Racism By Any Other Name
A re-worded education bill confirms what many educators already know: our implicit role is to protect white supremacy.
Just two weeks ago, I joined thousands of educators in celebrating the defeat of Arizona SB 1532 — legislation that would have 1) banned them from teaching lessons involving “controversial” issues, 2) required them to give “equal weight” to all perspectives in their classrooms (which, in theory, could lead to lessons like “Cyberbullying: Pros and Cons”), and 3) fined them $5,000 for violating these terms.
Our celebrations, however, turned out to be premature. Last week, the Arizona legislature passed a re-worded version of the bill that prohibits educators from “[implying] any race is inherently racist or should be discriminated against.” Under this law, schools districts would face a $5,000 penalty while teachers would lose their certification — a strange move for a state battling a prolonged and severe teacher shortage.
At the same time, this new bill confirms what educators across the country have known for years: our implicit role in the American education system is not to create a safe learning environment in which students acquire the knowledge and skills to “[i]nitiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher‐led) with diverse partners…building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively” (an Arizona Department of Education standard), but to protect white privilege. In the classroom, this looks like…
- Presenting a whitewashed version of American history that precludes students from connecting slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration (systemic racism enshrined in institutional racism).
- Implementing and enforcing “English-only” rules and certain dress code policies (microaggressions endorsed by institutional racism).
- Disciplining students of color at higher rates than their white classmates and placing a disproportionate number of students of color in special education programs (institutional racism).
- Failing to equip students with the academic and social-emotional skills to advocate for racial equality in their classrooms, schools, and communities (antiracism).
While the reworded version of the bill is more explicit in its attempt to proscribe discussions about critical race theory in the classroom, it’s still an insidious measure that will not only stifle free speech and critical thinking, but also perpetuate racism. As educators, our job should involve helping students discover the facts about the world around them, including the facts of systemic and institutional racism and white privilege — even if those facts make us uncomfortable. Our students of color and our white students deserve an education that enables them to, in the words of Ijeoma Oluo, fight racism wherever they find it, including in themselves.
While technically part of the state’s “budget proposal,” this bill’s attempt to silence the voices of those who are advocating for a racially just society is just racism by another name — and should be called out as such. We’ll all be better for it.
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