Abstract
The purpose of this article is to describe a pedagogical inquiry the author conducted to engage preservice teachers in social justice praxis and teacher activism to address the impact of racial profiling on classroom interactions by utilizing the Trayvon Martin case. The Martin case provided the opportunity to have rich, meaningful discussions regarding race, equality, and justice with preservice teachers so that they would be better equipped to tackle such issues in the classroom. Most important, this inquiry reinforces the notion that children of color will never be treated equally until we change how they are perceived.
Keywords
Introduction: They Aren’t Just Any Names
Amadou Diallo: shot dead unarmed at 23 (February 4, 1999).
Sean Bell: shot dead unarmed at 23 (November 25, 2006).
Oscar Grant: shot dead unarmed at 23 (January 1, 2009).
Ramarley Graham: shot dead unarmed at 18 (February 2, 2012).
Trayvon Martin: shot dead unarmed at 17 (February 26, 2012).
Jordan Davis: shot dead unarmed at 16 (November 12, 2012).
Jonathon Ferrell: shot dead unarmed at 24 (September 14, 2013).
Eric Garner: choked to death unarmed at 43 (July 17, 2014).
Jordan Crawford: shot dead unarmed at 22 (August 5, 2014).
Michael Brown: shot dead unarmed at 19 (August 9, 2014).
Tamir Rice: shot dead unarmed at 12 (November 22, 2014). 1
What do these names mean to teacher educators, preservice, and inservice teachers? Why should they invest time researching and learning about the lives and premature deaths of these mostly young African American males? For communities of color and me, these names are a constant reminder of how the life of a male person of color can be taken at any given moment without consequence—in most of the cases mentioned above, the perpetrator(s) were not indicted. Two years ago, I learned the importance of what happens when preservice teachers do not know or connect with these names when I taught a diversity course to all-White undergraduates at a small, Catholic, liberal arts college in the South. When African American teenager Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, I immediately wanted to discuss this case in my diversity classes because it was a way to explore the themes highlighted in multicultural education (Nieto & Bode, 2010) and culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Furthermore, throughout these courses, conversations are centered around “the nexus between poverty and race” (Milner & Laughter, 2013) to inform teaching practices.
The students and I collaborated on how we could raise awareness about this case by coordinating with the campus-wide “Day Without Shoes” event, which educated students about global poverty. Over the next 2 weeks, we developed the following educational strategies:
Posted pictures throughout the college that highlighted the various forms of racial profiling.
Students would wear a hoodie on the same day as the “Day Without Shoes” event.
The day before we were to implement these activities—without my knowledge—a few students complained to the department chair about their discomfort and apprehension in participating in the online album because they were worried a future employer would see it and not hire them. I was particularly distraught because these students did not communicate any of these concerns during the 2 weeks prior to the event. I had also stated that participation was strictly optional. I saw this as an opportunity to showcase the pedagogy of critical, multicultural, and culturally relevant teaching and for students to reflect on their own positionalities. I do acknowledge that as their instructor, I was in a position of power. However, I do wonder if these same students would have raised similar concerns, if I had been one of my middle class, White, suburban, female colleagues? It made me reflect upon the gulf that exists between my students and the names listed at the beginning of this article and me. Last, if my students were identifying more with Zimmerman than Martin, then how would they view the students of color in their own classrooms?
The purpose of this article is to describe a pedagogical inquiry I conducted to engage preservice teachers in social justice praxis and teacher activism to address the impact of racial profiling on classroom interactions. My first attempt was a failure. Nevertheless, I was determined to try again because the Martin case became a
symbol of the overwhelming violence and oppression faced by blacks in the United States as they continue to contend, in our supposedly “postracial” era, with indignities and abuses ranging from diminished education and career opportunities, to unscrupulous and impoverishing lending practices, to harsher sentencing in the courtroom. (Wills, 2013, p. 227)
In other words, this case provided the opportunity to have rich, meaningful discussions regarding race, equality, and justice with preservice teachers so that they would be better equipped to tackle such issues in the classroom. More importantly, I address the crisis at the micro-level that is prevalent in urban education as it relates to teacher preparation, examining teacher attitudes, and presenting the skills and dispositions that are essential to effective urban teachers (Milner & Lomotey, 2014).
First, I will provide background to the Martin case and connect it to the deaths of Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. In each case, it becomes abundantly clear that young people of color are not viewed as children, but as threats to our society (Conchas, Lin, Oseguera, & Drake, 2015; Scott & Rodriguez, 2015). I utilize implicit biases as a theoretical framework because they enabled our class to discuss how our decision-making process operates quickly on a subconscious level. Then, I concisely review the literature of school discipline as it relates to children of color. This is an important contribution to the field because I argue that teachers are implicitly racially profiling students. Next, I will review my attempts to discuss the Martin case with preservice teachers and how it helped prepare them to engage in culturally relevant pedagogies. I conclude by discussing how such pedagogical inquiries can contribute to improving teacher education by addressing in-school factors such as inadequate teaching practices and preparation (Milner & Lomotey, 2014) that do not address the unique challenges of teaching in urban schools.
From Trayvon to Jordan to Mike to Tamir
February 26, 2015 marked the 3-year anniversary of the tragic death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin. He left to get a snack at a nearby 7-11—never thinking his life would be in danger by performing such a mundane act. George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain, observed Martin from inside his car and called 911 to report a guy was “just walking around looking about.” The 911 dispatcher asked Zimmerman if he was following Martin and then explicitly stated, “We don’t need you to do that” to which he responded “okay.” Our story should have ended there; instead, Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest at close range, ending his life in a scuffle (Yancy & Jones, 2013).
A year after Martin’s death, another Black, Florida teen, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed by Michael Dunn over his refusal to turn down loud music (Cooper, 2014). Dunn claimed the Black teens in the car had guns, and that was the reason why he fired a round of bullets. Michael Brown, a Black teen from Ferguson, Missouri, was shot six times after an alleged altercation with a police officer (Elgion, 2014). In all three cases, the African American teens were unarmed, labeled as “thugs,” and illustrated the unwarranted fear of Black males by the dominant group.
Perhaps, the most tragic case was of 12-year-old African American Tamir Rice, who was playing with a pellet gun at a park in Cleveland, Ohio, when officers mistook him for a “20 year-old male” carrying a lethal weapon (Dewan & Oppel, 2015). His death was blamed on a series of miscommunications, tactical errors, and institutional failures. However, when the officers raced to the scene, video surveillance illustrated that it took Officer Timothy Loehmann less than 2 seconds to shoot Rice in his abdomen. After Rice was shot, neither officer performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In fact, Rice’s 14-year-old sister, who came running to the scene, was tackled, handcuffed, and placed in custody, unable to do anything as she watched her brother die. Blow (2015) explains, “Tamir was a human being, a child—who could have been any of our children, and who was robbed of his life and therefore his future” (para. 14). Blow further explains how the basic respect for human life was ignored in the Martin, Garner, and Brown cases as the perpetrator(s) shifted bodies, checked pockets, and never provided aid. This lack of respect for Black human life has resulted in “righteous indignation” (Blow, 2015) as protesters engaged in marches, die-ins, shut down major roads, and demanded institutional reform.
All of these cases represent a pattern documented by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s (2012) Operation Ghettostorm annual report, which found that every 36 hours, police, security guards, or vigilantes killed a Black person (313 in 2012). Nearly 60% of these Black people killed were between the ages of 18 and 31, and nearly 10% were under 18. Virtually all were Black men. Approximately three fourths of those killed were unarmed or allegedly armed.
As Scherer and Dias (2013) so eloquently articulate, “Every few years, some instance of probable profiling, police overreaction or malice grabs national attention” (para. 3). Each case represents a new referendum on the state of race as the victims become demonized, and new reasons are developed to justify the killings of unarmed males of color. The tragedy of such cases is that it reaffirms negative images of Black males as aggressive, criminal, and hostile (Duncan, 2002; Noguera, 2003). The not-guilty verdicts in these cases further confirm the lack of value for Black life.
As I conclude this section, perhaps the Oscar tweet
4
about Quvenzhané Wallis can help shed light on why children of color are seen through hostile lenses. Wallis was the youngest nominated best actress in Oscar history. However, she had to endure lewd jokes from the Oscar host, interviewers who wanted to call her “Annie” because Quvenzhané was just too hard to pronounce, and an obscene tweet from The Onion, referring to her in the vilest of names. Mia McKenzie (2013) from the Black Girl Dangerous blog, explains best:
The thing about being a little black girl in the world is that even when you are the youngest person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, many people will use the occasion not to hold you up for all of the amazing things you obviously are, but to tear you down for the ways you don’t look like them, the ways your name isn’t their kind of right, the ways you don’t remind them of themselves, the ways you are not blonde or blue-eyed, as if those things could possibly matter when set against the otherworldly talent and beauty and brilliance you possess. (para. 1)
The last part is the key. No matter what “otherworldly talent and beauty and brilliance” people of color possess, we come into this world “already expected to be less than” what we truly are. Hence, our genius, creativity, and perseverance is often overlooked; or, even worse, erased because it does not always align with dominant norms. Most importantly, McKenzie (2013) writes,
The thing about being a little black girl in the world is that your right to be a child, to be small and innocent and protected, will be ignored and you will be seen as a . . . tiny black adult, and as such will be susceptible to all the offenses that people two and three and four times your age are expected to endure. (para. 5)
Our children of color carry with them the history of racism that society projects onto their parents, and have to overcome the biases, prejudices, and stereotypes projected onto them.
Theoretical Framework: Implicit Biases
Yancy and Jones (2013) explain how Martin’s death speaks unequivocally to the issue of racial profiling and racial justice as well as to the deeper racial pathology that devalues and evokes an irrational fear (Scott & Rodriguez, 2015) of young Black males, which can turn an ordinary situation into a life-or-death moment (S. C. Ferguson & McClendon, 2013). Consequently, implicit bias is an appropriate theoretical framework to help explain why this phenomenon occurs.
Implicit bias research “demonstrates that most of us have implicit biases in the form of negative beliefs (stereotypes) and attitudes (prejudice) against racial minorities” (Kang, 2005, p. 1494). This research is based on automaticity, which are decisions we make unconsciously. These implicit biases have real-world consequences, as illustrated in police shootings (Payne, 2001), hiring practices (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004), health-care services (Haider et al., 2014), and in the everyday realm of social interactions.
No test makes this fact clearer than the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT measures implicit attitudes by measuring the automatic evaluations we make between two ideas (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). The IAT is an online test where participants compare different groups (e.g., racial, ethnic) with two sets of stimuli (words or images) that are flashed on the screen. Greenwald et al. (1998) suggest that the IAT measures the “pervasiveness of unconscious forms of prejudice” and implicit racism as they correspond to a stereotype or attitude about a particular group. Participants are asked to tap keys on the right or left to the word that matches the image shown. The IAT reliably demonstrates that people are quicker to respond when attitude objects match evaluative attributes. For example, in one experiment, Black images are compared with White images. Words such as “violent” and “lazy” and “smart” and “kind” are flashed, and participants are told to hit as fast as possible a key on the left or right side of the keyboard. The IAT consistently establishes how we associate unpleasant words with Black names and images, while positive words with White names and images.
Goff and Richardson (2013) describe “suspicion cascades” as “the multiple ‘waves’ of decision-making errors” that warp our perceptions and lead to implicit racial biases. They further contend that suspicion cascades provide a lens to examine racist outcomes even in the absence of any explicit bigotry. This framework supports implicit biases research because it helps to explain how our minds tend to make automatic associations between various concepts to process information quickly, and, unfortunately, how these associations can often be based on stereotypes.
Kang (2005) supports this framework through his notion of “racial mechanics”—the ways in which race alters intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup interactions. As a result of these associations and implicit biases, Hart (2013) describes how Black people are objects of a criminogenic gaze in that regardless of “the race and gender of the perceivers, black people, especially black males, are perceived as criminal” (p. 95). Through this gaze, people of color live in a perpetual state of probation, where any action can be interpreted as threatening. This explains how police shot Jonathon Ferrell as he was seeking assistance for his car or how they shot Jordan Crawford for carrying an air rifle inside a store (Balko, 2014). In other words, implicit biases, suspicion cascades, and racial mechanics clearly underpin Eberhardt, Goff, Purdie, and Davies’s (2004) conclusions, “Certain concepts may be so tightly coupled with a specific social group that these concepts have become, in a sense, hijacked by that group. Indeed, the social group functions as the prototypical embodiment of these concepts” (p. 889). The aforementioned theories all help to explain the traumatic effects such associations have on people of color: forced into confessions, home raids, stop-and-frisk policies, and police brutality (Hart, 2013). The mere state of being a person of color is considered a perpetual threat, which means your life is always in jeopardy—especially with law enforcement. One minute you are shopping, playing in the park, or getting a snack from a store; the next minute, a bullet pierces you, ending your precious life. This research further supports the call to transform teacher education curriculum to include a significant study of race (Milner, 2013) because it demonstrates how prejudicial thinking operates irrespective of personal beliefs. As a consequence, we must examine the ways preservice students make sense of events such as the shooting of Trayvon Martin, as they reflect larger issues of systemic racism.
Literature Review: Suspicion Cascades in Schools
Within public schooling, several scholars have documented how popular views—created by media, public policy, and scholars—link African American males to threatening images such as being violent, being portrayed as drug dealers or thugs, or as being anti-authority, loud, lazy, and/or a number of other social deficiencies (Conchas et al., 2015; Duncan, 2002; Noguera, 2003). As a result, there is an overrepresentation of Black children being suspended, expelled, disciplined, and criminalized. The K-12 suspension rates have more than doubled for children of color since the early 1970s. Concurrently, the Black/White gap has more than tripled—one out of every seven Black students enrolled was suspended at least once (Losen, 2011). Nationally, African American boys are overrepresented on indexes of school discipline that range from classroom penalties to suspensions and expulsions (Gordon, Piana, & Keleher, 2000). Moreover, African American students receive harsher punishments than peers, even when the unsanctioned behavior is the same (Skiba et al., 2011). What is most troubling is the fact that there is no evidence that children of color engage in more serious patterns of rule-breaking. Rather, what is apparent is that offenses that require a judgment call by teachers or administrators disproportionately affect children of color (Losen & Skiba, 2010).
Within K-12 educational settings, White, middle class females (Zumwalt & Craig, 2005) occupy most positions of power, while poor, minority students comprise the majority of the student body. As a consequence, cross-cultural interactions in schools may lead to misunderstandings and conflict (Townsend, 2000) whereby dominant teachers interpret impassioned interactions as combative, which for K-12 students of color often lead to disciplinary action (Losen, 2011; Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, & Curran, 2004). It is important to note that teachers bring to “their classrooms epistemological assumptions formulated from their earlier experiences and teachings” (Douglas, Lewis, Douglas, Scott, & Garrison-Wade, 2008) that tragically affect how teachers view and treat students of color (Milner, 2013).
By referring back to the implicit biases research, we know that many of these biases are demonstrated through automaticity; as a result, these biases operate on a subconscious level. While it might seem farfetched to say educators racially profile Black and brown children, it becomes less dubious when data state an overrepresentation of them are being suspended, expelled, and disciplined. In essence, teachers also fall into the trap of suspicion cascades (Goff & Richardson, 2013) because it explains how race “colors” perceptions and leads to cultural misunderstandings, which may contribute to higher rates of school punishment for students of color (A. A. Ferguson, 2000). Consequently, what this literature implicitly describes is the criminogenic gaze (Hart, 2013) of Black and brown males that their classroom teachers may possess. While this gaze operates on an unconscious level, in the end, we want teachers to be critically self-reflective and disrupt their own implicit biases, which often lead to unfair discipline practices and damage the social, emotional, and mental wellness of students of color (Love, 2014).
Method: Disclosing My Own Biases
In our Teacher Education Program (TEP), all education majors are required to take a three-course diversity sequence, all of which emphasize sensitivity to multicultural issues, including cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity. Below is a brief description of each course:
For this study, I concentrate on data primarily from EDU 410. In this course, I discussed culturally relevant teaching as well as hip-hop pedagogies (Petchauer, 2009). More important, I chose this class because eight out of the 14 students were from my previous attempt, EDU 310. I was determined to bring up this issue again with my preservice students because I wanted them to see how race, class, and gender impact our daily interactions and are often based on preconceived notions we have for different groups. Demographically, the class was 100% White, 50% male, and 50% female, all grew up within a 50 mile radius from the school, roughly half attended parochial high schools, and all of the students came from suburban or rural communities, where they had very limited experiences with diversity.
During the previous year, as I heard students provide different reasons as to why Zimmerman’s action might have been justified, all I could do was think about my son. How would these preservice teachers view him? Watson’s (2012) letter to her son articulates sentiments that I understood all too well:
I pray that your teachers will not look at you through hurtful racial preconceptions. I pray that they will do the work necessary to eliminate racist practices in themselves and in those around them. I pray that they stand up for you in ways that leave you feeling strong and capable. I pray that they will nurture your spirit . . . (para. 18)
It is with this framework that I wanted to reengage in this pedagogical inquiry. As a parent, I want my son’s future teachers to be aware of their own misconceptions and not apply them to him as he enters the classroom. I do not want his teachers to perceive him as a threat just because he wears baggy jeans and a hoodie. Most of all, I want his teachers to see him as someone who could also be part of their families.
I designed a pedagogical inquiry that would help my students reflect on how race, class, and gender impact the classroom—especially as they relate to male students of color. To initiate dialogue, I engaged students with different readings that helped them understand the complexities of this issue. First, students read articles on the case of Wilson Reyes, a second grader handcuffed in a police station for several hours for allegedly bullying another student. Then, students read about the Stop-and-Frisk procedure in New York City where officers stopped and questioned primarily youth of color based on racial profiling. We concluded by discussing articles about the Trayvon Martin case, as well as which activities students would conduct to support Racial Profiling Awareness Day. I planned this event at our campus on February 26 because this was the 1-year anniversary of Martin’s death. Assisting and participating for this day was optional, but if students chose to do so, they would receive extra credit points (not enough to impact the final grade). Students completed reflective journals, answered questions via electronic clickers, and constructed artifacts for the event. I also conducted focus group interviews with the students who were in EDU 310 the previous year.
My positionality is important to this study because for many of my students, I was the first person of color that they had as a professor, teacher, and, possibly, a person in authority. Only a handful of them had much contact with minorities in their communities. I was one of the few people they knew who grew up in an urban environment, and I was the only professor in my department who had significant urban schooling experience. When the Trayvon Martin incident initially occurred, all I could do was think about my own childhood and flashed back to my youth, where being racially profiled was an almost everyday occurrence: from the cops harassing me on the block to store clerks following me in bodegas, to teachers viewing me as “a thug.” It was precisely for these reasons why Martin’s death affected me so much. I saw myself in him; and, as a father, I saw my son in him.
Discussion and Findings: Engaging in Teacher Activism
My initial attempt to discuss Martin in EDU 310 was a failure. Even though I collaborated with students, and all the ideas were student generated, some students still chose to go to the department chair and complain, rather than come to me with their concerns. Following this incident, I had a class discussion where I read a letter to students explaining my disappointment, and reiterated what we had agreed upon as a class. Next, I showed them a clip of The Daily Show’s C.N.I.: Cable News Investigators—Hoodie Threat 5 where the correspondents John Oliver (White) and Wyatt Cenac (Black) reacted to Geraldo Rivera’s hoodie statement. 6 Oliver is wearing a hoodie while Cenac is wearing a toddler spin hat and holding a large lollipop. Both comedians noted how Oliver would not be perceived as being dangerous in a hoodie, while Cenac added that he had to make himself appear as undangerous as possible. These statements suggest that the consequences for the same behavior are experienced quite differently between Whites and people of color. After viewing the skit, we had a 40-min discussion about the implications of this clip, where several key points emerged.
First, a few students questioned why Martin had a hoodie on and added that anyone wearing a hoodie is going to look suspicious. One secondary social studies student Mark 7 mentioned, “Even when I wear a hoodie I get stopped.” Some of the students remarked on why he did not just acquiesce to Zimmerman and explain he was on his way home. Still other students described how Martin was bigger and as a result could be intimidating. A few students questioned their peers. Only one student, Kacey, a secondary English education student, remarked, “Isn’t the real issue the Stand Your Ground law? If this law did not exist, would we even know about this case?”
I was shocked at these initial responses, and they resonated with Hart (2013) who noted, “It should go without saying that the problem is not the hoodie but the body in the hoodie. It is the body that marks the hoodie and makes the ordinary behavior of just walking a suspicious act” (p. 97). All I could think about was the fact that they simply could not identify with Martin. Before I attempted to explain, Sandra, an elementary education student, shouted, “Why should Trayvon have to answer to a stranger? He did not know him and I know I would be worried if some stranger was following me too.” The answer to Sandra’s question is best explained through Yancy (2013), who suggests that “policing black bodies” is just a projection of “whites own fears” and their “deep sociopsychological constructions of black people” (p. 239).
I asked Tom, a secondary math education student, to share his thoughts, since he was quiet. He stated that he could see both sides, and that both parties were to be blamed. “Trayvon was a stranger in a hoodie and George was just trying to protect his community.” Briana, an elementary education student, concurred with Tom and said that Trayvon should have just told Zimmerman what he was doing. Mickey, a secondary English student, discussed how race was not the real issue, but rather why Zimmerman was carrying a gun. Other students quickly questioned him, stating that if he had it legally, then he had every right to carry it.
The Tampa Bay Times identified nearly 200 cases and found that “those who invoke ‘stand your ground’ to avoid prosecution have been extremely successful. Nearly 70 percent have gone free” (Hundley, Martin, & Humburg, 2012, para. 7). More startling, they found that defendants claiming “stand your ground” were more likely to prevail if the victim was Black and found that 73% of those who killed a Black person faced no penalty compared with 59% of those who killed a White person. I ended the class discussion by showing pictures of two 4-year-olds in a hoodie—my son and the son of a White female colleague. I posed the following question,
You don’t have to answer this question because we are running out of time, but think about who the next Trayvon could be? Think about which son has to be worried about wearing a hoodie? And then ask, “why does this have to be his reality?”
This discussion reinforces Milner and Laughter’s (2013) experience of working with White teachers who felt “uncomfortable talking about race and reflecting about their own racial identities and that of their students” (p. 343). When preservice and inservice teachers adopt “race neutral” or color-blind positions, they neglect to acknowledge the harsh realities of their students and the White Privilege (McIntosh, 1988) they possess.
As I was getting ready for my next class, Brian, a secondary math student, uttered,
Dr. Desai, just give them time. They just ain’t ready yet. I was like them too before. I didn’t buy in. It didn’t make sense what you were saying and have been saying until I saw it firsthand. That’s why I sent you that email to keep your head up and that you are doing good work.
This was so nice to hear after a difficult period. Brian’s encouragement gave me hope. While the conversation we had in class was difficult, I saw how important it was to raise these issues. I wanted students to be able to humanize Martin and shift away from a criminogenic gaze (Hart, 2013), which may also be present in the classroom.
Humanizing Trayvon: A Year Later
As my son begins his journey into K-12 education, I want the preservice teachers with whom I work to see him as their little brother, nephew, or even as their son. It hurts to know that some of his future teachers will not view him as such, just because he is different from them in terms of appearance, culture, and language.
Wilson Reyes, a Second Grader Handcuffed for 7 Hours (Seriously)
At the beginning of the semester, I ran across the story of Wilson Reyes, the 7-year-old Latino boy in the Bronx who was handcuffed for 7 hours in a Bronx Precinct for allegedly stealing $5 from a classmate (Parascandola, Marcius, & Beekman, 2013). As we started the discussion, I pushed students by saying, “Let’s say Wilson is a big bully. He is always getting into trouble at school and has a history of stealing money. Would you say he still got what he deserved?” Two key responses emerged. Students such as Tom laughed in disbelief because they thought this story was just too hard to believe. They believed that the situation should never have gotten out of hand because the principal or teacher should have just handled it internally. Ron, a secondary social studies student, connected the incident to other readings we had about the school-to-prison pipeline and the oversurveillance of students of color. More important, students were able to relate this incident to the readings on the misinterpretation of the behavior of students of color (Losen & Skiba, 2010)
Other students agreed with Jay, a secondary English education student, who said, “Maybe he needed it. This will scare him straight and not want to get into trouble anymore.” So I pushed back, “Why do we need to scare him straight? If the crime is stealing $5, then is it that serious?” Mickey supported Jay by rationalizing that maybe some kids need to be scared straight because that is the only way they will listen. For these students, they shared how sometimes as a teacher, you can implement your discipline plan of time-outs, calling home, or in-school or out-of-school suspensions, and it is not enough.
I ended the class by stating, “I know you are going to hate this. But I have to bring it up. What if Wilson was white and was from Park Avenue? Would the cops have been called at all?” Some students like Mark and Carl said “yes,” while most students said “no.” Those who responded “no” did recognize how class and geography, indeed, play a role in how students are treated. Sandra summed up most of the students’ views by stating, “No seven-year-old deserves to be sent to the police station for stealing $5.”
Alvin and the New York Police Department (NYPD)
A few classes later, I shared an article about Alvin, a Latino male, who audiotaped his encounter with two plainclothes New York City officers to document his frustrations with the injustices he faces on an almost daily basis. On the audiotape, officers are heard using racially disparaging language, do not provide a legal reason for the stop, and even threaten Alvin with violence (Tuttle & Schneider, 2012). As students heard the audio recording, I observed several who were grimacing. The article stated that more than 1,800 New Yorkers are stop-and-frisked every day—the vast majority of whom are African American and Latino young men. Furthermore, an overwhelming number of these stops did not lead to arrests or prevented crime. I explained how I also experienced these stops as a youth and had also been physically assaulted and had to endure racially charged language. I ended my discussion by referring to a quote from an African American parent, Ms. Robinson,
Of all the things I have to worry about when my kids walk out the door, I don’t want to have to worry about them being harmed by the police. It makes you feel like you can’t protect your children. (Tuttle & Schneider, 2012, p. 30)
Chloe remarked, “Such policies probably make all police officers think African American and Latino kids are always up to trouble.” However, Mark justified that a little inconvenience was worth it, if this policy was making New York safer. We took a random poll with our clickers to see how many others agreed. Three out of the 14 students in the class agreed. I then asked, “What would you do if this were your child? For me, this is a reality because my son may have to face this one day, just like I had to face it as young man.” When I asked students how many of them would want their children to have to endure such policies, only one agreed.
The incidents of Wilson Reyes and Alvin provided students with a glimpse into the lived experiences of some students of color. In the Reyes example, while some students might have been resistant to the idea that race played a factor, a majority of students were better able to understand how it did play a factor. The Reyes case provided us the opportunity to discuss how we are treating students in our classrooms, especially those students who can be recalcitrant. Alvin’s tape recording allowed us to examine institutional racism. More specifically, the preservice teachers could better grasp how “racial mechanics” (Kang, 2005) contribute to the criminogenic gaze (Hart, 2013) in the racial profiling of young people of color. Furthermore, they could comprehend how certain associations become tightly woven to specific social groups (Eberhardt et al., 2004). As a result, these social groups become criminalized and are deemed unworthy of protection (Scott & Rodriguez, 2015).
Racial Profiling Awareness Day
As a class, we decided to do the following for Racial Profiling Awareness Day: invisible graffiti, an interactive wall, a community dialogue, and a community panel.
Invisible Graffiti
Invisible graffiti was where students posted pictures throughout the college to explain the various forms of racial profiling. Each student created at least one invisible graffiti poster based on racial profiling. While this was optional, every student participated. Sandra created a personal poster of her niece in a red hoodie smiling with a quote by Charles Dickens, “In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.” She explained that she wanted to communicate the innocence of a child in a hood—a play on “little red riding hood.” Sandra stated, “My niece doesn’t have to worry about wearing a hoodie. Why should little black and brown kids have to worry?” Ashlyn posted a picture of herself in a black hoodie and asked, “Would it have happened to anyone in a black hoodie?” She described how she wanted people to contemplate who gets harassed versus who does not and ask themselves why. “Before, I always took for granted wearing this black hoodie; now I don’t,” she remarked. These two women exemplified what I was trying to achieve through this project. While they did not speak explicitly to White privilege, they recognized how it benefits them.
In the classroom discussion about invisible graffiti, several students remarked how they liked its openness as it allowed them to choose which area of racial profiling they could focus on. Kady stated, “I did not realize how big of an issue racial profiling was and how many people it affected.” Carl explained how he had a new perspective, “I used to think it was okay for Arabs to be pulled over at the airports, but now I can see how it violates their rights.” Within the classroom context, we discussed how images of Black and brown males as being violent, drug dealers, or thugs (Duncan, 2002; Noguera, 2003) impact how teachers discipline these students. Sean, an elementary education student, expressed how he has become more aware of how he disciplines one of his Black students through this process. He further explained how his actions probably reflected the stop-and-frisk policies because he was always constantly being suspicious of this student. Yancy (2013) articulates the reality of living in an anti-Black world, “you are constantly reminded by white people . . . that you are a problem, a subperson, worthless, and inconsequential, inferior, criminal, suspicious, and something to be feared and dreaded” (p. 238, italics in original). Moreover, pedagogical inquiries such as these demonstrate how preservice teachers can raise their sociopolitical consciousness, which is a key tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994), by examining issues at the micro-, meso-, and macro-level. In this case, the preservice teachers were able to examine their own teaching practices, school discipline policies, and the dehumanization of students of color through the Martin case.
Community Circle
The community circle was an event where students, faculty, and staff were invited to have a community dialogue about the Trayvon Martin case. During the community circle, I shared a poem that I wrote, “Reasonable Doubt,” which I also shared in class. The premise of the poem is to take the perspective of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. I end my poem with the following stanza:
See people like me aren’t given reasonable doubt Why? Because you see what you want to see The thug and not the honor student The terrorist and not the class president The gangsta and not the teen jeopardy champ Only a sign of danger, a sign of trouble What you fail to see Is that I am your son, your nephew, your little brother Damn, it sucks not having reasonable doubt (pop, pop)
I pretended that I had been shot and dropped to the floor. At the community circle, students from my various diversity classes attended along with some faculty and staff. As I asked the audience what they thought my message was, several respondents tried to steer the conversation to color-blindness. For example, Scarlet, a White female student from my EDU 210 class, noted, “You want us to see people who we profile as one of us.” I replied that I could see this message coming through, but more important, I wanted the listener to comprehend how critical a role race plays in our daily interactions and shapes the reality for many people of color.
We then talked more specifically about the Martin case. Sandy stated how we have been talking about it in class and how she always felt Zimmerman should have never followed Martin if the 911 operator told him not to. In addition, she reiterated her belief that the case did have to do with race as she could not imagine Zimmerman following her or a White male. Denny, a White male in EDU 210, asked, “Why was his nose bloody? Trayvon did not have to attack him?” As the discussion continued, a White faculty member interjected, “The problem of this case goes back to why was Zimmerman suspicious in the first place? As you [me] said in the poem, he just sees some guy walking around. What’s wrong with walking?” Martin’s case along with stop-and-frisk policies added the new lexicon “walking while black [or brown]” (Goff & Richardson, 2013).
Martin, like many of our children of color, was violated by “privilege, power, and the cruelty of a system that believes black [and brown children], whether on the honor roll or college bound, are suspect” (Moss, 2012, p. 4). I then discussed how most parents of color have “the talk” with their children on what to do if the police question you, to be aware of your appearance, and to avoid situations where you can be perceived as threatening. Some students questioned “why should minorities have to worry if they are not doing anything wrong?” Dow (2012) explained how his Black friends with children have used this case as a teaching moment, but questions, “What kind of teaching moment is it when you have to tell them they cannot behave in those neighborhoods—their own neighborhoods—the same way their white friends do?” (para. 7). A White faculty member was able to assist and remarked how she would never have such a conversation with her child because she never worries about her child getting shot for walking down to the store. We concluded the community circle by discussing the Stand Your Ground law, and agreed that these laws are dangerous because they give people the right to shoot first and ask questions later.
When I read the poem in class, many students asked if I truly wrote the poem and expressed how moved they were by it. Mark shared how he began to see my perspective after hearing the poem and could now see the racial undertones of the incident. Other students such as Carl and Kacey appreciated the raw emotion of the poem. They shared how they liked that the poem connected to the themes we had been discussing in class. My goal of the poem was to humanize Martin’s and communities of color’s experiences with racial profiling. It was achieved when students such as Kady stated, “Racial profiling takes everyday activities and turns them into tragedies.”
Interactive Wall
The hoodie has become an iconic symbol because it captures the essence of racial profiling and perfectly represents the criminalization of Black and brown youth in the United States (Tesfamariam, 2013). For the interactive wall, students had the opportunity to write reflections, reactions, questions, or final thoughts on racial profiling on White hoodies. I thought this would be a creative and effective way to have students share what they had learned. They did this anonymously on the Racial Profiling Awareness Day. Below are some of the key responses from students:
FACE THE TRUTH society still has a long way to go. We’ve come far but not far enough. COEXIST!
What you want to do with your life shouldn’t be determined by the color of your skin.
We all deserve the same freedoms, no matter what race.
Ignorance has to be replaced by education.
Justice is blind.
Everyone is racially profiled at some point.
Racial profiling must be stopped. It is unfair, but how can we stop it unless we come together!
Racial profiling can affect your everyday LIFE!
It causes more harm than good. Sometimes the result of racial profiling, even in its best intentions, can be completely destructive.
Friendship is beyond skin deep.
The responses ranged from trying to preserve the “post-racial” dream with statements such as “Justice is blind” to recognizing that race is still very prevalent: “Racial profiling can affect your everyday LIFE!” The range of responses demonstrated growth in some students. These students had come a long way from the previous year where racial profiling was almost not even acknowledged. In addition, these statements indicated that they were beginning to think about issues of equality and how they impacted individuals’ lived experiences. To eliminate racial profiling, one student’s response summed it up best, “Ignorance must be replaced by education.”
Panel Reflection
The last component of this project was a panel I organized on racial profiling for the college community. I invited two African American men from Elementz—a nonprofit hip-hop organization—to share their experiences with racial profiling. In addition, a woman from the Islamic Center near the college provided a presentation on the Arab/Muslim American experience post 9/11. Seven out of the 14 students were present at the panel discussion. I asked those students to share what they had learned. Abbey stated, “I learned that people just can’t move out of their neighborhood. When you constantly have cops in the neighborhood, even if people are not doing anything, cops will try to find something.” She further continued how shocked she was to learn how this constant surveillance made people feel like they are doing something wrong even when they are not.
Eddy, an educational studies student, shared, “I learned that racial profiling for some people is part of everyday life.” He continued to say how someone’s life could truly be in danger at any moment and this is something, “I take for granted.” This point just reiterates that the lives of Black and brown youth can be taken at any moment (S. C. Ferguson & McClendon, 2013) as a result of “the logic of black guilt” (Wills, 2013), which suggests that any Black person—especially Black men—are seen as imminent threats.
As we concluded our final discussion on the Trayvon Martin case, students explained that they became more aware of the pervasiveness of racial profiling. Eddy remarked, “Before this project, I did not realize how much racial profiling occurs and how many people it impacts.” Sandra stated, “It messes with your mind because you start to think only certain people will blow up an airplane, are committing crimes, or are here illegally.” This statement was powerful because racial profiling may strongly impact how we perceive people. We then connected it to schooling and why we as teachers needed to be aware of it. I asked, “Why did we spend the semester discussing racial profiling?” Ashlyn suggested, “So we stop hearing cases like Wilson.” Another student, Jay, stated, “So we are aware of how we see our students.” As teachers, we must make a conscious effort to break these influences created by the media and society and actively resist these negative images of Black and brown youth because we view students through preconceived lenses (A. A. Ferguson, 2000).
What a Difference a Year Makes
I asked students who were in EDU 310 and were now in EDU 410 what they thought the differences were between this semester and the previous year. Sandra and Ashlyn believed the main difference was the people in the class. Both of them said that they wanted to do the project last year, but a few students were complaining because they thought I was taking Martin’s side. Carl said that it was just too early last year. This year, more information came out and the subject of racial profiling was broader. Abby stated, “You empowered students more this year by having them orchestrate the various activities.” Tom believed I introduced the subject better by discussing the issue of racial profiling on a societal level, and then connecting it to the classroom. Several students said the poem I performed made a difference. Mickey stated, “Your poem was really powerful. It personalized the situation for us.” Many students also liked the interactive hoodie project. Stacey remarked, “By touching the hoodie, you saw how it is just clothing. But this one piece of clothing got a person killed and makes others look dangerous. You just have to ask yourself why?”
I learned that discussing issues of racial biases could only be completed if students feel safe. The previous year, I might have come across as too judgmental, and did not provide various ways for students to approach this subject. I might have also not been clear on why this case was so important to me, and how it affected teaching students of color. By asking them to help me prepare the Racial Profiling Awareness Day, students might have felt more invested because they were planning various aspects of the day. Last, I believe the poem made a tremendous impact. Several students approached me after I shared the poem in class and in the community circle, and expressed how moved they were by it. They explained how it made them see a new perspective on the case.
Both Wills (2013) and Yancy (2013) shared how they discussed the Trayvon Martin case in their classrooms. They shared similar experiences of students defending Zimmerman. Yancy (2013) explains:
It is during such pedagogical moments that I am reminded that we (blacks and whites) live in different social universes where daily experiences of race and racism do not overlap, where they, my white students, get to move through the world with effortless grace . . . While they get to move with effortless grace, black young people are told by their parents to move in ways that do not trigger suspicion, a form of self-monitoring that requires a great deal of effort. (p. 243)
I occupy a different space in this social universe than my students. In my daily interactions, I must always be aware of how my actions may be perceived. I am not fortunate to have the “effortless grace” to move through this world. This is what I wanted my students to be aware of and through personal stories of being stop-and-frisked, being stopped at the border, being always asked to step to the side at the airport, and being seen as the perpetual foreigner, many did begin to understand.
Conclusion
At the time, my 5-year-old son and I went to the zoo on a field trip with 10 students (eight White females and two White males) from the Education Department. None of these students was in EDU 410. My colleagues, two White middle class women, organized the field trip and also brought their 5-year-olds (a boy and a girl). The students greeted the children, but throughout the day, it seemed my son was treated differently. I watched as the students asked my colleagues’ children questions, held their hands, and engaged warmly with them. Then, I observed them interacting very little with my son other than comment on how cute he was. One example that leaped out the most for me was when the students stood in line for a train ride around the zoo. A few of them yelled to my colleagues’ children to come on the ride with them. No one yelled for my son. My colleagues did not want to go on the train ride so we just continued on our way. But for me, I was shocked about how unaware everyone was that my son’s name was not called. I was left foreseeing how difficult his journey in K-12 education would be because many of his teachers might not be able to relate to him. I cannot help but think of the damage done when preservice teachers might repeat these same kinds of behavior in their own classrooms.
This is what I consider to be the dilemma children of color face. The students on the field trip did not see my son as a member of their family, a friendly neighbor’s child, or being part of their community. It is not as if these students knew my colleague’s children. This was their first encounter with all the children. However, the students were unconsciously drawn to my colleague’s children as opposed to my son. It seemed easier for the students to engage my colleague’s children in conversation, hold their hands, and invite them onto the train. It is in these seemingly harmless interactions that implicit biases are present and influence teacher–student relationships.
Implications and Practical Suggestions
In total, 84% of teachers are White, female, and come from middle class backgrounds; one third of these teachers teach in urban school districts (Festritzer, 2011). Utilizing Weiner’s (2000) definition of urban schooling (e.g., highly diverse populations, chronically underfunded, high concentrations of poverty and linguistic diversity), preservice teachers need an explicit curriculum that helps them understand the complexities of urban education. Building on Milner and Laughter’s (2013) recommendations to reform teacher education by emphasizing the relationship between race and poverty, I recommend assisting preservice teachers to reflect on their own implicit biases as well as how these implicit biases operate in the larger society as in the case of police shootings, hiring practices, and health-care services (Eberhardt et al., 2004). They must be confronted with the ramifications of a racial pathology that creates violent and traumatic educational experiences for children of color. By enabling preservice teachers to examine their implicit biases through the Martin case, they were able to uncover the “multiple layers of discourse related to disparities, inequities, and realities in education” (Milner & Laughter, 2013, p. 358). Furthermore, as my own experience demonstrates, this effort takes time and should be personalized for students.
Think back to the list of names presented at the beginning of this article. How many of these names would have meaning for preservice teachers? Preservice teachers should be aware of these names because when these names are absent, we implicitly state that what occurs in the community is not relevant. As teacher educators, we must be able to prepare more effective preservice teachers who connect “the academic rigor of content areas with their students’ lives” and connect pedagogy to “the harsh realities of poor, urban communities” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009, p. 187). In other words, we must help prepare preservice teachers to create a humanizing education that agitates K-12 students politically, arouses their critical curiosity, and inspires self-transformation (Camangian, 2015).
The pedagogical inquiry of the Trayvon Martin case served as a backdrop to the larger issues of racial profiling and implicit biases. His death became a symbol of the criminalization of Black males. Love (2014) discusses how the pathology of Black boys must be addressed because “most urban classrooms are filled with kids just like Martin” (p. 303). The narratives of Black boys get written even before they walk into the classroom and to truly understand Black and brown youth means “to acknowledge one’s power and privilege, and reconcile these social constructions to the plight of one’s students of color” (p. 304). In other words, opportunities are needed for teachers to engage in self-examination and self-reflection (Riley, 2014) to better serve communities of color. Without problematizing and confronting one’s own inscribed dispositions, “other people’s children” (Delpit, 1995) will continue to be demonized, pathologicalized, and criminalized. Hence, we need teachers to be class and race conscious (Ullucci & Howard, 2015) so that they can keep a keen eye on how biases and stereotypes affect interactions with students.
The difference between the students in EDU 410 and the students on the field trip is that the former had the chance to examine how implicit biases contribute to their teaching while the latter did not yet have this opportunity. Moreover, the students in EDU 410 demonstrated growth and an understanding of these complex issues through their participation in the various activities we co-constructed for the Racial Profiling Awareness Day. By engaging in a form of social justice teacher activism, these students did not just try to move beyond issues of cultural dissonance or mismatch (Irvine, 1990), but rather embraced them and investigated where these implicit biases come from and how they affect classroom practices. For my son and many other students of color in classrooms throughout this country, establishing a socially just classroom is a starting point—true change occurs when teachers began to see him and his peers as being part of their community, their circle.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.