Anti-Racist Education
A Resource Guide for Educators

For many disciplines that involve the study, thought, or expression of human beings (history, English, philosophy, anthropology), traditional or canonical bodies of text and practice can remain culturally or economically homogenous while continuing to hold sway in the discipline. Instructors can integrate diverse cultures and peoples into curriculum content, ensuring that a variety of perspectives and representations are available in readings, case studies, and class examples. This approach can help all students recognize and imagine themselves within course content. —Yale Proovu Center for Teaching and Learning (2020)

What does an anti-racist classroom look like?

Working towards removing biases, stereotypes, and false narratives in education.

Creating classrooms where all students and all cultures are seen, heard and valued.

Anti-Racist: a person who opposes racism and actively promotes racial tolerance and acceptance.

Abolitionist: a person who favors the abolition of a practice or institution, especially capital punishment or slavery.

Bias: Conscious or unconscious attitude, preferences, and beliefs towards certain people or ideas.

BIPOC: Black, Indigenous and People of Color.

Cultural Appropriation: inappropriately and/or incorrectly using or taking advantage of, or claiming ownership and rights to use another culture's capital and patrimony; such as fashion, trends, iconography, traditional art, ceremonies, etc.

Discrimination: Action based on prejudice. These actions may include ignoring or avoidance, exclusion, ridicule, unequal treatment, or violence (DiAngelo). Can take place in obvious as well as non-obvious ways.

False Narrative: a story that you perceive as being true but has little basis in reality, this perception can be due to insufficient or inaccurate information or to insufficient or inaccurate assessment.

NBPOC: Non-Black People of Color

Person of color: a person who is not white or of European parentage.

Prejudice: Pre-judgment about another person based on the social group(s) to which that person belongs. Includes thoughts and feelings, stereotypes, and generalizations that are based on little-to-no experience and then projected onto everyone in that group (DiAngelo, 2018).

Racism: (1) When a group's collective prejudice is backed by the power of legal authority and institutional control (DiAngelo, 2018). (2) A system of advantage based on race, where advantage is awarded based on proximity (in terms of appearance, values, or cultural behaviors) to whiteness (Tatum, 1997). This system is independent of individual actors and is reproduced automatically within a society.

Stereotype: a category or group that we put people into (thinking a certain type of person or thing acts/thinks/looks a certain way).

White Supremacy: A sociopolitical and economic system of domination based on racial categories that benefits those defined and perceived as white (DiAngelo, 2018). This definition does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions, but to an overarching political, economic, and social system.

Expectations of an anti racist classroom for the beginning of the school year.

UCLA: K-12 Ethnic Studies Webinar Series

NCHE: Critical Conversations on Race, Ethnicity & History Webinar Series

Essay # 42 Creating Safe Spaces in Predominantly White Classrooms

Born Out of Struggle: Critical Race Theory, School Creation and the Politics of Interruption by David Stovall

How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Soloman & Kenrya Rankin

Me & White Supremacy by Layla F. Sadd

Every Day Anti Racism by Mica Pollock

Subtractive Schooling by Angela Valenzuela

Blind Spot by Anthony Greenwald

Becoming Anti-Racist

Source:SurgeryRedesign.com

White Supremacy

Source: Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (2005). Adapted: Ellen Tuzzolo (2016); Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero (@jewelspewels) (2019); The Conscious Kid (2020)

Sources: For these materials, Yale University, Harvard University, TED, https://culturallyresponsiveleadership.com/antiracistbooks/