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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!
00:00:04:12 - 00:00:36:21
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Anti-Racism Leadership Institute podcast, where we ignite the sparks of change and inspire a world free of racism. This podcast is dedicated to highlighting the most cutting edge anti-racist research in education for the purpose of connecting practitioners to powerful, research based approaches to racial equity. I am your host, Doctor Tracy Benson, and today we invite you on a transformative journey as we delve into the efforts and triumphs of those dedicated fostering racial equity within education.
00:00:36:21 - 00:01:00:21
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Anti-Racism Leadership Institute Researcher Practice Podcast. Today we have the opportunity to talk with esteemed scholar Doctor Asia Reynolds about her research, our Black Girlhood identities and geographies in the neoliberal carceral state to explore liberatory practice. Doctor Reynolds is an assistant professor of urban education, a critical race studies in the teacher education department at Wayne State University.
00:01:00:23 - 00:01:03:22
Speaker 1
Welcome to the program.
00:01:04:00 - 00:01:05:13
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:01:05:15 - 00:01:19:19
Speaker 1
Awesome. I really appreciate you joining me today and again tonight as a casual conversation around your research, what you hope for the field because of your research. So could you start out just by, you know, introducing yourself? Tell us a little bit about your education journey and why you study what you study.
00:01:19:21 - 00:01:45:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Great. So I mean, I always been pretty good at school. And when I think about what that even means, that means very good at playing the role. Good black girl. So that I always had access to certain opportunities in school. And so, I went and got my undergrad at Penn State University, and I actually studied, criminal justice.
00:01:45:18 - 00:02:16:19
Speaker 2
I had a minor in social and African-American, but I still studied criminal justice. And I really thought that I was one who worked in a juvenile justice. In some way with young people. That was my idea of working with young people who were in the juvenile, justice system. My first job outside of when I graduated from undergrad happened to be a college counselor, college advising counselor, and I was at my alma mater, the high school I actually went to.
00:02:16:21 - 00:02:37:22
Speaker 2
And that changed the trajectory of everything. Like I think I always was supposed to be a teacher, but I always hear like, you know, normal young people out who's good teachers don't make money. So I was like, I'm not going to be a teacher. But I think all you I went to work with young people and young people who people usually deem are troubled or at risk or whatever the term is now.
00:02:38:00 - 00:03:01:11
Speaker 2
And so, I had my first job was as a compromise. And I love the love, love what I did working with Keith. I love being in the school space. And I also think just do that, even though I didn't have the professional like development around how to work with young people, since I can't build criminal justice program.
00:03:01:13 - 00:03:23:19
Speaker 2
But I also knew as I was working with those young people that both that school was a place of so much possibility, but also so much harm. And I wanted to study somewhere where I felt like they saw young people as people. And that also were thinking about liberatory education. So I applied to the master's program.
00:03:23:21 - 00:03:42:07
Speaker 2
I got in and I actually deferred for a year because I also didn't know anything really about master's work. So I like had no real plan around, like how do I pay for it is like I was just like, cool. You know, like I'm a lot of school and see what happened. And so then I was like, okay, let me like, seriously think about how I wasn't paying for this.
00:03:42:09 - 00:04:03:20
Speaker 2
And then I'm going to make this big leap to Chicago because I didn't know anyone in Chicago. And when I got to Chicago, I just feel really blessed that not only were the people in my program, I'm so amazing in thinking about, like, in their radical thinking around youth culture, working with you, liberatory spaces for education.
00:04:03:21 - 00:04:34:18
Speaker 2
Folsom, like all of this was happening within our program, and it was because, like, the curriculum was cool, but it was like the dynamic people. I just think in the program at the time, like this program was attracting a certain type of like certain type of people, who were just serious about, like, how do we create this other world for young people, and serious about, like many of us probably were also seen in different parts of our lives as troublemakers are, you know, or knowing that school, just like schools, is never set completely right.
00:04:34:20 - 00:04:55:05
Speaker 2
And so I think that was just amazing. I was in Chicago when a teacher strike happened. That was also very much part of my political development of just being there and being part of the teacher strike and working with certain organizations on the ground. I'm trying to figure out, how are we making the connections about other things that we were seeing happening in the city?
00:04:55:11 - 00:05:16:01
Speaker 2
What other organizations we should be doing coalition building with? And just broadening my ideas around what is education in the first place and what is this purpose? And then I thought about I was like, if I pursue this, the like, what is the impact? What is it that I want to be at to do other than just say, I'm a doctor, right?
00:05:16:03 - 00:05:33:01
Speaker 2
So so I spent all these years money. So, I mean, I'd be from you from that angle. I was just like one. I think the the program that I went into, which is Social Foundation, which is a dying program across the country. Right. Because a lot of times people have seen social foundations as a very radical space.
00:05:33:03 - 00:05:50:20
Speaker 2
And, I just was just, you know, it's the right place at the right time between people that were in my program and people across the campus who were having these conversations about abolition. How do we look at Freedom Schools as models of schooling and where all these other places that we should be engaged in radical political education.
00:05:50:21 - 00:06:12:03
Speaker 2
And so I wanted to go team to just develop their, around those type of scholars who also were very much activists and in their community and think about how do I have this broader impact on the education system at large, whether it's administrators, whether it's teachers, and whether it's just working with families? Like, what does that look like in some?
00:06:12:05 - 00:06:46:19
Speaker 2
That's how I started. And so my basic program, my original project was like both to look at like Chirac and how terminology like that is used to legitimize violence against black and brown communities. You have engage in hip hop. My original project, I realized that we were having such conversations at the time around community violence in Chicago, and we were having those conversations around black girls and not with black girls, and asking them about what their experience navigating that space, the ways that we were looking at violence was also just limited and not capturing their whole experience.
00:06:46:21 - 00:07:11:00
Speaker 2
And so that's kind of what led me to this place of like, I want to hear and be, with black girls to learn more about their schooling experience and their spirits navigating this terrain of violence. And what does act like? How do we spend our notion around what is right? So I was working with an organization a long while home, which I still do work with and collaborate with.
00:07:11:02 - 00:07:29:19
Speaker 2
Who particularly work with black girls between the ages of 14 and 18 doing arts activism and healing. And they are usually, to to engender violence and many of them may be survivors or friends of or family of someone who might be a sexual assault survivor. And so like that has been the starting place for the work.
00:07:29:19 - 00:07:40:05
Speaker 2
But I think the work is much broader than that, of really thinking about freedom, resistance or refusal, not only for black girls, I think, but just for our, our even our community.
00:07:40:07 - 00:08:01:03
Speaker 1
Wow, that sounds like a, a very interesting journey where you sort of found your place, you know, coming from, you know, your background and working in schools. And then finding your, your place with, with black girls. I think it's an area of course, it's understudied, of course, as it typically is around people of color. So you said three things I want to sort of explore in a way.
00:08:01:03 - 00:08:18:11
Speaker 1
The first thing that you started in the beginning of your story was about being the good black girl, right? Because this is a concept. I think it's very important. Right. And it sort of aligns to my story as I knew what it was to be the good black kid from the walk out the department integration program, where I was bussed from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, out to a place called Brown Deer.
00:08:18:13 - 00:08:37:23
Speaker 1
And you know, you had the good black kids and then the other black kids right after the same. But I have to stay out of the fray, because if I stepped over the line, I was a bad black kid. Right. So I want to explore that concept with you because it's very important, because you said also the place that schools could be places of great promise, but also a great harm.
00:08:38:01 - 00:08:54:01
Speaker 1
And I think it connects to that concept, especially with, with brown skin. And then I want to sort of explore what liberatory praxis means. Right. So, you know, that term comes out. But what does that mean. Abolition. What does that meaning mean about schools. And so let's start with the concept of, you know, your experience as a student.
00:08:54:05 - 00:08:59:07
Speaker 1
And you said very specifically you knew how to be the good black girl. What does that mean?
00:08:59:09 - 00:09:21:19
Speaker 2
I think there is just certain messaging that you get when you're young, whether it's from family, schools, church, if you're or religious institutions or wherever else you're navigating that you might not be able to like, you know, cognitively articulate, like I know that I you know, that y'all are like, certain that you like them this way and they get rewarded and these kids don't get rewarded.
00:09:21:21 - 00:09:47:09
Speaker 2
But it's like there's a certain messaging that you understand, right? That if you're savvy enough, like you understand, like, oh, if I come into the classroom and do these, particularly as a black kid, I get rewarded. But if I do these things, I get over here and I think it becomes most apparent to me, it became most apparent to me when they start tracking, right?
00:09:47:09 - 00:10:13:20
Speaker 2
Like, oh, the further you keep going up in grade and then you start getting track, right? Because the same people that you set a class where you no longer have class with, and if you had class with those other students, you know that, like, either you're no smarter than them or they're just as smart as them, right? And so you're not actually really sure, like, why you are being put over here now and they aren't coming with you.
00:10:13:22 - 00:10:34:22
Speaker 2
Right. Like doesn't make sense to you. And then when you get put over here in this other group, you get, you get special privileges, right? Like you start to see like, oh, we're going on field trips regularly. Oh, we get invited to, you know, if the mayor or the president council in town. Right. I'm one of the kids at the cream of the crop.
00:10:34:22 - 00:10:58:13
Speaker 2
Kids that will get invited to go and be at this special event. Or if someone comes to the school, I'm in, the group that they meet with. Right. And so you just start to get this messaging that like if I come in here and behave right, and also like I'm a I was a big black girl, right? So I also understood how easily I can be read as dangerous or aggressive.
00:10:58:15 - 00:11:24:20
Speaker 2
And I understood at a young age. Right. And so I think I definitely use humor as a shield of navigating those spaces where I can make students and teachers. Right. And so I understood those things as my shield of like, this is my, my asset, and this asset allows me to maneuver in a particular way that I'm not read as aggressive, and I'm just faithful and know that I'm not just like, like it's not a minstrel show, right?
00:11:24:20 - 00:11:51:02
Speaker 2
Like I'm playful. No, they're just like, they don't think that that playfulness to me, that I'm also not entirely right. And so it was like, I feel like I had to really find my niche or like my, my little the thing that worked for me to be able to continue to get access to these places. Right? And I mean, I understand that that like when you get access to these spaces, that is supposed to be the way that you will have access to better things in life, right?
00:11:51:03 - 00:11:52:09
Speaker 2
Like a better quality of life.
00:11:52:09 - 00:12:05:11
Speaker 1
So in how early on would you say that you, I mean, consciously learned this, right? Because we become aware. Become aware. I don't know the demographics of the schools that you went to. Right? I know my school is for that. I mean, it was like 5% black, right? And I was one of the very few black kids at school.
00:12:05:11 - 00:12:32:04
Speaker 1
So I was I felt black schools. I walked in, I mean, black neighborhood shipped out to the, you know, white as suburb. Right. So I become very aware of my blackness in the third grade. That's when I was transferred to this white school. And, so when did you learn this concept of how to see yourself as a black girl and how you sort of absorbed the culture of what it's like to be non-confrontational or not seen as aggressive, like how young where you would you realize that this was, strategy you needed to use?
00:12:32:06 - 00:12:55:05
Speaker 2
I'm not really sure. I mean, most schooling spaces that I was in were pretty black and white, right? There might have been some Asian I led to next excuse, like in between, but they were such a small number. Right. And one of the, like one of the school that I grew up mostly, mostly in, which was a public school, I mean, almost like literally it's almost like 5050.
00:12:55:07 - 00:13:17:02
Speaker 2
And so, I think in, in those moments. Right. Especially because when I go home and I live in a full black community. So as they appear when I go into these school spaces, right, like that, there's something that that that clicks of like, I'm black, so I don't, I don't know what it is. I maybe was like most catches a I want to say probably in middle school.
00:13:17:07 - 00:13:37:00
Speaker 2
And like I said, because that is when we really got track like for us from. Yeah, like I was going to elementary school for the most part, you know, we were all in the same, the same classes, unless you were in a smaller group that might have been gifted kids. And the two kids were always mostly white.
00:13:37:02 - 00:13:55:05
Speaker 2
And I don't know that I questioned anything about the gifted program, but I didn't even really know what they did. So I think I didn't even care to, like, try to be like, why do you go to gifted? Whatever. But definitely I want to say by middle school because of how how we start to get track. I mean, not understanding, like why my friends are not in my class.
00:13:55:07 - 00:14:08:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so this concept and I want to explore this again. So, you know, schools can be a place of great promise but also great harm. And someone could listen to us say, oh, well, you know, Doctor Reynolds, we'll just bring her in and have her talk to the black kid about how to be the good black boy.
00:14:08:18 - 00:14:13:21
Speaker 1
Black girl as a strategy. Someone could read it that way. I mean, what do you say to that?
00:14:13:23 - 00:14:48:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the the issue was never the kid that the issue was the actual school structuring itself. Right. And really understanding how school is such a castle place. We don't talk enough. I think about how much black and brown children have to give up to be in a school space, because whether that learning was conscious or unconscious, for me, that means I had to learn very early and stripped myself of certain things to be read, legible and be rewarded in this school space.
00:14:48:06 - 00:15:15:01
Speaker 2
And we don't think enough about what the price and cost of that is, right? Not only, emotionally and mentally, but even spiritually. We're asking like what that takes for young black and brown folks who have to come into school spaces where most of their teachers may be young, bright eyed, and white women, where you're always having to earn everything right, like like you're there's always a threat that this all could be taken away.
00:15:15:03 - 00:15:51:14
Speaker 2
And so, yeah, schools very much can become very carceral because I think about education broadly. Right. There's a distinction that always careful to make between education and schooling only for me is what I think about is that school building that we go down to that is very much centered around white supremacy, middle class. I live right and has always been structured in a way, particularly for black and brown people, to be a indoctrination into nationalist ideals that are often in conflict of how and who we how we see ourselves and idea of self-determination.
00:15:51:14 - 00:16:11:04
Speaker 2
Right. And I think the beautiful part is that I think black institutions have also been at the forefront of providing this subversive education that I think allowed many of us to really ground ourselves in our blackness, our cells, in ways that school maybe didn't allow to allow us to see ourselves.
00:16:11:06 - 00:16:32:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So how does that fit in with liberatory practice? Right. So praxis. So, you know, you know, a previous colleague that had on the show was talking about abolitionist practices, liberatory praxis. Right. And within that, the construct of schooling is not much, you know, sort of, retrofitting we can do in the traditional space, right, just with schooling space.
00:16:32:05 - 00:16:37:08
Speaker 1
And so in your mind, what is liberatory praxis and how does that manifest?
00:16:37:10 - 00:17:08:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, this is so important because I don't always think I have the answer, but there's always something that I'm trying to work through. Right. When me and my colleague wrote the article You can't steal my Joy. Much of our conversations in trying to write that article was centered around what are the possibilities of school like with us taking in the whole history of how we know that schools come to be and what their main purpose is, what is the possibilities of school?
00:17:08:21 - 00:17:31:23
Speaker 2
Because we didn't want to write this surface article about black Joy, we wanted to think about, I think what you were even getting at a little bit earlier of like, how do we think about how kids aren't the problem, but the school itself is the problem, and that oftentimes we're asking young people to learn to cope and assimilate into a space that is harmful to them.
00:17:32:01 - 00:17:55:07
Speaker 2
Right. And how do we think about black joy? That is not about respectability politics, right. And so as we continue to, like, have those conversations and go back and forth, the tension was around, how can the traditional schooling space do that? And I think we keep coming back to now. Right. So the moments of black joy that happens in school spaces is in spite of what the school is, right?
00:17:55:12 - 00:18:22:08
Speaker 2
Like the thing that we love, I think about school, is in spite of what the school is actually supposed to do. And so I think when that's the it's like that's the issue, right? Is like the thing that we actually do love about school or the things that even like black communities value about education with, because we have always understand this, particularly in the US, as occasional spaces as a practice of freedom, as a way of getting to know ourselves and being in community one another, right?
00:18:22:08 - 00:18:40:15
Speaker 2
Of trying to decide how we want to be with one another and self-determination. And so that often is, if that is happening in the school building, that's in spite of what school was supposed to do, right? So we're we're under this attack where we can't bring that to light. That should be the center of what schooling is doing.
00:18:40:20 - 00:19:09:22
Speaker 2
But that isn't happening. Right? And it's not happening for me. It's not happening because we don't have enough, like Teacher, it's not happening because the training that teachers get is also racism and problematic. It's not happening because we're watching that federal government continuously put the schools under content, under attack, no matter who has been in leadership. Right. Many of the reforms that have come down have to to hold black and brown schools hostage and continue to give them less of the things that they need to function in any way.
00:19:09:22 - 00:19:29:09
Speaker 2
And so, yeah, is really having to contend with the thing that we do love about that, that we imagine schools doing that it's for the good that we love about school, the parts of school that we think, make, make us feel good is actually in spite of, what school are supposed to do. And so that's the case.
00:19:29:11 - 00:19:38:04
Speaker 2
Sure. We have to really rethink like both the school also, but also education. And where else can that be happening.
00:19:38:06 - 00:20:01:07
Speaker 1
Gotcha, gotcha. And so a lot of folks listeners out there are practitioners. Right. That's the purpose of this podcast is to talk with teachers, talk with leaders. And part of what we do in the Anti-Racist Leadership Institute, in our partnerships is that we encourage circle of influence, right. Whether you're a classroom teacher, whether you're a school leader, whether you're a district leader, what is your circle of influence and how can you impact experience of students of color?
00:20:01:09 - 00:20:21:01
Speaker 1
Right. Because it's easy to get overwhelmed by the if you think about the history of school in in the initial intent around sort of, you know, with the Native American schools around elimination or assimilation and then, you know, restricting education from, you know, stolen Africans, they can't learn to read, can't be educated was so illegal. So it's been a weapon for the greater part of our history as a country.
00:20:21:01 - 00:20:38:14
Speaker 1
Right? Those are the foundations of our education system. And if it came to the totality of it's like, where do we go? Like I am just stuck in neutral with just in the learning space. However, there are there are scholars like yourself. We're out there, you know, doing research around, you know, I like the name of your article.
00:20:38:14 - 00:20:53:18
Speaker 1
You can see what practices and possibilities for black you in urban education. And so we're thinking about capturing black truth, whether it's from the educator and or from the student end. What is something that a practitioner can do that's within their circle of influence.
00:20:53:20 - 00:21:09:20
Speaker 2
Yeah that's a fair question because I do think that that is very easy to get in a place where like this is heavy. And if I've been interpreting Circle of influence. Right. Is that like the people you're building with. Is that like what do you consider.
00:21:09:23 - 00:21:27:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I started my career as a fourth grade teacher. Right. I'm a teacher in a classroom about 27 kids. I have a team of four other teachers. I was a math and science teacher. Right. Maybe I had some access to the administration, to the PD, but that's about it. I'm not running schools. I'm not making policy. Right.
00:21:27:15 - 00:21:31:15
Speaker 1
My circle of influence is directly with kids, with families. Okay. But the team that I'm working on work.
00:21:31:15 - 00:21:54:13
Speaker 2
At, I see what you're saying. Yeah. So I thank you for that question. Thing. Right. So I start off as a compromiser and I also was teaching the class at the time. And I think what I learned very early from that moment was a few things. One, being a community with folks who have the same goal as you.
00:21:54:15 - 00:22:13:14
Speaker 2
So I can spend a lot of time just arguing with everybody else who would think whatever I'm doing is too ambitious. And that's how people like, seriously, people were like the doing the don't. So my uses are one account which I am this old, but if you have that, they're just going to go there and cut up the whole time anyway, then you're going to receive what you need right now.
00:22:13:14 - 00:22:29:09
Speaker 2
I meant like and it caught me for more because I want to remind I was on my I'm a mom. So these are also some of the folks who taught me, these are some of the people who was in the front office when I was in, you know, coming up, these are some of the folks who might have been, a principal or assistant principal that might have moved up.
00:22:29:09 - 00:22:45:22
Speaker 2
So these are the same folks that like, now I'm also like, so what did you think about us? Right. Like, if this is your thought process about these young people. But I was met with so much of that. Right, right. And I sort of got stuck there right. Or I could have been very easily just like, well, you're there, right?
00:22:45:22 - 00:23:08:11
Speaker 2
That many kids aren't one of the cars. So let me not overextend myself. But what was also helpful is that I found people who were, like, willing to rather die and be like, no, this is possible. But what they know that is that they love these kids and that these kids deserve nice things, and that was them for us to build together.
00:23:08:11 - 00:23:29:12
Speaker 2
Right? That was enough for when I was like, I'm doing a field trip, we're going to do a college field trip somewhere, and I would have those two same people be down would be Chaperons, right? Right. So that's why I've never done this alone. Right? Like, we can't do this alone. It's impossible to do alone is going to wear you out on the floor, even just not having the emotional, support to do this.
00:23:29:12 - 00:23:59:20
Speaker 2
Right. So definitely finding your people and your people is in there. There are going to be people in that school that that can be your people. And there might not be even another teacher, or it might not be in your grade. It might be the janitor. Like I said, me and the janitor beside, I think my job was to part of, like creating the impossible in that school space for young people to feel joy and to be a disruptor to folks who could seem to try to steal their joy.
00:23:59:21 - 00:24:20:11
Speaker 2
Right. And so when I am invited to the meeting that I try to really work through, like, what is my role of not just being a bystander of folks trying to do harm to young people? But yeah, I also the other the last one I would thing I would say too, is building with families because they also just have power.
00:24:20:11 - 00:24:42:17
Speaker 2
They have that power to influence that school. You know, you get enough fans to come up there and say, I want these things to happen. The school has no choice but to do that. So also like it was just really important for me to build with families and empower families. People care about their children, I think oftentimes, but simply working in black or brown spaces, that we are taught this ideal to pathologized black and brown parents as not cheering.
00:24:42:23 - 00:25:02:05
Speaker 2
They're not going to come today. They won't come up to the school. So like I always tell people, I was like one, one of the things that I was like, I want parents to be able to come in means what barriers do I have to move out the way for them to be here? That might mean that I have to now do a program later than I want to stay here to school, because I know that they'll be home.
00:25:02:05 - 00:25:19:03
Speaker 2
I think that might mean that I have to have childcare, because I know that that's going to be an issue of them having they bring all the children with them. I know them have to serve food. We all have to do real dinner because this is dinner time, right? Like, what are the barriers that I moved out of the way for, for families to be engaged?
00:25:19:05 - 00:25:31:15
Speaker 2
Like, I don't think people really imagine how excited parents and families get when to actually be asked to be a part of whatever you're doing, right? Because they don't all think it as great.
00:25:31:15 - 00:25:51:04
Speaker 1
Thank you for sharing those very practical examples. From the position that you had when you were working in schools. And a it sort of rings to asset framing constantly asset framing the population because we know that, you know, brown communities, especially poor brown communities with so much deficit frame that's apply to our community, to our kids, to the families.
00:25:51:04 - 00:26:11:17
Speaker 1
Right. You don't care. The kids aren't they? They're not interested in school. They don't care. They're afraid of acting white. Right? They pull each of their crabs in a barrel is so much deficit frame that that informs their actions to then produce the behaviors out of the students to get frustrated because we don't have our expectations. Right. And one of the things that I did as a teacher, you know, during my years in the classroom, I was like, you know what?
00:26:11:19 - 00:26:34:22
Speaker 1
My classroom is my classroom. And this is our school. They were all welcome here wherever the level that you were at. I had kids of all different levels over age. No other fourth grade teacher. I had like 13 year olds in fourth grade, you know, I mean, they was old, right? But in my classroom, like, we're here, you know, and whatever troubled soul that they want to give me as the big black, big black manual, they'll give us all like the the troubled kids.
00:26:34:22 - 00:26:45:19
Speaker 1
I'm like, hey, come on, here we go. Rock and roll. I never suspended a kid. I never wrote a kid up like I'm a rock. Which you ever work with you. I'm going to come to your house. We're going to talk with mama, grandmom, whoever you living with. Right? Because I need you here, and I need you money.
00:26:45:23 - 00:27:04:00
Speaker 1
Right. And that was my commitment to liberation. Like, this is not going to be a carceral space outside of my classroom, right? This is my classroom. And we got to learn together. Right. So I appreciate you give those examples from your your experience. So before we get to your research, because when I was asked this question about what do you hope the impact of your research is?
00:27:04:05 - 00:27:21:18
Speaker 1
There's a very pertinent topic right now, of course, on a national scale around this attack on the I. And so I just want to get your perspective on this because this is comes up, I think, because of work that I do of group work that you do that there's like, all right, what do we do now? Like you folks around me are like, oh my, what do we do?
00:27:21:19 - 00:27:32:05
Speaker 1
This is we're going backwards. I can't believe you know this. It's all over. I'm in. My perspective is a little bit different, but I want to get your perspective on this this nationwide attack on the guy.
00:27:32:06 - 00:27:53:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, I love that. You said your perspective is different. So I'm wondering like how we will we'll listen together. Yeah. It is hard to have this conversation publicly because even when you listen, I think that we've been talking about it publicly, and I feel like people can definitely take a sound bite from this and be like, see, this is why the my good.
00:27:53:20 - 00:28:14:06
Speaker 2
And that's what I want people to do. I need people to listen to the whole day. And I'm going to talk about this from what I've seen at the university level, on one hand over the last, since I want to say, what, 2020, right? 21. Could we get George going with you? Covid. Right. So like, people feel guilty.
00:28:14:08 - 00:28:43:10
Speaker 2
I want to say that created more opportunities for us to hire black people. Right. At the interest level, we've been able to tap into more resources that have been like, we believe in equity and justice or, you know, all of these things, right? So I have force people who before who maybe they're passive or wasn't taking a stand at all to take a stand because nobody wants to be able to race, right?
00:28:43:12 - 00:29:06:22
Speaker 2
So it made it force corporations to force universities to kind of take a stand in a, in a more deliberate way, an overt way to say this is a safe space. And part of that for me. What I got to see, one of the the biggest contributions of that was particularly in the university, was that we were even hiring more black people, right, without having to argue and justify it.
00:29:06:23 - 00:29:30:19
Speaker 2
Like, or we were able to do more targeting hiring around black folks and folks of color without having to, to obscure that. Right. So, so that that was definitely a plus in it. So some of the early data that we thought that I think that that that is out here right now is that we know that one, just like most affirmative action white women benefited the most from rain.
00:29:30:21 - 00:29:59:07
Speaker 2
So now I got questions around, right? Like, I don't know exactly where all of that me. Right. But now I have additional questions of like, what does that mean? Right? And how did that happen to you? Right. Like how the white women become the benefit factors of the. Yeah. The other issue is particularly in university and k-through-12 spaces, this question around, well, what were y'all doing before the for because you've claimed that right.
00:29:59:07 - 00:30:23:17
Speaker 2
Particularly school spaces have claimed for a very long time that diversity. Right. In some formal way we that we have claimed that we do diversity, we have the multicultural center, we have the EEOC, right. Equity opportunities all like we have all these that that we we don't discriminate against race, that and the like. Right. Like we have all these things in place and supposedly legal measures to support that.
00:30:23:19 - 00:30:45:19
Speaker 2
And yet you need Dei programs. So it became in those moments that like, so what were we doing before? And lastly, what are we doing now? Right. So I think that was the thing is, like for me, when I was seeing what a Dei program look like, it wasn't up in the what we know to be the settler colonial project of school.
00:30:45:22 - 00:31:00:21
Speaker 2
Right? Like it wasn't upending what we have known to be the foundation of of school, of the genocide of indigenous people in the city where black folks. Right. It wasn't, ending. Right. And so, you know, we saw more book clubs.
00:31:02:07 - 00:31:28:07
Speaker 2
We've seen all types of resources to support the performance of equity, but there was never an assurance that came with it. Any type of accountability this consistently becomes my question in my program right at my university of like, let's say that students are complaining about a professor being racist and homophobic. What happens? What a what are we holding that person to?
00:31:28:09 - 00:31:45:22
Speaker 2
And so always gets into this place. Well, we can't force them to go to them, but we can offer these resources. So I always ask so then if they don't go what's that accountability. Right. And honestly we can be not having to be punishment right. Because we have to move away from the castle state of being. What is accountability.
00:31:45:23 - 00:32:08:05
Speaker 2
Right. And so I think that's what I've saw is like Dei without accountability attached. And so everyone was able to go around and have book clubs, read these books, feel better about themselves that they have, engage in some type of work around maybe examining their privilege, but not having to actually be uncomfortable about having to give up any of them.
00:32:08:07 - 00:32:30:03
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's it's Yeah, I think we're, on the same page in a lot of ways. Right? That there was there was intent, but I think the intent was fueled by guilt and shame. And, you know, any movement filled by guilt and shame that's going to run out, that's going to run out once I feel satisfied that I created my guilt and shame.
00:32:30:08 - 00:32:47:03
Speaker 1
All right. I'm cool. I'm gonna go right back to what I did before because I did this action. This actually, I called in the speaker. We had this book club. Maybe we diversified our curriculum a little bit by. Cool. Now we could just go back to normal, right? And even more so, there's been a swing back and an active, backlash.
00:32:47:03 - 00:32:59:06
Speaker 1
As Carolyn Anderson says, the white rage is, you know, they go, they're going to pay us back for the next couple decades for having that black president. Right? They're going to be like, we still here? We said, we still own because we celebrate too hard, right?
00:32:59:08 - 00:33:18:06
Speaker 2
And we didn't even get anything from it. That's the thing. I'm just like, what does y'all think that we got so much in the country, like from the black president that still has to represent this empire, right? Like we did not get much somewhere. And so I don't even understand the rollback in is punishment in the white race.
00:33:18:06 - 00:33:20:00
Speaker 2
Right.
00:33:20:02 - 00:33:34:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. And absolutely. Well we made them think about race. We made them feel guilty on a national scale and we not doing that again. We going to put it in the law. You know. Not even gonna be able to talk about it right. You can't even use these words. There'll be no more guilt and shame coming out of these institutions.
00:33:34:00 - 00:34:03:15
Speaker 1
Right. And yeah. And de you know, just like I sort of wrote an article, I think it was a couple of years ago, there's a trade article around the, the College Board and African-American AP African-American studies writing that treating these marginal identities as marginal makes it an easy target. Right. The College Board has access to a litany of history courses, right, that they offer, but yet they didn't revise their curriculum and they put it out there as is.
00:34:03:15 - 00:34:06:13
Speaker 1
Easy target, right? AP African-American studies.
00:34:06:15 - 00:34:07:10
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:34:07:12 - 00:34:24:13
Speaker 1
Let's go take that class out here. White students knocking down the door be like, oh, we really want that at our school, right. You know, probably folks of color who are in these high schools who had who offered this as an offering. Right? And so they put it out. There's easy target, there's a backlash to it, and then we can easily aim at it.
00:34:24:13 - 00:34:42:08
Speaker 1
Same thing with the I. We kept us in this marginal space instead of incorporating it into how we do business. Right. So it's not a target on how we do things. Right. It's just how we do things. It's not a target in and of itself. And so we kept it so isolated and like most of it was performance.
00:34:42:10 - 00:34:58:08
Speaker 1
Right. We can perform the, we're going to write a statement, right? We're going to have a book club, you know, we're going to write the speaker that it never made it into anything of substance, especially when it comes to outcomes for kids of color. And so we didn't start there. We didn't start with like, all right, what are intended outcomes for kids of color and work backwards?
00:34:58:09 - 00:35:17:02
Speaker 1
We just gave adults a bunch of things to do and hope for the best. Right. And so this backlash is what we're seeing is like, all right. We got to refine the work is still there. Just because we can't say these words doesn't mean that these outcomes aren't still there. Yeah, right. We just have to figure out how to how to make it normal and normalize it to address these things to a racialized lens.
00:35:17:04 - 00:35:41:15
Speaker 1
So the last question I have for you, and I ask that out of every, prestigious academic that, you know, after your litany of research, you go from, you know, assistant to associate, associate to 4 to 4 to endow. Right. You're this, you know, academic, a prolific, importance, 20 years from now, what do you hope your research provides as an imprint?
00:35:41:16 - 00:36:00:20
Speaker 1
So your research is there. It doesn't just shouldn't just exist in the journal. That should have some practical implications. So as you said, you know, doc, doctor, Doctor Reynolds really influenced me as a practitioner. And I'm doing boom, boom boom because, like, what do you hope your impact your research does to the practice in the field of education?
00:36:00:22 - 00:36:36:18
Speaker 2
I think. Is that right? I think that whether people are reading my still reading my work or not is not as important as I hope that it's inspiring those that come behind me to be radical in their approach. And pursuits for education and unapologetic about what that means for black children. I am I get so like, I think the thing that I get most excited about in doing this work is the emails I get from other black women, mostly because that's usually who they come from.
00:36:36:18 - 00:37:04:18
Speaker 2
But the emails I get from black women who are like, I read your dissertation, and it's making me think about how I want to approach my own work. And that makes me really proud, because I know the hard work that went into doing my dissertation, and I know the tensions of me being like, I can write this for black girls in the format that is most relatable to black girls or I can write this to be a prolific dissertation, and that held me up in my writing.
00:37:05:00 - 00:37:35:21
Speaker 2
But that wasn't where I was flawed, right? Like I was flawed in black. You're that held me up in my writing. I think having a strong, dissertation committee of prolific scholars in their own right who were like Asia, you have to tell the truth because that's who you are. And that's what I want. Like, I want people can behind me to to understand, sure, this is a privilege to be in the institution, but now your job is to I think about, Fred Moten in, in Stephano Harney when they write about the fugitive, fugitive.
00:37:36:03 - 00:37:59:11
Speaker 2
And it's saying, like, my job is an absolute from the university and put back into the community, that I'm part of. And so that that's what I'm doing. Like, I hope that people come behind me and are like, I want to be like that. And then I'm unapologetic about that. I'm radical in my approach, and then I'm okay with like, standing on that and In the Name of Black children and black women.
00:37:59:13 - 00:38:19:12
Speaker 1
Awesome. Well, thank you for that, I appreciate that. And that sounds like paving the way, right? Because you are so other people can be right. Because every iteration of us are radical academics in these spaces, creates the space for us people to follow after us, especially with our with our work. So I appreciate all the work that you do, and I'd like to thank you for coming here.
00:38:19:12 - 00:38:30:20
Speaker 1
So if people want to follow your work, if they want to find you, like where can they follow, Doctor Meadows, that you on social media? Yeah. Do you have, you're. Yeah. The speaker series, your next book. What's going on?
00:38:30:22 - 00:38:36:14
Speaker 2
That's the question. But make a find me on what is it, academic or. Okay.
00:38:36:15 - 00:38:37:21
Speaker 1
Okay, I am not.
00:38:38:02 - 00:38:53:06
Speaker 2
So I'm on social media. Oh, great. But if I do go back, I usually use IG as my private space. But I don't know, like, I know we all have Twitter and I don't know where I'm going. I haven't decided where I'm going with everyone out. So you had do you have suggestions where I should go?
00:38:53:07 - 00:38:55:10
Speaker 1
I like LinkedIn, you know, I'm on LinkedIn. That's why I post.
00:38:55:11 - 00:39:04:19
Speaker 2
I'm on LinkedIn. So yes, that's the preference. I definitely use my LinkedIn way more now than I used to. So definitely can reach out to me on LinkedIn.
00:39:04:21 - 00:39:25:07
Speaker 1
Wonderful, wonderful. So this has been another episode of the Anti-Racism Leadership Institute Research Researcher Practice podcast with Doctor Asia Reynolds. She's an assistant professor of urban education, critical race and, studies in the teacher education department at Wayne State University. Thank you so much for coming today, and I really appreciate you taking the time out to talk with all of us.
00:39:25:12 - 00:39:27:09
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me.
00:39:27:09 - 00:39:55:03
Speaker 1
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. Anti-Racism institute.com. And subscribe to our channel. Join us next time as we continue to shine a light on the champions of change.
00:39:55:05 - 00:40:03:07
Speaker 1
Stay inspired, committed and let's make a difference together.