After two days of celebrating our new federal holiday, I confess I remain conflicted. But the ship has sailed, so to speak, and it’s time to jump on the bandwagon. I am ultimately a team player. 

I personally had a lovely day.  I did The Black Sit with Reverend angel Kyoto williams and a stellar series of yoga practices organized by Reggie Hubbard of Active Peace Yoga. I took a nap. I listened to “Redemption Song” and other liberatory hits from Bob Marley. I was not able to secure any BBQ. 

I learn and teach about American slavery and its ramifications all year long so another assigned day doesn’t affect my flow. I AM worried that the deep learning everyone promises this will encourage won’t happen, especially with the attacks on the 1619 project, critical race theory, and other educational projects to tell the truth about American history. I also see a lot of well meaning memes with simple narratives and inaccurate language. 

These resources from the National Museum of African American History and Culture are the most clear and accurate I have seen. They are a great place to start.

Who celebrates Juneteenth?

Why is Juneteenth Important?

2021 Panel Discussion

But if we are going to really do this, Juneteenth needs to come with homework. Let’s begin with an essential question: 

What was the long and arduous process of emancipation for people enslaved in the United States? 

(Because every colonized country where slavery was legal has ITS own story – if you want to go hard, go global)

Next, some objectives:

• Citizens will be able to correctly retell the events in Texas that inspired the new federal holiday, Juneteenth.
• Citizens will be able to identify key events and figures that led to emancipation in their state or prevented the legalization of slavery in the first place.
• Citizens will recognize the efforts of Black Americans to free themselves throughout the period of enslavement.
• Citizens will be able to identify the contents, purposes, and ratification processes of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, which legally signified the end of slavery in the United States and paved a road to citizenship.

Activity # 1: Read both the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3, which was read on the first Juneteenth. 

Primary sources matter.  Juneteenth is going to require us to read and understand both of these documents so that we are clear about what they did and didn’t do. I am always struck by the list of states and counties included and left out of the Emancipation Proclamation. It gets really specific:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

What happened in the “except” counties? Then there is that last part of General Order No. 3:

The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

One has to wonder how that worked. The Union Army comes and tells the rebellious Texans who refuse to concede defeat that they need to stop playing around and pay the Black people who are now their “workers”.  Did the “workers” go back home with their former enslavers and ask for a check? Clearly there is much more to the story. 

Activity #2: Find out about local emancipation or the prevention of slavery as a legal entity. 

Each former slave state (Northern colonies are former slave states!) has its own emancipation story. Slavery ended in Washington DC when President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act on April 16, 1862.  Enslavers loyal to the Union were compensated $300 for each person freed.  

Maryland adopted a new constitution on November 1, 1864, which ended slavery in the state. Black people had begun running away to DC and to join the Union Army. Many enslavers felt it was a lost cause. Still the new constitution passed by only 375 votes, many of which were absentee ballots from fighting soldiers. 

While California is not thought of as a slave state because of The Compromise of 1850 (probably learned about that in school, remember? 😉 people were indeed enslaved there.  First the indigenous people by the colonizing Spaniards, then enslaved people brought by gold rushers from the south and east.  Whether or not to allow slavery was actually a huge debate in the state government, and the waters were pretty murky until after the Civil War. 

While I am happy to celebrate Juneteenth as a national holiday and day of recognition, I hope it is not at the expense of local history.  DC and Maryland each have their own Emancipation Days, and I hope those commemorations continue. There are also states we don’t typically think of as slave states (looking at you, New Jersey), and they have their own remembrance and reconciliation work to do. 

Activity #3: Learn about Black people freeing themselves

My biggest issue is that the Juneteenth story often gets told as a white savior story, but it is really a white supremacy story about the lengths enslavers went to keep Black people in bondage.   Meanwhile we need to know about the tens of thousands of Black people who freed themselves, sometimes by running away, sometimes by purchasing themselves, sometimes through the law.  Olaudah Equiano, the 3,000 people who sailed away with the British after the Revolution, the Africans of the Amistad, Ona Judge, Henry “Box” Brown, Black Seminoles. The stories are myriad and amazing. Tell those too. 

Activity #4: Learn about Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the process of ratification.

Reconstruction is definitely undertaught. When people complain they weren’t taught about Reconstruction in school, I know they aren’t lying. We just skip right over it. Luckily, The Zinn Education Project has an excellent selection of resources for teachers, but they would be great for families too.  I also saw a wonderful musical in Baltimore called The Moment Was Now. It is now a film and your organization can sponsor a showing. 

The Cliff Notes are that freedom was hard and simply not always immediate.There were economic and legal complexities and hindrances all around; for example, Black Codes and laws governing slavery by Native American tribes.  I recommend the excellent podcast, Seizing Freedom. It is expertly researched and produced and dives deep into the details of how Black Americans continued to fight for their lives and futures for years after the Civil War.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are known as the Reconstruction Amendments. SLAVERY DID NOT END UNTIL THE 13TH AMENDMENT WAS PASSED.

Last year, I was invited to join the Kojo Nnamdi show to discuss civics education. Some of my favorite units have been talking about the ways in which citizens and governments partner together to bring about change. I believe it is really important that we understand how laws get made in this country and how American law changed over time to first support and promote, then ultimately end slavery. Passing these amendments was time-consuming and politically complicated. I recommend playing Race to Ratify by iCivics to get a sense of the process. Support was not necessarily enthusiastic or rooted in anti-racism. The Reconstruction project was undermined and effectively ended within a decade, followed by nearly 100 years of legalized oppression and violence. Getting into the weeds raises some interesting possibilities for further inquiry. There were Union states like Kentucky and Delaware who initially rejected the 13th Amendment and were also not subject to the Emancipation Proclamation. I am sure their emancipation process was…complicated.

Bringing these amendments into the present, everyone should watch and rewatch 13th.  Slavery officially ended when we changed the Constitution. But also, it is technically still legal. Thus the mass incarceration crisis (didyaknow over 70% of inmates in Maryland are Black, which is the highest percentage in the nation).  Other modern issues to explore include the current attacks on voting rights, lynching remembrance, and immigration reform. 

Okay. This project should take us a while. We have a year, folks. Let’s get to work. Ultimately, my hope is that our new federal holiday raises the bar for understanding complex stories, honoring the details, and asking further questions. There are just so many.

It’s a difficult time. I am currently reading and writing a lot about slavery while presenting a ton about lynching though my work with the Montgomery County Lynching Memorial Project. My English classes are also deep into the trial of Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird. They already know Atticus and Tom lose. There continue to be mass shootings and attacks on East and South Asian-American communities. The border situation has not been resolved and too many children are in government custody under unsafe conditions. Meanwhile, the recent officer involved shootings of Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo, as well as two local men named James Johnson and Dominique Williams, continue to reverberate. Oh, and this week we should receive a verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial.

I am hella tired.

If you need to teach about the trial (the irony of teaching about a trial while teaching about a trial) there are a lot of great resources out there. Many educators and schools are sharing really helpful ideas on Facebook and list-serves. This video has great advice from Dr. Z, a child psychologist:

And here is more from:

The New York Times

AmazeWorks

Minneapolis Public Schools

PBS Newshour

I am fairly sure my self care plan does not involve a full lesson rehashing the tragedy and rage around George Floyd’s death, but like this article from Learning For Justice reminds me, I can’t say nothing.

This all reminds me so much of when I was 12, the same age as my students, and growing up in Los Angeles County during the Rodney King trial. I remember the grainy video footage and can picture the four officers in court. I remember them being acquitted and I remember my city being on fire. Did we talk about it in school? I don’t know. What I do remember is that my family and I went downtown soon after Reginald Denny was attacked. We drove by Florence and Normandie; things were already charred. At some point, we went to the airport, maybe to pick someone up. You could sit in the waiting area near the gate then. While we were there, I saw Spike Lee, whose film Do The Right Thing alluded to the types of explosive violence that becomes possible when tensions around injustice simmer for too long. I went over to him and asked for an autograph. He was patient when he asked if I had a pen and appropriately exasperated when I did not. I went back to my mom to ask for one. After signing whatever random piece of paper I gave him, he got up. Apparently, his guests, Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters, had arrived, and they all left the terminal together. Years later, I saw Spike again under very different circumstances, and I wanted to ask him if my adolescent remembering was accurate or something I made up after watching too much TV. I thought about it too long, the moment passed, and now here we are again, awaiting a controversial verdict and possible riots. Have things really changed so little in the past 30 years?

Yeah, I’m hella tired.

Last Saturday was my birthday.  It was also the anniversary of a year in pandemic mode, of cautious living, of extreme anxiety, of processing grief for everything and everybody that has been lost.  Last year I had big (Vegas-level big) plans for my birthday.  My whole family was gathering for a multi-day fest because I was turning 40.  My family doesn’t need much of a reason to get together and party, but the timing was perfect and the schedule of events promised a weekend of my favorite things with my favorite people.  I was really looking forward to it.  

We canceled the celebration shortly after the WHO announcement.  I guess we still held onto a sliver of hope that this virus wasn’t actually going to affect the U.S. or us. What hubris. Instead on my big day, I ordered West Indian take out, turned out the lights, and turned on a movie.  I don’t remember which one. I wasn’t really watching. I felt sad unpacking my sparkly outfits that would be appropriate nowhere else but The Strip. My husband did make me a fabulous carrot cake from scratch.  He is a terrific baker. Still, it was a pretty pitiful “Cuarentena”.

We didn’t know then that there would be a whole year of Covid-19 affected birthday celebrations, or that we would become quite good at them.  I have been asked to participate in dozens of zoom calls, socially distanced picnics, outdoor yoga classes, compilation videos, and deliveries of everything from champagne to cookie arrangements.  My aunt rented a parking lot and turned it into a drive-in movie theater for my uncle’s 70th.  We are so clever under duress. 

When it became apparent that I would have another Covid Birthday, that we would not, in fact, re-enact my celebration in person a year later, I tried to rally.  There remains a lot to be grateful for after all.  While I still cannot be with my family and friends scattered across the country, we are all alive and getting vaccinated.  We are very, very lucky.  There will be other gatherings, maybe sooner, maybe later. In the meantime, the truth is that I am tired of adapting.  I have adjusted and transformed and modified so much these last twelve months that I just can’t do it anymore.  Instead, I chose to fully embrace the best parts of this year, which have been learning to appreciate quiet and to value my own company. So for my 41st birthday I checked myself into a hotel and celebrated in joyful solitude. 

It will not surprise any mother or any teacher and especially any mother-teacher that this turned out to be the very best idea.  Two friends surprised me by sending reinforcement libations and sweet cards.  I took several naps.  I ordered food at 9pm and bought bubble bath at a nearby CVS.   In the morning I meditated in a garden and walked the city at my own pace. It was a true retreat and a gift I needed: permission to throw away ideas about getting back to normal and let this new life be what it will.  Resistance seems futile under the continued circumstances. 

Every year, my birthday falls on the vernal equinox, The First Day of Spring, which marks when the Sun is exactly above the Equator and day and night are of equal length.  In the Northern Hemisphere, it means longer days with more light are ahead. Having recently gotten into crystals, I brought a few along. I think I like most the way these metaphysical tools make my intentions tangible. On this vernal equinox birthday, I thought about what I needed most to bring my life into balance as we anticipate better days ahead and a return to at least some aspects of the before times.  What was it I wished for, beyond the health and well-beling of my loved ones? 

There is first and foremost Compassion, of which I am discovering new levels.  I have never felt more connected to or concerned with other people or more committed to acting out of love in ways that diminish harm. We are all dealing with so much. I have a lot more appreciation, acceptance, and grace for myself. This year, I hope to offer these to others.

I also invoke Courage.  This year has required so much courage just to get through the day.  The coming months will continue to require strength and fortitude.  I hope I can lean in and show up in the ways I am called to. 

Lastly, I manifest Creativity.  I am also celebrating a year of publishing this blog and the decision to share my thoughts, ideas, and writing with a wider world.  There are some awesome projects on the horizon that I will share more about soon. I have never thought of myself as an artist, but apparently it’s never too late to develop a craft, and as the Quakers say, The Way Will Open. 

A year in pandemic has been awful in many ways, and revelatory and transformative in others.  It has changed me, but mostly for the better. Healing from this trauma may take a long time, but if it has made me softer and more vulnerable, more in touch with humanity, more respectful of life, then so be it. 

When I got home my husband had made me another cake. Strawberry this year.  Different and delicious. My son bought me purple flowers because he knows that is my favorite color.  After a year of pandemic, I know enough to cherish the simplest acts of love. In the end, it is all that matters.

In the before times, I went to a Drake and Migos concert.  I am pretty sure I went alone.  I think this because all I remember is being surrounded by very young white people, whom I could not stop watching because I was sure one of them would say the n-word.  My teacher-mother mode does not have an off button, and I was absolutely going to admonish someone publicly. Once I caught them. I was ready. Perhaps they sensed my impending rage because no one slipped up.  Eventually I was reassured section 401 was a safe space and I relaxed, content to merely model how to enjoy a rap concert without mouthing a racial slur. 

This same tense anticipation is felt by Black students in English classrooms across the country. At a previous school, a white and Latinx teacher said the n-word in class while reading some book, and the Black students came to me highly agitated by the experience.  In the end, the administration supported the teacher and an ambiguous English department policy to allow teachers to make those decisions in their own classrooms according to their own rules of English-teacherdom.  While not surprising, it was very disappointing.  I am not sure why teachers keep dealing with this word incorrectly.  The rules feel pretty simple.  Willful ignorance must not be in short supply. 

Although this is my first time teaching To Kill A Mockingbird, it is not my first run-in with the literary N-word. I have taught a book with the N-word before: March: Book One, the graphic novel biography by John Lewis. At that time I was with a thoughtful group of educators who pooled resources to make sure every 6th grader learned the history of the word, the context in which John Lewis presented it, and our clear rules that no middle school student should even consider uttering it because that would never be appropriate. Yes, it was in their music and other media. Yes, there were Black artists and intellectuals making different decisions. But most of them weren’t Black and none of them were old enough or wise enough to make a deliberate decision to intentionally subvert linguistic history.

This summer I read a lovely book by a Black author, Midnight Without A Moon. It’s about the South and Emmett Till and the Great Migration – important topics. I remember balking when I arrived at the use of the n-word between members of a Black family. I am not sure I would teach that book in my current setting. These things are nuanced.

The rules have been very clear this year, which is so relaxing.  It is a department policy that the word is never read aloud by anyone on campus.  Our clear protocol is to skip over the word and to offer in advance the pages on which it appears.  I model this by reading the first few pages where it appears aloud.  

This actually led to a great teachable moment.  A friend posted this meme yesterday on Facebook. I snagged it and put in our powerpoint presentation.  When we got to the part in TKAM where Ms. Stephanie Crawford is describing what Nathan Radley is going to do to the Black person he perceives is in his collard patch, I paused, showed this illustration, and asked what Atticus, who doesn’t want his children to use the n-word, might say to Stephanie Crawford, who is currently using the n-word in front of them. They chose a phrase and practiced.  English class disguised as upstander training!

Now, 7th graders are a little bit more primed for nuance so we did present materials addressing the argument that there is a n-word double standard.  The social comedians were helpful here. This video by Francesca Ramsey and this video by J Smooth were very compelling.  For emphasis we quoted this Ta-Nehisi Coates article. 

One thing I want to caution against is making any argument that says Black people who use the n-word simply don’t know better or are ignorant or don’t study history. As Maury would say, “That is a lie.”  The first time I heard the n-word was from my uncle who is brilliant, funny, and caustic.  He never means the n-word kindly. He always means it.  Some of our finest millennial writers and intellectuals also use it.  You can have a whole conversation with Damon Young, Issa Rae, and Beyonce about why. I don’t speak for them, but they use the n-word in lots of different ways, and I am confident they 1) know their history 2) are smart as hell and 3) have a purpose. 

My students were satisfied with hearing that Black people disagree about its use and that, when of age, each Black person makes their own choice.  There isn’t anything unfair about that because context and relationship always rule language use.  If anyone is concerned about “justice”, I have a few ideas of where they can turn their attention. The world is in no shortage of disparity, and we could use a few good allies. 

So here are few guidelines in case you need some:

1. Tell the students the n-word appears in the book
2. Tell the students NO ONE is going to say the n-word out loud in this class. 
3. Acknowledge that seeing it written can still be hurtful
4. Tell the students NO ONE is going to say the n-word out loud in this class. 
5. Review the history of the n-word
6. Tell the students NO ONE is going to say the n-word out loud in this class. 
7. Acknowledge that there are Black people who say the n-word outside of this school. Clarify that this is Black people’s business and if one identifies as Black they are welcome to formulate an opinion and make a decision for themselves. We don’t control other people, and other people don’t control us. 
8. Tell the students NO ONE is going to say the n-word out loud in this class. 
9. Use the above mentioned resources to address any non-Black person who thinks not being able to say the n-word is “unfair”.  Ask them to re-direct their sense of justice where it matters.
10. Make sure NO ONE says the n-word in the class and have a clear policy in place to restoratively address the harm done if they (or you) do. 

My kids still want to know why we have to read this book where the n-word appears over 90 times (either Harper Lee wanted us to know it was ubiquitous in 1930’s Alabama or she was having way too much fun).  I tell them I don’t know yet.  In their lives, they will continue to encounter diverse texts that have this word. Many will actually be by Black people. But if they are at a Drake concert singing along to questionable lyrics and my face pops up in their head thus preventing them from unleashing the fury of the lady sitting two rows back, I will have done my job. 

So a Black teacher walks into a new school…and they hand her a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. 

That’s it. That’s the punchline. 

I’ll admit I was shocked to hear I had to teach this book.  I had kind of decided to avoid it all costs. I hadn’t read it in decades. I did not remember the characters, the plot, or anything about it. Also I was teaching 7th grade. Didn’t this book belong in high school? Could we at the very least avoid teaching it during Black History Month? So many questions. So much dread. 

Books like To Kill A Mockingbird are no longer in vogue at urban, liberal, independent schools like mine. They are vestiges of traditional curricula we are supposed to have moved past through all of our professional development and DEI trainings.  To Kill A Mockingbird itself just carries a lot of baggage. Some people love it and think it is a truly “good” book, but a lot of people don’t.  There are dozens of critical articles examining the flaws from every angle.  There are horror stories about educators who have killed their careers teaching this book, perhaps by having superficial conversations that danced around the hard history  or perhaps by saying the n-word (which appears over 90 times) a little too casually.  Parents might have complained.  Students might have protested.  Librarians might have spent a summer reading replacement recommendations.  But there is usually someone hanging onto it, arguing for it from the corners.  The scary thing is I might become one of those people. 

In preparing for this unit, I have surprised myself.  I am actually REALLY looking forward to teaching this book. I have included all sorts of books about racial identity and racial justice in my curriculum over the years, many written by Black authors. Earlier this year we taught a beautiful unit based on Brown Girl Dreaming that centered Black history, activism, and art. Including BIPOC voices is not the issue; that is done easily, regularly, and with great joy.  Still there is something missing. Even using those texts, I have never been able to ask students to think about topics and questions like the ones that emerge so organically from this book.  And we are about to dive in deep.

Earlier in the year, I thought I knew where I stood in this debate.  Now I am not so sure. My co-teacher has done a helluva job coming up with a framework that strips away traditional presentations of this text. I am adding in my own important connections, which I will talk about in subsequent posts. I’ve been having a lot of conversations about To Kill A Mockingbird with other teachers. Beyond mandates, I am not satisfied with the arguments for keeping this book in the curriculum.  Beyond the traumatic memories of bad teaching, I am equally unsatisfied with the arguments for throwing it out.  I guess I still need to see this play out for myself.   

Over the next few weeks, I hope to explore questions that don’t have easy answers right now, such as:

• Why would two Black educators bother teaching To Kill A Mockingbird, and perhaps even choose to do it again?

• Have we sufficiently prepared ourselves to teach this book in an anti-racist, trauma informed way that accounts for our diverse students varying experiences and needs?

• Why might it be advantageous and appropriate to view racial violence, white supremacy, and systemic racism through a white lens and a white voice?

• What will this experience actually be like given we are doing this work in a hybrid learning environment during a pandemic?

What I know for sure is that teaching this unit will challenge me to do my very best work. And if I do it right, my students will walk away with an understanding of the world that better prepares them to make just choices and fight racial bias wherever they may find it, ESPECIALLY in the Pulitzer Prize winning darling of the American canon.