5. By 1980 I rocked one of these,
while being blissfully unaware of race.
Image: Sears
6. I attended “lower performing” public schools.
Elem, Middle, High = half Black / half White populations.
Most of us were barely middle class.
Didn’t really think about race. . . Until . . .
7. 3rd Grade. Was beat up for the first time by an older
Black kid, surrounded by his rooting friends. Never
knew the cause or their names.
That’s when Race became real to me.
Image:A Black Man’s View
8. Went on to get my butt kicked 4 more times before graduating high
school. An indicator of how I fared in those bouts: I never threw or
landed a punch. I mostly wondered, “Why?”
In all, I only knew one of the kids by name.
I assumed Race as motivating factor in each.
Image: AP Photo
9. Didn’t consider myself a racist.
I just did my thing with the nerds and outcasts.
But I guess there was a lot I didn’t see about me.
Image: Cheezburger
11. Despite the memory of those altercations,
Two inhibitors made it easy to ignore the truth.
Image: Jim Henson
12. 1. I’m literally color blind.
(These pairs look exactly the same to me.)
It served as a convenient race metaphor.
“Hey, I’m color blind. Really. And figuratively.”
Image: Jim Goldstein
13. 2. I loved (and still love) “Black” music . . .
How could I possibly contribute to poor race relations?
Image: Yuri via Last.fm
14. Of course, we
learn what we
experience,
And a White male
experiences
Privilege.
An inkling of this
hints around
graduation.
Image: Abagond
15. It’s tough realizing you don’t know what you don’t
know. This begins to dawn in college.
Image: 9Gag
16. At UF I fell in love with African American literature.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Fire
Next Time, Beloved, The Souls of Black Folk, Up From
Slavery, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Ain’t I A
Woman?
. . . Equiano, Wheatley, Dunbar, Cullen . . .
Native Son
Image: Richard Wright
17. In my African American Literature and Native American
Literature classes, I wanted to talk authorship.
My classmates of color wanted to talk racism.
Couldn’t understand why they weren’t tired of the topic.
18. In the college of
education, a
professor fully lifts
the veil.
And then sends us
into low income
housing 3 times a
week.
Image: Kasama
19. Here my thinking about race & racism boiled down to
this: EVERYTHING in the SE is shaped by racial history.
Image: Jessica Luallen
20. Began building curricula with Tom Feelings’
“The Middle Passage” as the starting point.
Image: Tom Feelings
21. Once I had my own
classroom, we used
African American
literature as the lens for
investigating
history, geography, story
arc, narrative, character,
protagonists and
antagonists.
I challenged my students:
“Are all Whites bad? Or
just some of us?”
Prove it.
Image: Leon’s Story
22. We built maps around the SE.
(The black arrows represent slave trade routes.)
Image: Jason Flom
23. We culminated with a SE Tour of Civil Rights Sites:
-Selma Bridge-
Image: Jason Flom