Eventually, through this loss of instruction, Amen says, he truly didn’t know what was going on in class. But this is the norm, he says, “in an overtly racist academic institution.” Outcome inequalities from low test scores to truancy to high dropout rates to inability to obtain and retain employment to crime, incarceration, recidivism; and impacts to mental and physical health and wellness, even death, aren’t indicative of the mindsets of black students. These aren’t cultural markers. It’s educators, a mostly white, female populace, who are intimately linked to a wide range of outcomes and factors critical to the lives of black boys. In fact, when black teachers are managing the
classroom, behavior-related removal of black boys is reduced significantly; by 2 to 3 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. So how do we mend this disparity? The answer could be cultural competency development at every level of the academic hierarchy, says Erin Jones, former OSPI Assistant Supervisor turned independent consultant in the field of equitable education. “It’s our primary role as educators to be a mirror to reflect the beauty and talents that reside within each student,” Jones said in a recent lecture at the Teaching Equity South Sound Conference. Her talk closed out what has been, for her, a whirlwind year of equity initiatives. Jones has keynoted, led or participated in more than 20 equity trainings in the Greater Seattle area and beyond in just the past month. Jones says that it’s the duty of school districts, boards and educators to gain equity literacy, and then erect a framework of equitable education. Her conversation is about doing equity, no longer just talking about it. What would it take to deliver a culturally relevant, culturally sensitive quality education? How would the Greater Seattle area look 10 years from now, if today we began to require ethnic studies training, curricula and delivery? Reach out to change-makers like Erin Jones. Learn to recognize subtle biases and inequities. Prioritize the needs, challenges and barriers experienced by black students in every school discussion. Let us all finally begin to uphold and highlight the humanity of black boys, who should have the protection, care, support and right to someday become black men. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carla Bell is a Seattle-area writer focused on civil and human rights, social impacts, abolition, culture and arts.
