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Welcome to The Anti-Racism Leadership Institute, where we engage in thoughtful conversations with professors and visionary leaders who are dedicated to dismantling racism in schools and transforming education. Join us as we explore their inspiring journeys, innovative strategies, and impactful initiatives aimed at creating more inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist learning environments. Our podcast is a platform for sharing insights, stories, and actionable ideas that can help shape a brighter, more just future for education. Tune in and be inspired to be a part of the change!
Welcome.
I'm Dr.
Tracey A.
Benson, and today we are recording
this episode of Research to
Practice, the Anti- Racism Leadership
Institute podcast in Harvard Studios.
Our honored guest is a leader, resister,
educator, and friend, Harvard Graduate
School of Education professor, Dr.
V.
Dr.
V, thank you so much for being
our second guest on our podcast
and I'm just so blessed and honored that
you've taken time before your class, in
between your hectic schedule, to drive out
here and sit and have a conversation with
me about your work, what you do, who you
are, for our podcast for the listeners.
Thanks for having me.
So, I met Dr.
V.
I remember, we were in New York.
I don't know why Cesar
and I were in New York.
So, Dr.
Cesar Cruz and I were in New York,
and he was like, I have this great
friend, that I'd like you to meet.
She'd be great for
teaching Ethnic Studies.
I want you to meet her.
And it was like dark.
It was at night, and you came.
You had, like, on a velour pink
sweatsuit, because I remember this.
You just, because you looked like a New
Yorker, and you came out of nowhere.
You're like, hey, I'm like,
oh, is this the person?
and we sat, we chopped it up for maybe
like an hour, and then it was over.
And that was back in 2000 and...
Maybe 14?
Yeah, it was 14.
But I'm so honored that to have met you
then, and that we're here now, number
of years later, to talk about your work.
So if you wouldn't mind for the
listeners, just introducing yourself,
who you are, you know, as far back
as you'd like to go, like who?
Wow.
well, I am Christina.
I am Dr.
V.
I am Miss V.
V.
I'm also Xiaomei.
It's my middle name.
which means the winter blossom
because I was born in December.
I'm Chinese and Mexican.
And, that's my last name, right?
So, that's who I am.
Born and raised in the Bay Area.
Hella proud of that.
Rep it all day, every day.
That's my favorite hashtag.
Reppin the Bay on Appian Way.
And I'm currently a lecturer.
at the Harvard Graduate School of
Education, came in as the director
of the teacher education program.
maybe we'll get into a little bit more of
that, later on, I'm no longer doing that,
but still very much in teacher education.
Also teach, a course on healing centered
engagement, which is based on Dr.
Shawn Ginwright's framework.
That's what I do here.
What else should I mention?
That's great.
That's a wonderful introduction.
I learned some new things, too.
I think for our listeners, it would do
good for them to understand, like, you
have multiple degrees in ethnic studies.
You teach ethnic studies.
You understand the
value of ethnic studies.
And not everyone in the field does in
education, in K 12 or in higher ed.
And so, can you talk about why?
What drew you to Ethnic Studies?
Why Ethnic Studies?
And then, why is it important
for folks in the field to
understand that children need this?
Dr.
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales who's one
of the mama bears of our Ethnic Studies
movements, asked us at the last Free
Minds, Free People conference in 2021, how
did you fall in love with Ethnic Studies?
So, when I think about choice, There's
also this element of, like, when you're
thinking about oppression, how much
choice, right, then is there when you are
offered, right, a path towards liberation.
And so that's the role that ethnic
study has played in my life.
Ethnic studies found me, or
chose me, in high school.
So, up until 11th grade, I had never had
a course where I saw, truly like myself,
struggles of my community, my ancestry,
reflected, you know, in deep ways.
If Chinese and Mexican people
were mentioned, that's when they
were mentioned, were treated
in really superficial ways.
It wasn't until I took my first,
well first began in a history class.
Mr.
Dwyer's classroom, who was the ethnic
studies teacher, and I'll never forget it.
But that was the first time in
my entire life, like I felt it.
You know, people have described
it as like a fire is lit.
So I'd say that was, when you say choice,
I'm like, mm, how much of it was a
choice so much as like a fire was lit.
You know, or agency that I
always had was activated, right?
Because agency isn't something we give.
Something that is very central to
ethnic studies, but is something
that has, is wrapped up in the savior
complex in a lot of education right?
Oh, let's give our kids agency.
The kids have it.
Our job is to activate it.
And so, that's what Dwyer did for me.
Activated, activated my critical
consciousness, like, and then fed it.
I began to truly understand, one, how
oppression works, which is then, allows
you to begin to understand, then, how
liberation is needed and how it can be.
How you can design a world, right?
That, so that was, that
fundamentally like, changed
the course of my life.
I said, I was like, Mr.
Dwyer opened the door to the Garden
of Ethnic Studies, been in this
garden nurturing, you know, seeds
and dreams of freedom ever since.
Yeah, let me ask you about that, right?
Because I heard you say very explicitly
that it was not until 11th grade, right?
Yeah.
And a lot of people...
color experience very
intense erasure, right?
We're always with relation
to white communities.
We're mentioned, but
always with relation to.
And so if you, you're thinking about what
is an appropriate education for folks like
us who are not in the regular curriculum.
When, when, how soon is,
how soon is appropriate?
Because folks have that question.
Like 11th grade sounded appropriate
because people are ready.
I don't believe that.
So when, when should it start?
When should this awakening
be for kids of color?
The moment children enter social
settings where there are adults.
So it could be, you know,
at the YMCA, it could be at,
like, I think it could, it can,
it should be right everywhere.
Not just in, cause ethnic studies
is more than just actually
about curriculum pedagogy.
But I know that since we're in
the field of education, which is
also, right, part of the problem.
The way we've
compartmentalized, this society.
Because when you say, right, us
and the regular curriculum, there's
nothing regular about the way the
curriculum works, and we know that too.
And so, part of that is to, you know,
to interrupt it as early as possible.
And there, there's so much, there's
so many resources for ethnic studies,
for pre K all the way through P H D K,
whatever you want to call it, right?
Right.
Like, it, there, it exists.
But what are then the barriers or the
gaslighting, right, the intellectual
gaslighting that occurs, that convinces,
anybody, not us, but just anybody
that, to determine who's ready for what
because what is it that young
people see every day anyways, right?
And so that for me, I saw so much.
I just wasn't able to make sense.
So ethnic studies offers a
very explicit lens, right?
It isn't, it isn't just the
content of people of color, right?
It's a lens as a way of being a framework,
that genuinely centers, right, our lived
experiences, our lives, our humanity
and reminds us, right, firmly of
our dignity because, we currently
live and move through a system of
schooling and a world that actively
tells us otherwise through erasure,
right, through normalized curriculum.
That normalizes white supremacy
and patriarchy, right?
Heterosexism, like, we, these,
we see young people only having
two bathrooms to choose from.
That isn't natural.
It's natural in one worldview.
Right, so when we, so it's also
right, an epistemological stance that
allows us to read the world, right?
Draw, we draw very heavily, and I think
so he's right from also the works, right?
Bell Hooks, Bell O'Freddy.
Reading, not, it's not just reading
the books, it's reading the world
and young people do that so beautifully.
Oftentimes, right, better than adults do.
Most of the time, let's be
honest, most of the time.
And there are, there are right gifts
that adults can offer and gifts that
young people can offer, but because
of adultism, that also impedes, right?
Right.
That blocks the opportunities to engage
in the actual dialogues, learning
experiences, unlearning experiences that
can take place on a kindergarten rug.
The books that we put,
the questions that we ask.
It's really, right, it's about problem
posing, it's about asking, right, leaving.
That's what I said on Tuesday in
class, I was like, you know, I also
hope that, you know, you leave often
with more questions than answers.
I want to ask about that again,
doubling down on this idea
that adults are in the way.
Because as a part of my work, what I
used to do a while ago, in the Anti-
Racist Leadership Institute, I would
go into schools that have conversation
with, about race with kindergarteners,
and I'd have the teachers sent, stand
around the outside, and they're sweating,
you know, you got these white women
sweating, and they're like, oh, what?
You can't, they can't talk about race.
And I just posed the question,
and they know a whole lot, right?
And they're so excited to talk about
it, because I'm not in their way.
And so for the, Teacher that's afraid,
because, you know, it could be a
teacher from, you know, a teacher that
has a mainstream identity, a teacher
that does not have a mainstream, a
teacher of color, that our teacher
education process does not equip us,
even if we have the will to do it.
How do you even start to chip
away at that through your
experience in teacher education?
So how did you change the narrative
and change the process of learning
for teachers that you're responsible
for preparing to incorporate more
of the Ethnic Studies tenets?
It works differently for, I
think, every teacher and teacher
ed program, but it is right.
Our work as educators is to meet our
students where they are, struggle beside
them, maybe offer guide, sometimes
offer guidance, also sometimes offer
solidarity support to where they could be.
You know, by in the exchange, the exchange
of knowledge, ideas, lived experiences.
and so part of that for me was
bringing, as a teacher educator,
bringing, right, my lived experiences,
as an educator, as an assistant principal,
pairing that, right, with what's in
the books, pairing that with the data,
nuancing it and centering counter
narratives, which is an act of resistance.
When you center, right, when you actively
interrupt the dominant structure, the
dominant group, when you interrupt
Whiteness in teacher education, right?
Bree Picower wrote a book about it, right?
Reading, Writing, and Racism,
Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher
Education, and I was one of the teacher
educators that was profiled in it.
So, Harvard Graduate School of Education
was named as the home of a racial
justice teacher education program.
It is not anymore.
It is not anymore, but in Bree
Picower's book, you can...
You can actually read how
it's done because we were pro.
So, it happens on a number of levels
That's why that's why it took me so long
to answer because I'm like, ooh, actually
there's not there's it's just like
oppression operates at multiple levels
right at the ideological, institutional,
interpersonal and internalized.
How do you approach it?
You have to approach it teaching
about all that, but you have to
think about liberation all the time.
What is in, what does
internal liberation look like?
What does interpersonal
liberation look like?
What does institution, what is it,
can you institutionalize liberation?
What does it mean?
Or is it right?
Or is it the destruction right of
harmful institutions or harmful
practices and policies and replacing
them with human centered, right?
humanizing institutions.
And what does it mean, right?
Ideological, what does it
mean to free your mind?
What does it mean to
liberate your mind, actually?
and that ishe, the fundamental,
right, project of ethnic studies.
Right?
It's freedom.
So do folks, do folks
understand that coming in?
Because, you know, folks come into
the program, you know, either master's
program or the doctoral program, they
see ethnic studies in the, you know,
in the timetable, they sign up for it.
how do you see the transformation
or not transformation, right?
Because some folks come in and it's
too much cognitive dissonance, like,
I cannot absorb what's going on in
this little, little space, but for
other folks that come in, like,
this is what I've been waiting for.
And so.
Yes.
What do you feel that folks expect
coming in, and then what do you think
they actually get when they arrive?
Completely different on all fronts.
Different students, like no
group of 20, 50, 120 students all
expect the same thing coming in.
Every group of 20, 50, 120 don't all
get, leave with the same thing either.
and that's right part of the promise is
part of what, you know, the problem with
a lot of education reform movements.
It's part of, right, what Dr.
Love just recently has written
about, incredible new book,
right, Punished for Dreaming.
This is part of the problem.
It's like the metrics even by which
we even think about learning outcomes.
As if we all come in
the exact same, right?
That's not how That's not how
education, that's not how life works.
That's not intersection, that's not an
intersectional, right, like approach.
So just in terms of thinking about
that, it very, it varies depending
on what they were doing right
before they were in the class.
Right, not right before,
what they were doing in life.
So I have some students who come
in with some exposure, right, to
previous ethnic studies classes.
They show up very differently
than somebody who has no
idea what ethnic studies is.
Now, this was earlier on, right?
Since the movement has gained more
traction, we're seeing it, right,
in more schools, legislation, right,
in California, which also is, has
received, right, incredible backlash.
And so, that impacts also how, students
come in because of where they're
getting their information, right?
How much have they actually
read versus scrolled?
That's something.
So all of these things, right, I think
is deeply complicated in terms of
then my approach, my approach is the
same that it's been since I started
teaching 7th grade, 8th grade on 98th
Ave in deep East Oakland at Elmhurst.
Is to start with the stories and my
ethnic studies professor at UC Berkeley,
he reminded me that when I came here
and I was in the teacher ed program,
right after I majored in ethnic studies
at UC Berkeley, which was pretty, can
you imagine, 21 year old V showing up
after majoring in ethnic studies at
Berkeley and showing up at Harvard?
I was off the chain That's
the other piece too.
It's just, that's just any educator.
I always make, I try to never forget
what it felt like to be right and
a master student on this campus.
That's something that I think
I bring special to this job here
at Harvard is I was a student of
color here you know, so that is
something unique just like Teaching
in Oakland like I grew up in the Bay.
I went to high school down there, I kicked
it in Oakland like I went to festival
at the lake so that brings something.
I'm just saying like
that, it brings us something extra
right to the work of teaching and
learning It's bringing in all of those
like sharing those parts of my story
right sharing that I went here too.
Which is important, unfortunately
for a lot of white students who
continue to question my credentials.
That's happened multiple times.
This is the third Ivy League where I've
taught, at every single Ivy League I
have been questioned for my credentials.
It's unfortunately one that we,
I wish I could say I go by Dr.
V off of pride, but part
of it is also protection.
Absolutely.
Right?
so the approach has to always be.
Start with the stories.
When I came here, and I was struggling and
suffering in my teacher program because
it felt very incongruent in my body.
Even, I didn't have, I
didn't have that language.
I don't, I wasn't speaking
about it then, but I knew.
I knew, like, this, it was off,
and I remember wanting to quit and
reaching out to Professor Takaki.
And he was like, just remember
to start with their stories.
Your students, and like,
always start there.
So that's always where I start.
We start with acrostic poems.
You know, write your name, and include,
you know, vertically, and write
an acrostic poem about yourself.
Incorporating aspects of, you know, your
identity, your cultural autobiography.
That's it.
Your likes, dislikes.
You know that that's quite the, I don't
want to call it a diagnostic, right?
It's because it's not a,
it's not an assessment.
Well, no, it is a diagnosis.
It's not an assessment, but
it is a diagnostic of sorts.
It allows me, as an educator,
to just get a sense.
Of, not what it is you know, you get a
little bit of that from acrostic poems,
but you get a sense of who is in the room.
What are, you know, you do get a sense of
how people identify, what comes up first
in identity, and that isn't necessarily
an insight into how they were raised.
It could be just how, what
have they been exposed to.
What, what has the environment, how
much of this is internal, how much of it
was external, how much, you know, this
is what we look at in ethnic studies,
the various aspects of our identity.
How much of it did we choose?
How much of it was chosen for us?
When we study, right, racial formation
theory, racialization, understand
the difference between a noun and
a verb, you know, the complexity of
how racism works, the complexity,
right, of how ableism works.
You can't just throw these terms
around and then because that's
how we end up right in with
what we're seeing now, right?
Very reductive misappropriations
of deeply violent systems that are
genuinely in real time, harming,
right, babies in our classrooms, right?
We think about who are the young
people who are the most impacted,
the most underserved, the most
harmed by school systems currently
through the curriculum right?
through the pedagogy, through the
systems and policies, right, where
we are in a moment, right, where
black Children are being suspended
and prevented from graduation
for the way they wear their hair.
And this is right also alongside in
states that have passed the Crown Act.
Right and we've and so ethnic studies
and so right we talked about that
we've talked about that and as we're
looking at the roots of anti blackness
We're also looking at the Crown Act
and making, like, what is the proximity
and distance between 1680 and 2023?
You can't do that on day one.
You can't do that in a, in a diverse,
in a racially, right, diverse classroom.
By and large, mostly economically
diverse, for the most part,
but it is Harvard, right?
So it's different, it's different
teaching, and it's clear,
it's very different teaching
ethnic studies at Harvard,
then teaching at San Francisco State
University in the College of Ethnic
Studies, then teaching it at Castlemont
High School in Deep East Oakland.
And I've taught ethnic studies
at all these places, right?
Then teaching it at even Teachers
College in New York, or bringing it
into a place like Hunter College, right?
Just across town from each
other on just a few trains.
But it's different when you're
at, right, most Ivy Leagues have
students who are literally coming
from every, all over the world.
Versus, right, a lot of our state college,
state institutions, is who's there.
So ethnic studies, I always ask
them to be context specific.
So before I can even get there,
I have to know who's in the room.
How do you identify?
Because that's going to give
me some insight into how I
can meet you where you are.
And how I can guide you towards,
like, what types of resources.
And to remind them also
on day one, the syllabus.
is a very clear embodiment, enactment
of my background, my expertise,
my lived experiences, right?
This is like a long going joke
that my syllabus, it has shifted.
I've been on the East Coast for
10 years now, but it's a pretty
West Coast leanings, right?
It's because that was where I was.
That's where I got my degrees in ethnic
studies, UC Berkeley, right, undergrad,
and then I got my master's in ethnic
studies at San Francisco State, right,
at the first college of ethnic studies,
right, born out of the longest student
strike in United States history.
And I specifically chose to go
there after I went to Harvard,
because Harvard didn't do it for me.
It didn't.
Ethnic Studies did, so I was like, no,
I need to go back to where I know I'm
going to get the actual, the actual
knowledge, the tools, the skill sets, the
epistemologies that will allow me to serve
and be in solidarity with my
students and my community in
the ways that Harvard did not.
Let's go there.
Alright, I wanted to go here.
Let's get there.
Because I want to get to the racial
healing work you do, but before that, I
think it's a good segue to, talk about
the, sort of Bettina Love's work, the
kind of folks who, at Harvard, you know,
the folks that, the archetype of people
who apply to these type, these type of
programs, who end up in your classrooms,
from, you know, different walks of life.
But a lot of folks come from
this sort of schooling and
carceral state mentality, right?
They come from Teacher America.
They come from the charter world.
They come from, this saviorism, you
know, saviorism as their core, and
they think they're coming to ethnic
studies to sort of ratify to sort of,
to reinforce their goodness, which
that's not what ethnic studies is about.
And so once you get into this space
of, really radically challenging what
people have come to believe who they
are as educators, it becomes a threat.
Yes.
It becomes a threat to the institution.
And I want to sort of get into
the personal behind this because
myself as an academic, I was an
academic for four and a half years.
I taught all of my courses, the
law course, the policy course,
the supervision of instruction
course, from an anti racist lens.
The epistemology of the
foundation was anti racism.
That was a threat to my department,
that was a threat to my colleagues,
because students were being woke.
And they were bleeding out and
getting into their classes.
And they're like, where'd you learn this?
I learned it from Dr.
Benson.
So I became a threat.
And so we're folks who want to
get on this train, because I hope
folks listening to this will be
like, I want to do ethnics studies.
I want to get on this.
I want to sort of incorporate it into my
epistemology of how I teach my courses.
Can you sort of get into why this is
such a threat to a place like Harvard?
And teacher education programs when we
bring this type of pedagogy to our work?
Yes, I can.
We have to focus on liberation if we're,
if we're in the work of eradicating it.
Right?
I had to understand the design, the
under, the histories of my oppression
and the oppression of my peers in
my community to truly desire and
begin to dream of my liberation.
You can't, you know, you can't,
there is, it's kind of like the
relationship between trauma and healing.
You know, it's like we've pathologized
trauma when It actually, there
are, there's the pain, but there's
also wisdom in our wounds and
that is also central, right?
That's, that's very essential to
anti racist work, essential to ethnic
studies work, because it is ultimately
healing the trauma of colonialism,
of racism, right?
Of white supremacy.
That's the threat is equipping, you
know, when you think about anti literacy,
you know, laws, when we take it back,
when we look at just the roots of,
white supremacy in this project, right?
This settler colonial project that we
refer to as the United States, this
look at where we are, you know, this is
Harvard, you know, they're, you know,
we're enslaved Africans on this campus.
As, you know, that is woven into the
fabric of this place and you're talking
about, not just a class, right, but,
a space that is unapologetically
committed to dissecting, right?
That's social science, the
difference between us and then the,
what do you even call it, right?
Giving us the social
science versus science.
Is like, right?
Asian American and black American, right?
It's like it, we're still marginalized
even by the ways we identify.
And so we become extras, electives, right?
We're elective citizens were elective
humans were disposable most thing, right?
This is how human disposability
and a study that is dedicated to
understanding that design where
And we have to be careful, right?
Where there is, where there is
accountability, there's, we have the
evidence, and the evidence is damning.
And you're studying, we have the receipts.
I put the receipts in front of students,
that's primary source analysis.
And that, that ultimately, right,
often leads people to recognize
that harmful institutions and
practices need to be destroyed.
They need to be abolished, right?
Abolition is deeply rooted in healing.
That's it like that, but that's not
what dominant mainstream rhetoric
will have you thinking in the same
ways that dominant mainstream media
and history textbooks completely.
Right distort the history of the Black
Panther Party only showing that only
showing the pictures Right with Huey
holding the gun but not showing them
passing out food and not talking about how
the US government completely co opted the
free breakfast program and now how many
school is free and reduced lunch, right?
Like we want to talk about a distortion.
There's a study that is dedicated
to naming all of those truths
like it's exposing, right?
It's exposing the very, the
very foundation upon which these
institutions were built that they're
dependent on to take it away.
And that is, that is the goal, right?
It's, and it's not to blow
up and destroy with it.
No, it's to dismantle
with the very purpose.
That's why I say, that's why the
problem with diversity, equity,
inclusion, I've never liked that.
Cause I'm like, I, Included because
it's it's very paternalistic, right?
It's very condescending to be
like, I want to, you know, make
sure I'm including you in what?
What was there?
What is that?
Like, I'm not interested in being
included in something, a space,
a community, an institution
that doesn't honor my humanity.
I'm interested in transforming
it, eradicating it, dismantling it
and ensuring that what does exist.
Genuinely honors the lived experiences,
the ancestry, the humanity of every
participant, every participant.
So part of also the threat is because
it's a lot of misinformation, right?
Rhetoric that, and I think
studies is anti white.
No, let's be clear.
It's anti white supremacy.
There's a difference.
It's anti whiteness.
That is part of the roots of the
strike at San Francisco State.
It was down with whiteness, right?
White students were absolutely on
the front lines in solidarity with
the Third World Liberation Front,
with the Black Student Union, right?
With the SWANA like
communities who were also...
engaging in their struggles right against
colonialism on a global scale That's
why it was third world liberation from
because third world in the 60s had a
different connotation than what it has
right in the in 2023 all of these pieces
right when you're now then talking about
the eradication right of colonialism
and everything that it has Everything
it has caused across generations.
We talk about healing from that, what that
actually means is that we really are fully
realized human beings and that we are in
solidarity and community with each other.
But the project of colonialism and white
supremacy was the exact opposite, right?
There's a project of ethnic
cleansing, genocide is, again,
what we are currently seeing.
Right now, what we are up against,
what we're about, what we're trying to
stop, we need to stop from happening.
It's happened, right, before, and you
think about how it's happened, and
it's been tied to also the project of
racialization when we talk about a U.
S.
context, which is why when you have, you
know, all that transpired in World War II,
which is also, right, deeply connected.
is understanding and making
those connections, right?
It, threatens the project
of divide and conquer that
created the conditions, right?
That we are trying to navigate and
make sense of in the first place.
Ethnic studies is
unapologetically dedicated, right?
To what, like solidarity, like right as
a verb, not, you know, an intellectual,
you know, study or project and, and
that's why I said it's always bigger
than, and that's something that one
of my other important mentors from
San Francisco State taught me, Jason
Ferreira, he's always reminded me, he's
like, I know, I know you, the teacher,
teacher education, remember Christina,
he's one people calls me Christina, it
is like ethnic studies is bigger, it was
always bigger than a syllabus, right?
And he's right.
He's drawing right from the genius, right?
The organizing, you know,
guidance, the North star of Ella
Baker, former speech, right?
Bigger than a hamburger, right?
The lunch counter sentence was
always bigger than was always
bigger than a hamburger, right?
It was about freedom.
It was about freedom.
And so when it's bigger than a syllabus,
it's more than just about we're not
just learning for the sake of them
becoming other armchair activists
and talking head intellectuals.
No, ethnic studies was very clear from
the beginning that if In the space of
academies or institutions, it better
be about tied to community action.
And so a lot of ethnic studies programs
have been called, have lost that.
Like they just stay and live in the
ivory tower and in the institution.
And it's actually not tied to its
original purpose, which was community
action, which was, you know, the students
at SF State then also engaging in
organizing, protecting the elders, right?
And the iHotel strike.
That was ethnic studies.
So it's like, right, that wasn't just
about what are we teaching classrooms?
It was like, no, you know, these
elders are being evicted, right?
It was, you know, it's about, ICE raids.
You're not just talking
and learning, right?
But school becomes a place to understand.
Why ice raids are occurring, understand
the militarization of the border,
because if you only rely on public,
what is, which is also controlled by,
right, a few, because we're also in a
capitalist situation, you know, that,
that's going to, that is what's driving,
right, that's how hegemony works,
right, that how, how do you get there.
How do you get a general public of
human beings to buy into and continue
to perpetuate the violence that
is also then preventing their own
collective healing from historical
and intergenerational trauma that
they carry in their bodies that's
been passed down by their ancestors?
Res Momenicum, another
one of our books, right?
And ethnic studies writes very clearly
about that, right, that this project
of colonialism, it's some, it's not,
I don't mean to oversimplify, but
understanding European colonialism is
also about understanding that trauma and
Western specifically, right, that a lot
of the folks who led the invasions of
the violent, right, invasion of Ireland,
they were recruited, right, to lead
the invasion of the Americas.
And so you had then that trauma, that
dirty pain, the type of torture, talk
about beheading, like, think about
also Europe during the middle ages.
Right.
And again, extreme violence programs
that were happening in Europe, that
there are deep impacts to both the
victims and perpetrators of violence.
Those are the folks with all that
unmetabolized, unhealed trauma, all that
dirty pain that are the founders, right?
The descendants and then built
systems and powers that to protect
that those same descendants, right?
Are the ones that are that are threatened
by Ethnic Studies because it threatens
to expose, right, the truths right, it
becomes, you know, that it's, one of my
close friends, Samora, I appreciated,
like, how he described how it must feel.
He mentioned, I'd like to get your
take on this, too, because I think
this is also wise, because he, this is,
because he also named what I do as a
threat, but in a very different way, but
y'all are coming from the same place.
I never came here for Harvard,
never came here thinking I'd stay.
Like, I'm not here for Harvard, I'm
here for the Movement of Ethnic Studies.
I came because you all asked me to.
You all asked me to come
teach Ethnic Studies.
I'm not committed to
Harvard, I'm committed to the
Movement of Ethnic Studies.
Right?
Because I'm accountable to my community.
I'm accountable to our babies.
That's who I do this for, it's
who I wake and breathe for.
I think about my students
from Elmhurst and Castle Mall.
They, they're the reason, they are
allowing me to, to wake and breathe
to do this work every single day.
I'm not accountable.
I don't feel accountable
to this institution.
But I work with a bunch of people who do,
the way that's more, I just appreciate it.
It's like, that's gotta be hard.
He's like, when a lot of, he's like, not
everybody, right, but a lot of people
we work with, it's like, they're holding
this up because that's all you're, well,
it came because I said, I actually work
with a lot of really stupid people.
He's like, really?
I was like, yeah.
Yeah.
He's like, then how or why are they there?
I'm like, well, legacies of privilege,
legacies of disproportionate hiring,
practices, admissions, like, you know,
I mean, let's think about how academia,
the path towards academia, tracking,
schools, all of that works, Kaplan, like,
it, the entire, right, schooling complex,
he's like, you worked your ass off.
You were always smart, like you worked
, you got there, he's like, it had to be
hard to get there and then look around and
see that and be like, I ain't holding this
shit up, no, he's like, one, he's like,
it has to be hard for you, right, to come
in, and I appreciate, like I hadn't, I
hadn't experienced like that conversation,
that empathy with somebody I grew up with.
With somebody right who, who calls me
Christina, so you don't got time to
hold up, you know, a badge, of, of white
supremacy, and that's a struggle, like
being in one of the original 13 British
colonies, like you feel the residue, feel
the residue of that here, it shows up
differently, just like parts of the South,
right, Southern United, you feel, there's,
because the histories are passed down.
It's in the air.
It's in the ethos, right?
It lives and breathes in our bodies.
It surrounds us.
It's also tied to the planet.
Ethnic studies is one of many,
right, approaches to an education.
That dares to be different, that dares to
say like, there is, there's like, there is
a, another world is absolutely possible.
Yeah, let me, let me ask you that, right?
Because a lot of the folks who are going
to be listening to us, you just gave
us a master class, I'm sure folks are
going to be, wow, what did she say again?
Let me write that down.
What did she say again?
Let me write that down.
You can't fly in a Dr.
V to school folks to the game everywhere.
But I know through our work that folks
are hungry to know where to start, right?
Because it's so, I mean, you
went from, You know, history of
colonialism to Ireland, to like the
founding fathers, to like our, our
decaying morals, you know, right?
It sounds very, very all encompassing in
a way that I could see my, you know,
fourth grade teacher sitting down like,
okay, I want to do this, but what do I
do for, I'm just inspired by the podcast
listening to Dr.
V.
Where do we go?
Where does, where does the
fourth grade teacher who wants
to get them, Where do they go?
What do they do?
Bounce a ball.
Okay.
This is, how, right, our ancestor, right,
Bob Moses, how he responded to a question.
Charles Payne was writing, writing
his book, Got the Light of Freedom.
It's asking, how do you,
how do you start a movement?
Because let's be clear, folks
are interested in ethnic studies.
It ain't just a curriculum.
It's not just a pedagogy.
That's important, right?
That's the, there's the technical
aspects that are important.
Something else, right?
Drawing from Dr.
Shawn Ginwright's work.
Technical and relational pedagogy.
Transactional versus transformative.
That is deep work that takes a lifetime.
And, while Moses responded
to the question, I start a
movement, you bounce a ball.
It begins with, right, you gotta
learn to dribble before you can...
Go into a park and say, Ah,
let's just get a game going.
You know, you have to learn.
Like, you have to start.
So, recognizing that, like, you can't
say, Oh, I want to play basketball
and now I'm going to be Steph Curry.
How much time you spend outside
the classroom and the school.
How much time you spend in the
communities where the young
people where you teach come from.
Right, we have a lot of teachers who
know a ton about the content and what
they're tasked to teach, hardly anything
about the communities in which they teach
and the histories of those communities.
So ethnic studies, first and foremost,
it's about, it's context specific.
It's context specific, but,
you know, situated also, right?
In a broader, like,
socio historical context.
Always remembering that is
starting with who's in the room.
I've had teachers say like,
oh, but it's so much I can't
possibly learn all of that.
It's like, no, well, let's start with
what you do know, and then we'll start
with interrogating what you know, right?
That's something I also, Professor
Takaki's class in undergrad.
First question he asked, it was
an epistemological question.
How do you know that
you know what you know?
Every teacher needs to
ask themselves that.
How do you know that
you know what you know?
Even right now, even on Tuesday,
students coming in, I could feel it.
It was like, tell us what to, I
don't, I said, if you haven't thought
about this, if this is the first
time you're thinking about it, you
need to sit with that for a moment.
And know that you're
never going to catch up.
You don't know what you don't know.
It's one of the most powerful
things teachers could say.
I don't know.
But let's find out.
Let's figure it out.
Let's learn.
Let's learn together, right?
This fear.
What is it you're afraid of?
What is it you're afraid of?
Are you afraid of actual
danger to your body?
Are you afraid of looking a certain way?
Are you afraid of perception?
Because we do live, right?
In the United States in that way,
so I think it starts with checking
in with yourself and your sources
of knowledge and ways of being.
It has to start there with a self
interrogation because then that
allows you to begin to curate with
a new lens, it just, it's not,
you're not, you actually don't have
to change everything you're doing.
You need to change how, you need to think
about how are you, how are you doing it?
It's not just what you teach, it's how
you teach it, and importantly, why?
So I was like, but why, like,
are you committed to justice?
And hearing things like, my mom, you
know, I named you, I named you, you
know, giving, I gave you a Chinese
name, which means, you know, a heart
bigger than the sky, because I want
you to love beyond just yourself.
Right?
That, that, coupled
with, knowledge, right?
Precious knowledge, that is where
transformation can truly occur.
We're not going to think
our way out of oppression.
What is your relationship
to what you're teaching?
That's why we ask anything.
So what's your relationship to
the history that we're teaching?
What is the relationship
of your ancestors?
Because that's a hard question too, right?
In a place like, it's hard.
It's like, there's not, you gotta
face that, because, and then, what
does that bring up in your body?
Alright, what makes your, what type
of learning or conversations or
interactions with students cause
your muscles to constrict and when
do you feel settled and relaxed?
When is it what are your ideas around
control just even calling a classroom
management versus thinking about right
building healthy classroom ecosystem.
It's all in your approach like it just
begins with the questions to just start
questioning That's the first thing
that ethnic studies is about is like
let's take a pause for me that we got
a you know, you can read the word But
we also got to then read the world.
Again, it's not a metaphor,
it's not just a, it's a verb.
What does it mean to actually enact a
change that honors humanity through the
curriculum that you teach, through the
interactions, through the way you interact
with your students, their families?
How do you perceive, how many families,
you know, do you know in your classrooms?
How many and why not?
And don't, and if you, and if you
have, and if you, and recognize when
you're deflecting or giving an excuse.
Right?
What is the voice that guides you?
We have our conscience, you
know, we have our ancestors.
But there's also, right, the voice
of, the voice, different voices of
oppression, the voices of white supremacy.
I say that all the time, that you have
to recognize, when is it the voice of
white supremacy, when is it your voice?
And when is it the voice of white
supremacy disguising itself as
your voice to tell you what to do?
What guides your, what is it
that guides every curricular and
pedagogical decision you make?
What is the primary influence?
How much are you exercising
the agency you've always had?
You know, and it starts with,
again, what is it you already know?
What are you passionate about?
Who are you?
Do the kids know who you are?
Like, have you allowed yourself,
have you allowed your full
humanity to show up in a classroom?
You know, are we as vulnerable
and vulnerageous in front of our
students as we ask them to be?
We ask students to write a lot
of personal and we ask them to
engage in like pretty scary tasks.
Every assignment that I've ever
given students, I make myself do it,
were the ways in which your humanity
was affirmed, denied, assaulted,
loved, lifted up, and what are
the ways your curriculum and your
pedagogy and your classroom, what's
on your walls is doing it now.
That's a really important starting place.
If I may say one thing about anti
racism, which is so deeply important
to our work, is to make sure we're also
not naming what we don't want, right?
Right?
Which is not, that's not all what
anti racism is, but there are folks
that similarly, right, jump on.
Oh, I want to be anti racist.
Okay.
So you want the absence of racism.
What do you want instead?
That's sometimes the next step, right, the
other part of the work that is missing.
Is we, and that's, and that is also
just, you know, an outcome of, right?
In many ways, our trauma response
is like, we have to begin
by eradicating, being clear.
We have to be just as clear, just like
with, you know, young people in schools.
Spend a lot of time telling them
what to not do, instead of offering
models or visions, what it can be.
That's why it's like, instead
of saying, you know, warnings.
Which is what we use in ladders
of discipline, carceral logic.
What danger actually lies ahead?
No.
It's opportunities.
And so I just encourage folks
to also think about, like,
who are dedicated, right?
Listening to, you're dedicated to
the work of eradicating, right?
Race, racism, anti racism, right?
Against it.
What are you for?
So you're saying after you're taking,
if you, if you identify as anti racist,
you're taking a firm stand against racism.
What do you stand for?
And do you know what that looks like?
Do you know what that world?
Do you have an imagining?
And what is your, what
is your place in it?
And, and what is, what then that
is, I think, an important, right?
Prerequisite for engaging, right?
In genuine acts of solidarity
in your everyday life.
Because that is, that's also central to
like, I think, really doing this work.
In a way that is in service, right?
Of restoring our, our collective humanity.
Awesome.
Dr.
V 9 8, 8 6 on Instagram for those
Harvard alum come to ALCC this year.
It's going to be fire.
I'm gonna be there.
Yeah.
Dr.
V be there.
And so this has been a great conversation.
Thank you for being our second guest here.
Thank you for having me.
Love you.
Love you too, girl.
Thank you for tuning in to this
episode of the Anti- Racism
Leadership Institute podcast.
Remember, the fight against racism
starts with each and every one of us.
Together, we can create inclusive
environments in our schools that celebrate
diversity and empower all students.
For more information, visit our
website at AntiRacismInstitute.com
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Join us next time as we continue to
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