Abstract
The focus of this study is about what lies at the intersection of critical race theory (CRT) and arts-based educational research (ABER). Our goal is to address the emotional terrain about race in schooling, based on the stories of people of color that we transformed into poetry, drama, and performance. In doing so, we examined the usefulness of ABER in the construction of CRT counter-narratives as is called for by critical race theorists.
The Emotional Terrain of Race
Race is a part of every thread of life in the United States; it is embedded in ideology scripted in narratives on difference and dominance from the beginning of the U.S. experience. As women of color who teach about race and racism in the academy, we find the emotional terrain of race to be filled with deep holes and hiding places where our students, who are in-service K-12 teachers and our colleagues—faculty, administrators, and researchers, most of whom are not people of color—can avoid dealing with the lived experience of race and its consequences in the 21st century. Emotionality, our own and that of our students and colleagues, is the scary dirt road few really want to travel. Phrases like “I don’t see race,” “I treat all children the same,” or “race is irrelevant to artists” is the idyllic illusion where it is easy to avoid the difficult, dynamic, and hard work of laying the road. For people of color, race issues may also be confusing; it may be a trap when we believe that everyone who looks like us thinks as we do; or that anyone who is not us is not evolving.
As critical educators and artists who strive to be conscious of the knowledge we construct, we find Kincheloe’s (2005) assertion to be apt. He stated that constructivists with a critical consciousness must
. . . step back from the world as we are accustomed to perceiving it and to see the ways our perception is constructed via linguistic codes, cultural signs like race, class, gender and sexual ideologies, and other often-hidden modes of power. (Kincheloe, 2005, p. 11)
In other words, it is necessary for critical educators to raise awareness and question our students and others, and to do that well we must question ourselves. Our hope is that this study, though certainly not comprehensive, using arts-based educational research (ABER), oral history, autoethnography, and creative writing will add to an understanding of the vast complexity of the lived experience of race.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) and ABER
CRT puts race in the forefront; it provides a framework for describing racialized culture and the way that it informs the experience of schooling. Critical race theorists (Decuir & Dixson, 2004; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Lynn, Yosso, Solórzano, & Parker, 2002) propose the use of counter-narrative to reveal the lived experience of race in education. In so doing, educators may gain a view of being and meaning that the experience of race provokes. Delgado and Stefancic (2001) assert that counter-narrative “aims to cast doubt on the validity of accepted premises or myths, especially ones held by the majority” (p. 4). Hence, counter-narratives in the educational context may be a means to portray the multiple junctures of meaning about race, which includes but is not exclusively about racism, in the culture of education.
ABER is a complementary research method for constructing CRT counter-narratives. Using the subjectivity inherent in the arts, ABER researchers can represent a virtual space that Barone and Eisner (1997) state, “possesses a capacity to pull the person who experiences it into an alternative reality” (p. 73), which is the goal of critical race theorists and arts-based researchers alike. Such research may provoke imaginings about an experience of race in education and to some degree unsettle emotional and cognitive barriers that limit the ability to empathize.
There has been much written about ABER or CRT, but little written about the narrative overlap between the two (Hanley, 2011). We gained new understanding about how people from diverse backgrounds weather the experience of race in U.S. schools. We found the following points to be most salient:
The lived experience of race is replete with contradictions.
The complex and emotional terrain of race can be more effectively traveled by embracing the subjectivity in CRT counter-narratives using ABER.
Although counter-narrative is useful in addressing issues of race, there are also limitations.
Study Process
Our initial research questions were as follows What can we find at the intersection of CRT and ABER? How can critical ABER as counter-narrative inform discussions on race in education? We used playwriting, the processes of a/r/tography (Irwin & Springgay, 2008; Springgay, Irwin, & Kind, 2005), performance ethnography (Conquergood, 1997; Gergen & Gergen, 2011; Madison, 2012), and poetry (Brady, 2005; Harnett & Engels, 2005) to construct a counter-narrative. We used oral history interviews (Grele, 2007) and autoethnographical (Holman, 2005; Leggo, 2008; Pratt, 1992; Skinner, 1997; Williams, 2001) notes and artifacts as the data from which to craft counter-narratives in the forms of poetry and a play script. The interviews were open-ended questions:
Tell me your memories and stories about your experiences in schools, first as a child, then as an adult, then as a parent (if applicable). What were/are the best of times? What were/are the worst? Describe the place and people.
The interviews were 90 minutes to 4-hour long and were recorded, then transcribed and coded. Table 1 is the list of all storytellers.
List of All Storytellers.
All names and places are pseudonyms.
To do the autoethnographical work, Ellen* used memories, journals, notes, photographs, and previously written poems to reexamine lived experience through the lens of a Black educator who lives as an outsider and insider in academia and as a parent of a Black male child in K-12 schools.
The Play: Race, Racism, in School, Society, and Allus
We have presented the oral histories in a number of ways. We transformed the stories into poetry and performed them live for audiences. We created a video (https://myspace.com/178657629/video/lemniscating-cou-nter-narrative/49123329) that is a reading of the poems and includes more description of the storytellers. We also simply gave the poems to be read by the storytellers, colleagues, and students.
Here we represent this research as poetry within a play, which is also a counter-narrative. The play has never been performed and was crafted only for this manuscript. We hope that in so doing, we allow readers the same subjective and private opportunity to confront their own questions, feelings, and vulnerabilities; to do as Freire (1973) suggests, “ . . . to emerge from it [oppression] and turn upon it. This can be done only by means of the praxis: reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (p. 36).
The play and poetry include verbatim quotes and our interpretive insights. We also analyzed the transcript of a discussion about the poetry with 67 students (53 White, 2 Latina, 7 African American, 2 Asian, and 1 Iranian), who are in-service teachers. We included the written responses of the same 67 students and of 6 colleagues (3 Black, 2 Whites, 1 Latina) in response to the poems as a research methodology and on any connections they might make with their own experience as educators or as human beings. We include the asterisks to help readers to separate the storytellers’ lived experience and teachers’ and colleagues’ responses from our interpretations.
Race, Racism, in School, Society, and Allus
*verbatim or paraphrased
CHARACTERS
Whites:
15 teachers (graduate students)
3 educators, 3 researchers
People of color:
6 storytellers
6 teachers
2 researchers
SETTING
A blank and slightly raked stage with boxes of various heights. The original 6 storytellers (research respondents) sit center stage (C). Twenty-one teachers are stage left (SL) in a crowd that is tight and tiered on boxes. They hold masks in front of their faces that represent their ethnicity and their emotional reactions to the poems and responses. Most of the masks of the Whites are smiles; a few are bored and angry. The masks carried by students of color include stoic, angry, happy, and clueless. As they change their masks, students cross the stage so that the tight knit of students is loosely arranged as individuals or in groups of twos or threes across the stage. It is a dynamic process of change that happens as student face or run from their roles. Stage right (SR) represents “yes, yes!” SL represents “Hell no!” Everything else lies between. Upstage (U) are places of avoidance, shame, indecision, and confusion. Lighting is important. At the beginning, the lighting is highest on the White students. As the play progresses, the lighting is more dispersed. Before the end, the light is highest on the storytellers at the center and those who have joined them. The center(s) and margins are lighted on the stage floor and move as the center and margins move with the centrality of the story.
RESEARCHER
Let me introduce you to Melvin—a hip hop artist and a middle school vice principal. Probably, the only one in the country. His story . . .
Researcher reads Freedom Woods
Cars hustle the black gold-threaded asphalt Past porch swings slowly sweeping fans Stop light swings in next town Big news in Idaville Where flies buzz a Southern drawl Crickets and frogs screech stories nightly At blinking black skies Black folks here White folks there Black church here White church there Black school here White school there Pendulum swung by habit Bitter flavors of barely enough Fears of losing little Black boy child Clutched to his people’s breast Every porch a picketed shelter Circled to raise ebony dreams Through blizzard white winters Home, church, school Built brick on sweaty black brick Grown folks’ footsteps sketch maps Of shoulds and better hads Virtue passed hand to hand Like water buckets to quench sin Baptized in rivers of survival On centuries-old knees A Black schooled finger wags Dumb doorknob boy A permanent scar Principal’s paddle worn smooth With stern love echoed at home Black teachers spout Shakespeare Milton Pyle* Not Langston Yet, Imaginations fly like windy steeds In deep woods on red dirt roads Merry bands of little men and maidens Draw thicketed slings and arrows To right Freedom among tall Carolina pines
MELVIN
Oh, wow. *Oh, Wow! That’s beautiful*. Takes me home to the red dirt of Carolina! *You know, our town was so small that the new stop light in the next town over was big news for us.
BLACK MALE TEACHER
Damn, that is small. Not me. I grew up in the city.
WHITE TEACHER
I grew up small town in Georgia. Red dirt there too.
MELVIN
Yeah? What did they do in your town during de-seg?
WHITE TEACHER
We . . . changed; well, some of us did . . .
MELVIN
Yeah? Well, in my town *they built a private school for Whites only. Town was only big as a minute; everybody knew everybody, but White folks acted like they didn’t know us, like our mamas weren’t working in their houses and raising their kids* . . .
BLACK TEACHER
Maybe that’s why they did it—too close.
MELVIN
*We had Black teachers, Black principals, Black custodians, and librarians. They were tough. One teacher called me a dumb door-knob boy . . . still hurts*.
WHITE TEACHER
*I’m praying that I never slipped and degraded a child. You try hard not to, but teaching these days is hard and sometimes . . . *
Black teacher shifts her mask to shame and crosses to U. Black and White teachers cross to SR determined to stand firm in their techniques.
BLACK TEACHER
(to Melvin) You never heard of Langston Hughes?
MELVIN
Not then, no. I wonder if my English teachers ever even hear of Langston Hughes . . . But hey, *I played Macbeth! When I did that I thought, damn, I can do anything!*
LAUREL
Yeah? You must have been in the advanced classes.
MELVIN
Yeah, in spite of being a dumb doorknob . . . we were tracked.
LAUREL
I was too. (She interrupts the Researcher) Let me . . .
Laurel recites
Maybe in the Pima or Creek traditional languages My name would be Fencewalker, Feet-Impaled-By-Expectations Or Maybe my punk name would be Trans-Viva: Messenger-For-This-Other-Life I did not ask for the honor Or honors, Or smart-people classes Did not ask to feel ashamed be assumed Latina not recognize my own rez cousins in the tracked hallways of our school If asked, I would choose, instead, To flee, Naked With half-Black, half-Indonesian Tony And my same Gila River cousins saddled with GEDs and multiple kids And my mom And anyone else invested In friction To shoot sparks— No, rockets!!— in the dark sky We’d mediate our zany, rebellious designs and Grow a responsible round community Of dark, smart people Snatch back our stories from wealthy white curators Share them among ourselves And anyone who honored us And our courses Our voices Our new traditions Advanced placement In a vibrant meadow of justice
LAUREL
That’s me! All in all, the poem is about *great, exciting, tender intersections. I really like it, but it’s kinda hard to read—like a Sherman Alexie novel—bare and honest and familiar and outted. * I didn’t know you were going to pull my mask off like that. Usually nobody sees me.
STORYTELLERS
Hey, we feel you!
LAUREL
*But, I don’t want anybody to think I completely opted out of honors classes; I took the classes. Everybody in my family pushed me until finally, I pushed myself*. It was hard, especially when *the only way I could be with my people, my fam, was shouting out at them when we passed in the hall*.
MIGUEL
We have that borderland story in common. The same tracking thing happened to me in school. *I was put in Track 1 ’cause I spoke English. All the Spanish-speaking migrant kids got thrown into Track 8* . . . and we had to ride that same train for years, like the proverbial trains in the night.
Miguel recites Recess
Forty years ago, nothing was out there swimming into mexico, we could go right into a bar at age 14 Usually, we sat in our poorest county in the u.s., smoked cigarettes, drank cokes, solved the world’s problems, stopped the vietnam war from our perch My big sister mom insisted on english at home demanding choir director encouraged us to compete statewide singing classical european music a flimsy border: three facts alone placed me in track 1 the leadership track, far away from track 8 kids, the migrant stream. No matter i was lazy they expected, pushed i pushed back. Talk to people that knew me back then “oh, mickey!” stories embellished, some i never had anything to do with attributed to me anyway. i wasn’t disrespectful just a cut-up sassy (to this day, too). we had a great time at the expense of schooling. If only they had recess first thing in the morning. Forty years ago, nothing was out there a kid could get his hands on. that flimsy border and english made me american And, therefore, anti-war, a good bet to fill the south texas quota for affirmative action scholarships so, i took the free joy ride played at poverty where others worked in fields for a living or got killed in vietnam Until professors ballard and chen made me struggle through socrates made me believe salvadorans needed my third year of peace corps service god knows what we were going to teach down there Then and twenty years later, dolentio and his wife taught me how to keep self-help ventures thriving through massacres and civil war They all—mama, my sister, the border, my teachers, salvadorans and socrates—made me, molded me If only they had recess in the mornings. Forty years ago, nothing was out there not enough books or laboratories or libraries no small, intense groups of peers challenging each other no room to explore town, state, nation, world just tracks 1 through 8 arbitrary borders of language and water easy, yet impossible, to cross It’s still there, still there if the opportunity presents itself, i wouldn’t think twice about going back to school we could struggle with ideas the world is still interesting Now that i have recess in the mornings.
MIGUEL
I played the game and got the rewards . . .
LAUREL
But, my cousins, and the kids in track 8?
LELA
It all depends. On whether they ever figure out what the game is.
RESEARCHER
Which is?
MIGUEL
You cross the border and play by their rules; pretend their games are more interesting . . .
RESEARCHER
Who is this “they” that calls the rules?
MELVIN
You know. Them.
RESEARCHER
Do you mean her?
The Researcher drags one of the White teachers into the light, then another and another.
RESEARCHER
Or her? Or him?
The Researcher drags a Black teacher into the group of teachers.
RESEARCHER
Or her?!
MELVIN
No, they’re just the messengers.
RESEARCHER
What’s the message?
MELVIN
It’s the supremacy game . . . their stories are the most important.
LAUREL
Their colors are the brightest in the crayon box . . .
MELVIN
Their songs are loudest.
MIGUEL
They “discovered” the world and everyone else is merely a player on their board.
LAUREL
How could it not be? Everybody knows, after all—isn’t God White?
Long pause while everyone adjusts masks.
MIGUEL
Even so, we play the game while always looking for the opening when your rules might fit; when you can show them a new game.
LAUREL
. . . when you can sing your song and hope some of them notice. Or at least sing loud enough so your friends and family know you’re still there in all that white noise.
RESEARCHER
This reminds me of a poem written in 1896—a hundred years ago by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a Black poet.
We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.
RESEARCHER
. . . Still. 1896, and still!
LELA
I know, I didn’t always wear one, though. When I first came to this country and crossed that language border Miguel talked about, I stood up and banged my fist till somebody heard me.
Lela recites Si, lo puedo
Sí, Puedo
I understand Darkness Skittered through hot sweaty nights Mothers Fathers Sisters Brothers Furtive dreamers
Niños de Dios
Families of fortitude Fleeing darkest need Terrorizing poverty Each footfall bordered death and promise Like prey at the edge of the river We gulped dreams Dared to survive I understand fright 14 years old A night racer I dodged hunger Rape, loss Faceless fear Familia, friend, foe Shapeless in the shadows The smell of piss and panic Larger than real When real is immense The rush at the border Outraced by speeding hearts And rocketed hopes
Pero
I do not understand
No entiendo
Shame you offer Cold grey eyes Lips curled around a smirk Of saccharine pity and impatience With words I cannot find Ignored at room’s edge Tangled in blankets of beliefs About brown skin And unknown worlds hesaidshesaid below contempt My dreams trapped in true false bubbles Intolerant illusions that I cannot do What I have done many times
Déjame entrar
Déjame ser
Déjame hablar
Yo canto la canción del inmigrante
Yes, I can do
Sí, lo puedo hacer
I ran with coyotes in the desert Tasted night winds through midnight Battered walls that protect el Norte From children’s laughter I can do What my hopes can do Open mind like soft petals on rocky paths I dance freedom Leap into promise I sing the song of the immigrant
Sí, lo puedo hacer
Sí, lo puedo hacer
Sí, lo puedo hacer
LELA
(to researcher) *Thank you for writing this poem. I love it*!
RESEARCHER
Did I get the Spanish part that you added right?
LELA
Yep. Perfect. *I wanted you to show how the language walls feel, you know. Déjame entrar! Déjame ser! Déjame hablar!* That’s what I’m talking about!
A Latina and the Iranian student drop their masks and cross to the center group.
IRANIAN TEACHER
*Made me think back to when I first entered my first classroom in this country*!
LELA
*That teacher thought ’cause I didn’t speak English that I couldn’t do math. I was top of my math class in San Salvador. I took her baby tests over and over. But, she refused to think I was that smart*. Know what I did?
RESEARCHER
What?
LELA
*I stole the advanced test from her desk and filled it out. Then I slammed it down on her desk and dared her to give me another baby test!* You shoulda seen her face! (laughter)
KEISHA
Why did you care? *School ain’t nothing but a joke!*
Keisha stands and recites Flying Wounded Ain’t nothin’ ’bout no Black teacher, No White teacher No Chinese, no Jews They all the same— Give me big blues.
RESEARCHER
Her head waggin’ Zigzagging braids, beads, extensions Talking loud Proud of the way she commands attention Hands on her hips So you be clear of her intention
KEISHA
Teachers, they say you ‘Spose to know. No go overs When they in the flow. They think I’m dumb; I just don’ show. Tsk, I got good sense. ‘Spose to teach, Reach into me. ‘Stead, I see the way Smart white kids get Smiled at all day.
RESEARCHER
She stops to think, Shrinks from feelings unread, unsaid.
KEISHA
They give up. I disrupt. Ain’t studdin’ what I’m fed. Got suspended. Ended with me an’ ‘nem locked in dread. Why they can’t hold on? My mind falls Apart, ’cause I’m mad! Child left behind . . . I Still got big dreams I need help to find. Teachers give in I be beat down, too. No help, no hope . . . Shoot! Why you don’t try? E’en when I fall I Still want to fly. I still want to fly.
KEISHA
They give you a label and *that’s all they know how to do—put you down, put you in your place—the one they think you ‘spose to be in. I want a school where the teachers never give up, never give up! No matter how much you fall apart. They still there to catch you*.
LELA
So honest, Keisha. It’s easier to be honest when you’re young. I started out strong, but you get caught up in it as you get older. The rewards you get make it harder to peel the mask off.
RESEARCHER
Does that mean you swallowed the message?
MELVIN
Some of it, yeah. It gets in you. Some of it just slips by. Some of it you got to do to survive. I mean, you can be all the Black or Brown or Native as you want to be, but in most places, it won’t feed you or pay the rent; know what I’m saying?
LAUREL
If you’re not careful, one day you’ll wake up and find yourself somebody that has worn the mask so long that your people run to avoid you . . . and you have nobody left to talk to but other border crossers.
KEISHA
What are y’all talking about? What rewards? I ain’t seen no rewards! I’m never going to be like y’all. I ain’t wearing no mask or playing nobody’s game!!
Keisha throws her mask down on the stage.
RESEARCHER
Are you sure Keisha? Seems like the mask you wear is the angry tough Black girl.
KEISHA
You got that right! *I gets my props from fighting and winning. I can punch out anybody in my class—boy or girl!*
RESEARCHER
. . . when all you really want is somebody to love you.
KEISHA
Shut up! Shut up!
Storytellers and teachers reach out to comfort Keisha. Keisha pulls away, puts on her angry mask.
KEISHA
Leave me alone!!!
She recedes Upstage, but the light still follows her. She turns her back and shouts.
KEISHA
Leave me alone!!!
RESEARCHER
I wanted Keisha’s dream school for my son. Mr. Mischievous; we used to call him Destructo. He pulled apart every toy and made new toys from the parts. He knew no strangers, talked to everybody with a thousand questions!
O stands. Researcher crosses to him and recites.
chocolate moon face gleeful quicksilver smile feisty faith that the world is for you in your own image to squish like mud sunday afternoons at the beach to re-create in your own image like bathroom sink fumes of noxious household cleaners announce your grinning curiosity like the giggling patter of running feet takes you to what’s next tempting wall socket covers playgrounds of discoveries milling mall crowds your eyes at hip level in denim forests adventurer among strangers no blocks no boundaries worlds of whys and what’s that stopped at the schoolhouse door where they squeezed the roundness of you into a black boy square hole not big enough to wonder in
RESEARCHER
*My son loved stories. In the third grade he could read at fifth-grade level. One day I visited and instead of reading the story a Black teacher spent the whole time intoning a mantra, “Put your pencils down! Put your pencils down!” She read a little of the story, looked around and then sternly say, “Put your pencil down!” I have no memory of the story, and doubt the children did either. I looked at my son; he stared at the ceiling and was clearly in some other place*. He was a Black boy; they assumed he needed a compliant box, a control hole, an uncreative corner. What he needed was a good story.
O
School was where I went to walk in footsteps, not find my own. Or, so they thought.
O crosses to Keisha. She tries to ignore him. He persists. One or two teachers sidle closer. Keisha feels trapped and runs at O. He doesn’t move. She starts swinging at O. He grabs her hands; she kicks. He holds her in a blocking hug.
O
I gotchew, Girl. I know.
KEISHA
Let me alone!! Get off me! (struggling)
The two teachers lower their masks and look warmly at Keisha.
BLACK TEACHER
I’m here, Keisha.
WHITE TEACHER
I’m here, too.
One picks up Keisha’s mask and the other embraces her. The two unmasked teachers and O walk Keisha to the center.
LATINA TEACHER
*I can relate to being pigeon-holed and feeling misplaced. I’ve got battle emotional scars; thoughts of feeling inadequate . . . they haunt you quietly . . . *
RESEARCHER (Ellen)
It doesn’t really change once you’re in higher ed, even on the faculty. My race is always a struggle.
Researcher recites Black Woman/White University. She holds the light high to keep it from dying the flame sputters pops like a raw last nerve she struggles against torrential arrogance up to her neck in white noise insufferable insults, cultural cold shoulders ivy tended better than justice like a ghost at a banquet she screams I am here! silence belches, So what? Choked on forty acres of affirmed reaction soaked to soul bones like a distance swimmer on her mothers’ mothers’ mothers’ mothers’ mothers’ . . . exhausting slog back from denied worth she ponders the flood’s force her will her lonely way. hands of difference pull her from whirling white waters onto a ledge of empathy where Stolen and Stolen-from scrub deep wounds with war woven survival stories dance at bonfires of resistance that light the void show the river’s course weary warriors work against the current determined to turn the flow call hope to each other above the roar of memory hold the light high sputtering, popping to keep it from dying.
BLACK COLLEAGUE
*Amen! Amen! What you just said it resonates with my soul. I know my ancestors and family keeps me “pressing forward” to honor them. That sister is a willing warrior against racism and she is also willing to persevere through this academic struggle*.
RESEARCHER
I was at a conference and the speaker, a Latina, said that *being a person of color and working in the academy is like living in someone else’ house. You can’t move the furniture* . . . , after all it’s their design. (pause)
WHITE WOMAN COLLEAGUE
(annoyed) *The same thing happens to me as a woman in higher education!*
BLACK COLLEAGUE
(Ignores White Colleague; to Researcher) You sound like Keisha. Are you two *the quintessential Angry Black Woman?*
WHITE WOMAN COLLEAGUE
(hates being ignored) I get angry too!
RESEARCHER
Me and Keisha, well there’s a thought . . . It has to start somewhere. (Still ignoring White Woman Colleague) But hey, *we should all be angry!*
BLACK COLLEAGUE
Once, I read an article with my students about the daily micro insults that people of color face in schools and universities. They thought it was funny . . . *I get so tired of trying to teach White people* . . .
A dance of complexity and uncertainty: All students and teachers uncomfortably change their positions and masks once, twice, sometimes three times as they try to sort out their emotions: shame, embarrassment, anger, disinterest, etc. Some cross closer, but not completely to the group in the center. One by one the people of color cross and repeat the phrase:
PEOPLE OF COLOR
So tired. So tired….
RESEARCHER
(sighs) *I hear you, but the ancestors bought us this far through much harder stuff* and we have work to do for the children. I hope you’re not trying to teach about race all by yourself. *You need support. The abuses fester* . . . deep in the wounds . . .
WHITE TEACHER
*Everyone has personal struggles . . . , not just Black people!*
MIGUEL (to Lela and Laurel)
. . . I guess she missed us. Wonder why? . . .
LAUREL
Maybe they can only see Black and White.
LELA
They can’t seem to see our shades of Blackness.
MIGUEL
What do you mean? I’m not Black!
LELA
*I am. Mi Abuela was Black*.
MIGUEL
You don’t look it.
BLACK TEACHER
Yeah, what he just said. (Gets close to stare and compare skin color)
LELA
I am one way Black looks. My ancestors were enslaved in the Dominican Republic. I hate it when people say I can’t be Latina and Black. I am both.*
MIGUEL
I didn’t mean . . .
LELA
Hey, I’m not mad at you. We cross lots of borders, don’t we? And swallow a lot as we go. This race thing is complicated. We all have much to unlearn and relearn.
WHITE COLLEAGUE
You all sound so bitter. I understand, you have such good reasons. But, how can you stand to get up every day?
MIGUEL
Do we sound bitter?
LELA
I guess we must.
MELVIN
Would you rather we smile and cringe? Wear themask? ?
RESEARCHER
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
WHITE TEACHER
That’s not what I meant!
MIGUEL
Maybe that’s one of the good things about school!
RESEARCHER
Meaning?
MIGUEL
You learn to get up every day, and things change.
LAUREL
You learn that today is a good day for learning—and teaching.
LELA
And keep pushing.
LAUREL
And keep loving because you’ve got family and friends—and even good teachers.
WHITE TEACHER
What do you call a good teacher?
MIGUEL
Somebody who’s a damn good learner.
KEISHA
Somebody who don’t expect you to fail.
LELA
Somebody who works with the 4 C’s
WHITE TEACHER
What’s that?
LELA
Curious, creative, critically conscious, and caring.
O
O, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.
MIGUEL
True, true! (High fives with O. Looks at teachers, students, and colleagues) I wonder what you’ve learned. What did you hear—what do you see?
The teachers, students, and colleagues sidle closer, slowly lower their masks to look more closely.
LATINO COLLEAGUE
I see difference.
WHITE TEACHER
*I thought of my own students; but, it’s hard for me to identify with them. I am not a person of color. I am not an immigrant . . . *
WHITE COLLEAGUE
I heard sorrow and joy.
WHITE TEACHER
* . . . glimpses” of the depth of emotions and experiences . . . Awesome.*
WHITE TEACHER
Laughter and anger. Rage.
BLACK TEACHER
*I’m already depressed, feeling powerless to meet the needs of those “not making it” in this educational climate.*
WHITE TEACHER
*I am a little angry! I . . . I put all the energy I have into my work!* What else do you want?
He angrily crosses, flings down the mask, and exits stage right.
LATINA TEACHER
Sunshine and rain.
ASIAN TEACHER
Compassion.
WHITE TEACHER
*I’m moved to tears, frustrated beyond words. I want to help. I want to make a difference—but . . . *
WHITE TEACHER
I was moved too. I’m so glad to hear you tell your stories. *It is a lot more interesting and creative—and real. I would much rather listen to a poem or story than hear a list of facts while watching a slideshow*. *I was so . . . enthralled!*
ASIAN COLLEAGUE
*When you shared your narratives, I found the hope, ambition, and life force beating inside of each of you.* . . . And me.
WHITE COLLEAGUE
I saw riches and poverty. *I see the juxtaposition of the love, beauty, boundless freedom, relevance, and acceptance in families with the hatred, ugliness, isolation, irrelevance, and rejection in the public lives (and particularly in the schools) of children of color*.
BLACK TEACHER
I see support and neglect, and . . .
WHITE COLLEAGUE
*The innocence and joy of childhood and the abrupt end to that in the face of the ugly reality of racism and marginalization*. (sad sigh)
WHITE TEACHER
I so understand the loss of innocence. *I was told by a guidance counselor that I was not college material and I should go into a trade, but I made it.*
LATINO TEACHER
Nothing wrong with a trade.
WHITE TEACHER
No, but that’s not what I wanted and I certainly didn’t want the counselors to be the ones to name my place forever just because I had a disability. Thankfully, my parents stood by me.
WHITE COLLEAGUE
I see intelligence
LATINA COLLEAGUE
And ignorance, indifference, innocence—and confusion.
WHITE TEACHER
*White people were not included*; where are the White stories? *I can identify with feeling stereotyped.*
WHITE TEACHER
*I started to reminisce about my elementary days as one of the few Whites in a predominantly Black/Hispanic Catholic school. I remembered the horrible, racist nuns who made issues of me being White and a teacher’s daughter.*
ASIAN TEACHER
. . . the yin of prejudice; the yang of racism—not the same, but they name each other.
NATIVE TEACHER
I see love; great love.
WHITE TEACHER
*Very emotional to hear your stories. We were strangers; now we are connected.*
WHITE TEACHER
*There are many connections, I thought about my childhood and family, my own children and my teaching; my experiences had similar moments—yet never to this extent . . . So moving!*
WHITE TEACHER
*I hear many different perspectives . . . My life is so different . . . it is extremely important to hear these stories with an open mind.*
WHITE TEACHER
I see a common face.
RESEARCHER
Meaning?
WHITE TEACHER
I see myself.
RESEARCHER
How so?
WHITE COLLEAGUE
I’m a woman. *I thought about my own prejudices in terms of gender bias, like when I was the only female in a male-dominated classroom*. People of color are not the only ones to suffer, you know.
WHITE TEACHER
I’m gay.
WHITE TEACHER
I was homeless and poor up unto a few years ago.
MIGUEL
*Does that mean you can’t, won’t be racist*?
WHITE TEACHER
*Yes*, of course.
WHITE TEACHER
Of course. I’m not like any of those people in your stories. I would never!
WHITE COLLEAGUE
Certainly! I’m a racism scholar!
MIGUEL
What does that mean?
WHITE COLLEAGUE
I am widely published on the topic, so, well, I believe I have some authority . . .
A White teacher uses sign language to say something.
WHITE TEACHER (translates)
He says, “No. It doesn’t. We all get an unending barrage of messages of superiority and inferiority, of dominance and subjugation everywhere we go—school, work, church, media, family, friends, . . . research. Like the air we breathe—even those who are critical, privilege still sustains us.”
STORYTELLERS AND RESEARCHER
Privilege.
Deaf teacher signs.
WHITE TEACHER (translates)
It will take vigilance to change, not arrogance.
WHITE COLLEAGUE
That was not my intent . . .
WHITE TEACHER
You are all so full of it! You talk about equality, but you’re racist too. *I can’t relate to any of those stories*.
WHITE COLLEAGUE
She’s right. Not one was about a White person. *Did you randomize the sample*?
WHITE COLLEAGUE
*Your N is too small for any relevant or real significance*.
WHITE COLLEAGUE
*Race is nothing new*. Can’t you give us something new?*
A collective sigh from people of color.
RESEARCHER
(sigh) 1896-2013—still.
LELA
I get so tired . . .
ASIAN TEACHER
(to White Colleague) What’s the matter? Do you feel left out?
LELA
How does that margin feel? Careful, now, it’s a powerful place. You can do justice or great harm from there.
Silence. Dance of complexity and uncertainty: Teachers and colleagues change masks and shift places.
WHITE COLLEAGUE
Is social justice possible? Is equity possible?
Deaf teacher signs.
WHITE TEACHER (translates)
He says, hopefully, just a little bit more inclined to listen and relearn.
WHITE TEACHER
To face the devil and unravel all the stories of superiorities.
BLACK TEACHER
An ally?
WHITE TEACHER
Yes.
NATIVE TEACHER
Maybe it’s not so much the end, but the journey that transforms.
WHITE TEACHER
But, how can you tell a story about America and not have a story about our great European heritage?
BLACK TEACHER
Maybe, today the American story is not about you.
WHITE TEACHER
It’s not?
STORYTELLERS AND RESEARCHER
NO!
WHITE TEACHER
It’s not?
Light diminishes on the White teacher’s masked face of surprise. Then BLACKOUT. Lights start on Deaf Teachers’ hands, then Laurel’s face, and then expands slowly to include more and more of the cast. As the light includes them, they drop their masks and show real feelings, whatever they may be. Deaf teacher signs.
WHITE TEACHER (translates)
Yes, it is.
LAUREL
Yes. It is.
MELVIN
*Everything is everything*. The dialectics of social change.
LELA
The systemic web we weave, the master’s house we build.
RESEARCHER
It will take many to deconstruct.
LELA
And reconstruct.
O
It’ll take allus.
KEISHA
(to audience) All. Of. Us.
Slow fade. BLACKOUT.
Background and Foreground of Race
Our first readings of the oral history transcripts and autoethnography revealed that White supremacy was the salient and constant background for all of the narratives. It was the unspoken context that whispered that Shakespeare was more important than Langston Hughes; or shaped the perception of the young Black girl who struggled with anger was less than students of a different race and social class; or informed the teacher’s assumption that a Spanish-speaking Latina could not do grade-level math.
Furthermore, analysis and interpretations also revealed both positive and negative in the lived experience of race in schooling and education. There was joy and sorrow, power and powerlessness, loneliness and community, integration and segregation, internal and external manifestations of racism, pride and humiliation, acceptance and resistance, and love and hate/anger. In varying degrees, each of these perceptions and emotions were common to all of the oral histories. Without a critical analysis of the White supremacist background and the contradictory particularities in the foreground of race and racism, the landscape is muddy and difficult.
To keep a manageable focus as we began to write the poems, we concentrated on seven emerging common themes: double-consciousness; racism; social class; pain/anger/rage; joy/hope/resilience; the strong desire to learn; the presence of strong, loving communities and families; and education as freedom.
Among DuBois’ (1999) definitions of double-consciousness is the idea of African Americans (and by extension, other people of color in the United States) looked at the self through the eyes of others, or hid behind masks as alluded to by Dunbar (1896/2013) in his poem, We Wear the Masks. This double existence created a schizophrenic internal struggle to identify oneself as both African and American. In four of the poems, the double-consciousness is explicit. For example, Miguel was aware that arbitrary factors like English fluency and classical music separated him from the Mexican American “kids in track 8 who followed the migrant stream.” Melvin learned to see himself as excellent when he mastered European culture, like Shakespeare and Robin Hood, from a curriculum that did not include Black writers. The other stories hint at internal identity struggles. For example, Laurel was ashamed of being separated from her family by honors classes. Her cousins treated her as if they thought she thought she was better than they. Ellen pointed to the mask she must wear in the academy.
Each named some form of racism (institutionalized, internalized, interpersonal, “exceptional other,” standardization) as part of their schooling experience. Melvin told of a poorly resourced Black public school and a well-endowed White private school that was developed to avoid desegregation. In O, the story concerns the silenced desires of Black boys, as also reflected in Black Woman, White University.
Race and social class intertwined for each of the informants. In four of the poems, we write about economic or social deprivation: The 14-year-old Miguel and his friends lived in the “poorest county in the United States” and could easily walk into a Mexican bar with impunity because “nothing was out there/not enough books or laboratories or libraries.” Keisha noticed the preferential treatment given to White students, who were mostly from upper-middle-class backgrounds.
In spite of the poverty, strong loving communities embraced each of them. In some cases, the communities struggled with the contradictions of their own internalized oppression in the belief that conformity to Eurocentric standards meant the survival of their children. Miguel’s “big sister and mom and choir director” placed a high value on English and European music; Lela’s escape from poverty was with loving parents who wanted better for their children. Melvin lived at the end of a dirt road in the woods near a tiny town. His teachers taught only English classics and provided corporal punishment because they thought it was what he needed to be successful. Paradoxically, Eurocentricity was the basis of freedom for Melvin and his childhood friends when they were released from the structures of family and school to play Robin Hood in the woods. Without understanding the background of White supremacy, freedom had no racial subtext. However, what is freedom, or self-determination, without an under-standing of Self?
A significant thread was the desire to learn in spite of racism or cultural supremacy: Miguel asserted “the world is still interesting/I have loved solving its problems since junior high school.” Keisha was furious that teachers gave up on her. Lela was distraught that her teacher did not understand her capabilities. As we wrote, discussed, and revised, the poems we interpreted everyone’s desire to learn thus: education is freedom. Directly or indirectly, they expressed the yearning for freedom to learn, to enjoy recess, to struggle with ideas, to be accepted and understood, and to be attended to in ways that acknowledged their worth. Instead, all of them found their culture silenced and control to be the most significant process.
Conclusion
Our initial question was how can critical ABER as counter-narrative inform discussions on race in education? This question grew from our very real need to engage in discussions with students and colleagues who are not people of color, and to work with students and colleagues of color who need support and a critical lens as they also face challenges in schools and the academy. More often than not we have found that Whites would storm or hide in passive aggression if we confronted them with White supremacy. Instead, through counter-narratives as poetry and performance, they said and wrote their own stories, finding connections or not, thereby allowing them to confront what was for most of them an unexplored narrative.
We were actually amazed at the effects of the performance of poetry as counter-narrative. The majority of teachers and our colleagues wrote with passion, caring, and deep empathy, and they were not all at the same level of critical or multicultural development. We are not naïve or arrogant enough to think that a performance of poetry can change minds, but ours certainly opened spaces in reified meanings and set dialog in motion. For example, after the teachers handed in their written responses, we held a discussion with them. Many repeated what they had written, but one White teacher tremulously asked why there was no White people interviewed. She said she was afraid to ask, but she wanted to know. We applauded her courage, and then a Black male student said, “Because the story is not about you.” Other students of color and a few Whites talked about how the stories of people of color are seldom at the center of the curriculum and posited that the discomfort she experienced might be based in the fact that Whites are not used to being on the margins. Hence, counter-narrative initiated discussion on racism, social structures, and cultural supremacy.
Limitations of Counter-Narrative
The difference in interpretation among audiences and readers raised another issue about arts-based counter-narratives. Understanding arises from prior knowledge and experience. Who is telling, who is reading, and what form the narrative takes informs the percipient’s responses. Although the power of the counter-narrative lies in the representation of the story for all to ponder, the perception of the story twists around the emotions and mind of the percipient and may be understood in ways not intended. Indeed, the value of an art form is the ambiguity that allows for interpretations. Thus, counter-narrative in whatever form is not the end, but a means to critical discussion (Barone, 2008).
Subjectivity and Activism
As we created the poems, we realized what we highlighted, our interpretations of the oral histories, and certainly the autoethnographic work were deeply connected to our own African American and female lives. The fact that we sought to evoke empathy, sympathy, compassion—any emotion other than indifference—speaks to our desire to transform how educators and researchers understand race in schools and society. Thus, we acknowledge Kincheloe’s (2005) assertion that “critical constructivist researchers [must] begin to appreciate the subtle ways power [directly and indirectly] shapes their research, their methods of constructing data and interpretations of it, and their narrative voice…to deconstruct what has always appeared natural” (p. 120). We wondered did we identify too much with the narratives as part of our own stories? Did we act in a colonial manner, doing much more than narrative smoothing, by creating poetry as opposed to “found poems?” We decided to take our prompt from Bagley and Castro-Salazar (2012) to be explicitly subjective because we acted as,
critical race theory researchers seeking to challenge white privilege, reject notions of neutral research and objective researchers, and, in sharing this perspective with the “researched,” believed at some point that researcher and interviewees can “become actors in a common culture” against racist discrimination and oppression. (p. 246)
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.