When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

—Alexander Den Heijer, Inspirational Speaker

In our garden, laying the groundwork allows us to provide the right conditions for growth. Healthy, sustainable gardens need healthy soil. Soil houses the root structure for upright growth; provides seeds and plants with essential nutrients, minerals, and air; and protects against destructive activity. For the purpose of our metaphorical garden, soil is likened to our foundation. To yield the right fruit, we must take account of our soil—the environment in which we will grow. We must take account of ourselves, our children, other parents, teachers, teacher leaders, our neighborhood, and our historical, cultural, and social norms. We must also examine our hearts. Can healthy seeds be nurtured in our hearts? Is our community compatible or ready for the growth we want? Do we understand what growth requires?

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On the first day of school, Lucia, an African American sixth grader, was bullied by a group of White boys on the bus ride home. They asked Lucia if she was Black. She said yes. In fact, she was the only Black student on the bus. The White boys proceeded to tell racist jokes about Black people to entertain themselves and other White students.

“What do you call a group of Black people?” the boy asked.

“A slave auction!” he shouted.

When Lucia arrived home and told her parents, they immediately dropped what they were doing and headed to the school. The school director was appalled. He suspended the boys for a significant amount of time.

We wish we could write that we extracted Lucia's story from the history of 1957 school desegregation. But White boys deemed it appropriate to entertain themselves at the expense of an African American 11-year-old girl in 2021!

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Before we examine Lucia's story for lessons and growth opportunities, let's make sure we understand common yet significant terms used in antiracism discourse. We heard someone say, “Clarity is kind,” and we agree. To create shared solutions, we must have a shared vision and engage in shared problem-solving. Therefore, we must have a common or shared understanding. We have observed that the best intentions can be thwarted when a mutual understanding of common words has not been established. For example, race, nationality, culture, and ethnicity denote four completely different social identities, yet they are often used interchangeably. When addressing racism, interchanging race with nationality and culture is problematic in that the former includes a distinctly different historical and social basis from the latter two. Cultivating justice and belonging requires us to understand and address how the ideology of race/ism deprives us of collective community goals.

As we offer understanding—to adults and children—our approach is both relational and pedagogical. We are all connected, so we have to be relational in behavior and pedagogical in our approach. We make no assumptions or judgments about where people should be. Our fundamental philosophy or belief is to examine the systems that have prohibited people from reaching their goals and aspirations. Years ago, we heard John A. Powell, leader of University of California–Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute, remind us to be “hard on systems and soft on people.” The many systems with which we interact (e.g., education, housing, health care, employment, criminal, legal) have formed us, our communities, and our lifestyles. When we can address how the systems have contributed to and shaped injustice and exclusion, we can support people who want to dismantle and disrupt such systems.

Much of the disconnect between the problem and progression to the solution is due to our lack of shared language. Irish playwright and political activist George Bernard Shaw is credited with pointing out that “Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language.” He makes the point that even though we use the same words, due to cultural differences, those words often have distinctly different meanings. Likewise, common words like race, racism, and justice are used in mainstream dialogue but have distinctly different, often more nuanced and specific meanings in fields of study that help us understand the impact of systems like sociology, psychology, and law. Shared language helps us forge connections. Let's begin with a mutual understanding and clarity regarding common but significant terms.

Tehia

Do you remember learning how to read? I don't. I just remember reading. However, someone taught me. When I ask my antiracism graduate certificate students how they arrived at their meanings of race, racism, and antiracism, they can't remember where they got them; they just have them. My students were blown away by how differently words commonly associated with race were defined by research scholars. Our understanding of terms like race and racism varied. If we had not gained a more sophisticated, nuanced, academically informed understanding of such common terms, we would not have been able to hold a cohesive or helpful conversation. With a mutual understanding, we were able to learn from one another.

In fall 2020, I organized my History and Psychology of Racism syllabus to discuss voting rights and political events in conjunction with Election Day. I wanted my students to see the way politicians use race/ism. They were able to see a type of racially coded manipulation unfold in real time and in real life. They learned about what Ian Haney Lopez describes as “dog whistles” in his 2013 book Dog Whistle Politics—How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. I received the following email (Figure A.1) after one of the presidential debates:

Good Morning Dr. Glass,

I was watching the debate last night and when Biden referenced dog whistle politics, I jumped from my seat because I knew what that meant based on our materials this week. Well done! I consider myself to be lucky to be in this program and I appreciate what you all are doing for us and the nation! I hope you have a great day today!

Sincerely,

My student was able to listen to the debate and witness how coded language is used to covertly appeal to and stoke fear and agency in some people while appearing to be free of racial bias. Because we had conversations about terms and language, he saw the parallels.

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Race

Race has a story and a history. Race was created, manifested, and preserved via beliefs, behaviors, policies, and practices. Race is not biologically real but was and is socially and politically constructed through laws, public policies, and social practices. When we talk about race here, we are not reducing this sophisticated, complicated, and nuanced construct to an acknowledgment of skin tone differences. Race entails a massive constitution that impacts almost every aspect of our modern lives.

To help you understand race, we offer this explanation informed by Dr. Gerardo Marti, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology at Davidson College. Race categorizes people based on the presumption of shared physical and biological characteristics. As White Europeans colonized and enslaved groups, racial categories became a crucial means of sustaining their dominant relations of power and privilege. Over time, the racial hierarchy became institutionalized. For example, a fair-brown-skinned, multiethnic person could be racially categorized in the United States as Black, in South Africa as Colored, and in Brazil as White. The public policies and social practices of these countries established their own distinct racial categories in conjunction with sustaining power dynamics.

Marti contends that among the personal consequences of such categories is that identities are forced to “fit” into racial categories on the assumption that they reflect a person's ancestral heritage. The most important societal consequence is the legitimation of gaps in equality of wealth, opportunity, and access to other valuable resources like education. He adds:

An additional complication in the United States is that racial policies could differ dramatically by state, most obviously in the distinction between slave and free states. Local governments most often administered benefits, funding programs, and voting privileges—such that the racial divide between White settler colonialists and the indigenous and people of color were subject to a variety of changing standards and expectations over the majority of our American history. (personal communication, November 4, 2021 [Slack])

Racial distinctions are highly problematic in that they convey a concreteness that has been repeatedly shown to lack biological validity, However, these distinctions become real through their ongoing social enactment—personally, organizationally, and societally—in every arena of our social world, including day-to-day microaggressions, pervasive stigmas, exclusionary policies, and lack of adequate laws.

Racism

Contrary to popular misunderstanding, racism is not just individual racial prejudice, hatred, or discrimination. Instead, racism is an oppressive force that creates and reproduces a complex system of social inequality. It involves one group having the power to carry out systematic discrimination through the major institutions of society, which is a byproduct of racial categorization that focuses on the hierarchical arrangement of various racial groups.

Essentially, racism is a combination of social and institutional power, race prejudice, White supremacy, and oppression that thrives through systems and individuals. Systemic racism is perpetuated through social institutions like schools and courts of law and structurally through public policies and institutional practices. As individuals, we sustain racism when we internalize racist messaging and succumb to racist beliefs and practices. For example, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 sought to end the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) discriminatory practices that kept Black Americans in neighborhoods with fewer education and job opportunities than White neighborhoods, essentially creating a geography of race. However, real estate agents continued to exacerbate the normalcy of race-based spaces by preventing buyers from entering certain neighborhoods—not showing Black buyers homes in predominantly White neighborhoods and vice versa.

White Space

Most explicitly in its formative history, White institutions have often been established with the expectation that people of color would be excluded. Indeed, history shows that all major institutions in the United States are found to have been established as White spaces—the U.S. Constitution, representation in Congress, citizenship, state government, courts, public schools, religious institutions, colleges, and the list goes on. Therefore, White spaces are social situations and organizational practices designed by White people for themselves to advance their own collective interests and to maintain domination. Following the Civil War, and more specifically after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, some White spaces began to open to people of color. However, their foundation remained rooted in Whiteness.

Because they relieve the psychological burden of uncomfortably invoking or reproducing exclusionary practices against people of color, White spaces require no overt enforcement. When White spaces are naturalized for White people, they legitimize the enjoyment of exclusionary spaces and allow inhabitants to remain racially ignorant about racism. Within White spaces, racial ignorance is inevitable and racism is delegated to organizational apparatuses—rules, traditions, cultural norms, a good fit—that obscure the broader racial domination in which white spaces are rooted.

Whiteness

Whiteness is not inherently determined but is defined socially and legally by a commonsense understanding of being a member of the White race, which serves to elevate people who are racialized as White over people who are not. Whiteness identified as the normal and centric racial identity grants access to opportunities and privileges not available to other groups.

Racial Ignorance

Jennifer C. Mueller, associate professor of sociology at Skidmore College, describes racial ignorance as the presence of false or mystified beliefs and the absence of understandings, feelings, and moral judgments regarding racial structures. Racial ignorance is a cognitive accomplishment grounded in practices of knowing and not-knowing that result in misinterpretations of racism—historic and current. Subsequently, racial ignorance allows various forms of racial injustice and racial oppression to be seen as normal or natural and therefore should not be challenged or contested. For example, claiming colorblindness is a mechanism of racial ignorance, which suppresses understanding to avoid discomfort, social tensions, or a reliving of personal trauma. As with colorblindness, racial ignorance requires a rational commitment and ongoing effort to disregard race, racism, and racial domination.

Microaggression

Directed at a culturally, racially, or ethnically marginalized group, microaggressions are subtle but offensive comments or actions that often unintentionally or unconsciously reinforce a stereotype. For example, a White person may express an intended compliment to a Black person by saying, “I don't see you as Black.” The racist premise is that Black is bad, unattractive, unintelligent, or less than human. Microaggressors are often not aware that they are reinforcing a frame and narrative of racism.

Justice

Often when people hear the word justice, they think retribution. We found a more accurate and helpful description through The Bible Project in which justice is described as restorative. In their 2017 YouTube video, Justice, The Bible Project portrays justice as a radical, selfless way of life that involves seeking out, advocating for, and helping vulnerable people and changing social structures to prevent injustice. They maintain that justice means nurturing right relationships between people and treating others as the image of God.

In The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice, Fania Davis (2019) describes justice as individual and collective growth and healing. She discusses the collectivist versus individual mindset, where we take care of one another and are accountable to self and others. We acknowledge that our collective freedom is tied to one another.

Ernest Boyer's (1990) six principles of community describe a just learning environment as one where the sacredness of each person is honored and where diversity is aggressively pursued. What does this look like in practice? A just learning space is one that educationally, not just socially, builds a shared racial, ethnic, and cultural understanding. So that social relationships can be put in context, formal instruction is dedicated to teaching and learning about the heritage, traditions, perspectives, histories, and lived experiences of ethnic groups beyond those who are racialized as White. A just learning community intentionally cultivates respect and value for differences while simultaneously defining the shared values of the learning community members.

Teaching for justice requires us to actively overcome barriers so that every child has the opportunity to be seen, safe, valued, and inspired. To do this, we get to challenge racial, social, cultural, and economic injustices imposed on students resulting from a differential distribution of opportunities and resources. Not only must we be dedicated to implementing change and reform in schools, but we must also be clear about manifesting educational equity.

Belonging

Our favorite working definition of belonging is described by Radha Agrawal in her 2018 book Belong:

It's a feeling of home, of “I can exhale here and be fully myself with no judgment or insecurity.” Belonging is about shared values and responsibility, and the desire to participate in making your community better. It's about pride, showing up, and offering your unique gift to others. You can't belong if you only take. (p. 17)

Belonging warrants support and a sense of identity, acceptance, security, and inclusion. Peering through a belonging lens, we are prompted to question whether we or our children and students can thrive in our current learning spaces. Are we bringing our authentic selves, and can they bring their authentic selves and feel at home in our homes, classrooms, schools?

Belonging and inclusion are not synonymous. Inclusion extends an invitation to those historically excluded to participate in existing social structures without fundamental change to those structures. However, to cultivate belonging, we are required to identify and challenge structures established and sustained by excluding lives, experiences, and stories. For example, practicing inclusion allows a system of education designed primarily for White students to now invite previously excluded students to the learning space. Meanwhile, belonging anchors a narrative that weaves together multiple perspectives and values a participatory vision. Therefore, a system of education previously designed to marginalize students who are not White must be reconsidered and redesigned.

When we cultivate a garden of belonging, new plantings or opportunities sprout for designing and creating an alternative structure. Such belonging builds our capacity to:

• Fortify our connections to each other and place
• Ensure that we thrive and not simply survive
• Distribute power equitably
• Value the dignity of every student or child

Antiracism

Though practicing antiracism requires a commitment to a difficult course of action, its definition is simple. Antiracism is the policy or practice of identifying and actively opposing racism. Essentially, antiracism is the antithesis to racism. It is the antivenom to racism's envenomation. Alex Zamalin (2019) describes antiracism as “historical consciousness and attentiveness to social structure and political choices informed by power” (p. 127). Zamalin moves beyond the idea of bad actors of racism and identifies systems that contribute to anti-Black racism, which he considers the most “expansive, historically durable, and salient form [of racism] in America” (p. 7). He emphasizes that historically, people have organized to defeat the social structures that oppress via power.

Antiracism is a lifelong process of actively identifying and opposing racial prejudice and systemic racism. Structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions, antiracism cultivates equitable opportunities for all people on an individual and a systemic level. Because it requires us to actively dismantle structures, systems, and practices that produce social injustices, antiracism is essential to cultivating justice and belonging.

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To position ourselves to promote justice and belonging, we acknowledge personal privilege (e.g., education, social economic status, opportunities for social mobility, social capital); acknowledge and work to change personal racial biases; and confront and disrupt acts and systems of racial discrimination. We engage in a consistent cycle of unlearning and learning. This growth cycle entails constant observation and reflection. We encourage you to consistently ask yourself the following questions:

• What was I taught?
• How does what I was taught differ from what I am now learning, reading, and experiencing in this context?
• How do I reconcile the difference?
• For example, how are the operational definitions of race, racism, justice, belonging, and antiracism different from what you may have been taught?
• What does it look like to come to terms with the difference?

We also want you to get good at examining and challenging structures and systems that have shaped unjust and exclusionary practices. Dr. Jewell Cooper, professor and associate dean for academic affairs and student services in the School of Education at University of North Carolina–Greensboro, offers a practical framework for analyzing public discourse, decision-making, and policies (2014). She reminds us that with every decision made, someone is advantaged, and someone may be disadvantaged. As teachers, parents, and leaders of education, we must consistently ask ourselves:

• Who is marginalized or reduced to a position of minimal importance, influence, or power by this policy, rule, statement, belief, or instruction?
• Who benefits?
• Who made the policy or rule?
• Who created the standard?
• Who is impacted?
• How are people with social advantages seen, valued, and encouraged?
• How are people who have been marginalized seen, valued, and encouraged?

Normalizing this practice of reflection and analysis helps us to be mindful of our environment—the history and context in which we are working. Also, asking these questions allows us to see and acknowledge structures and policies that impact our lives but seem invisible or inconspicuous. American physician, epidemiologist, and antiracism activist Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones (2000) uses a gardening allegory to illustrate how, as gardeners—parents, teachers, teacher leaders—we must know our environment. In Levels of Racism, Jones shares:

When my husband and I bought a house in Baltimore, there were 2 large flower boxes on the front porch. When spring came we decided to grow flowers in them. One of the boxes was empty, so we bought potting soil to fill it. We did nothing to the soil in the other box, assuming that it was fine. Then we planted seeds from a single seed packet in the 2 boxes. The seeds that were sown in the new potting soil quickly sprang up and flourished. All of the seeds sprouted, the most vital towering strong and tall, and even the weak seeds made it to a middling height. However, the seeds planted in the old soil did not fare so well. Far fewer seeds sprouted, with the strong among them only making it to a middling height, while the weak among them died. It turns out that the old soil was poor and rocky, in contrast to the new potting soil, which was rich and fertile. The difference in yield and appearance in the 2 flower boxes was a vivid, real-life illustration of the importance of environment. (p. 1213)

Clearly, the soil impacted the seed's growth. But often we fail to investigate and question systems or the larger culture at work—that is, the soil. Finally, this reflective practice helps you grow your capacity to problem-solve. You can't heal what is not revealed. When you examine structures, systems, rules, and policies, you begin to see a whole person within the problem instead of a “broken person” as the problem.

Now that you have definitions for common but often misunderstood terms and a framework for discerning and examining policies that shape practices and behavior, you can assess your environment and begin to lay the groundwork for growth. Consider how people racialized as White historically designed White spaces to exclude people of color. Are you in a historically White space? Contemplate how racial ignorance, which frames racial injustice as normal and natural and allows us to avoid discomfort, requires us to abdicate our power and responsibility to create justice and belonging for all students and children. Meanwhile, an antiracism practice, liberatory and fundamental to our foundation, is often weaponized and framed as dangerous.

Within Lucia's story, think about the roles that race, racism, Whiteness, White space, and racial ignorance played in manifesting her experience. The White boys were suspended for their overt interpersonal racism. You might think that a lengthy suspension means that justice prevailed. But ask yourself, did the act of suspending the boys make Lucia feel safe? How will she feel when the boys return to school and the bus? Will she ever feel safe and valued at school? Will school be a space where she can exhale and fully be herself with no judgment or insecurity about her racial identity or how her peers see her? Will she ever feel as though she belongs? Though her bullies were suspended, what will it take to expel the trauma from her body? As evident by our stories (Chapter 1), this incident may become a formidable chapter in Lucia's life story. And finally, who will help the boys reconcile their behavior and grow from this experience?

Reflection and Practice