More Than an Ally. Michael L. Boucher Jr.
in the classroom to think they are caring and equipping the next generation to cope in a world where the values and language of whiteness are the norm. These teachers are able to view themselves as empowering their students by acculturating them more deeply in the culture of whiteness. Frustratingly, many acts of White supremacy are so wrapped up in how White teachers show caring that it is often difficult for White people to even see themselves as having this mental framework (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2012; Gray, 2019).
The debate over African American Vernacular English (AAVE) rages among teachers and scholars of different backgrounds (Gay, 2010; Seltzer, 2019). Godley et al. (2006) found that teacher attitudes about and against AAVE result in deficit thinking and stigmatization, which lead to lower expectations of students who use AAVE. However, AAVE is not a deficit. It is a fund of knowledge and a community asset. It allows communication within the group, and White teachers of African American students would be well served by being versed in it.
Teachers in solidarity with students around the issues of communication and language understand that strategizing with students, enabling them to code-switch between AAVE and the dominant register in class is necessary for long-term success (Delpit, 1988/2006). To insist on a White culturally specific register as the only way to speak in a classroom alienates teachers from students, inhibiting the creation of solidarity (Souto-Manning, 2013).
Naming the Unmentionable: White Supremacy
As hooks (2013) explained, while people usually associate racism with overt “acts of aggression by whites against blacks.” White supremacy, as a way to understand social structures, “addresses the ideological and philosophical foundations of racism” (p. 177). White supremacism is the most divisive, cancerous, and self-defeating mental and social construct of our time, and yet it has largely gone unnoticed in the telling of U.S. history. The term White supremacy conjures up racist hate groups and Klan rallies burning crosses, and most educated people disavow that version of White supremacy.
No one wants to be labelled as a bad person and few phrases make people feel uncomfortable as being associated with racism or White supremacy. These words like these make White people profoundly uncomfortable. The power any phrase possesses to hurt others does not come from its sound or even its surface meaning. The meanings of words are important, but so is their social context (DiAngelo, 2017). Nice White people always want to avoid being called racist and want others to understand that they are looking for common ground (Renkle, 2018). Constructive conversations about racism are the often subverted by the feelings of White people insert themselves into the foreground in race conversations, and because of that, little has changed that truly removes White supremacist ideology from society.
When people tiptoe around the feelings of White people, they will always be in solidarity with whiteness. White supremacy is one of those terms that has a simple meaning, the assumption that White people are better than others, but is often unheard because it has been used in social context to describe the most violent and detestable sections of society.
Sociologist Robin DiAngelo (2017) has written extensively about the term: “White supremacy captures the all-encompassing centrality and assumed superiority of people defined and perceived as white, and the practices based upon that assumption. White supremacy is not simply the idea that whites are superior to people of color (although it certainly is that), but a deeper premise that supports this idea—the definition of whites as the norm or standard for human, and people of color as an inherent deviation from that norm.”
As DiAngelo (2018) explained, “White people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview because it is the bedrock of our society and its institutions. Regardless of whether a parent told you that everyone was equal, or the poster in the hall of your white suburban school proclaimed the value of diversity, or you have traveled abroad, or you have people of color in your workplace or family, the ubiquitous socializing power of white supremacy cannot be avoided. The messages circulate 24-7 and have little or nothing to do with intentions, awareness, or agreement” (p. 129).
Allen and Liou (2018) explained, “In describing White supremacy as a social system, we are referring to a larger society that, despite times of what may seem like racial progress (e.g., the Civil Rights Era or Reconstruction), is fundamentally arranged to ensure that Whites remain in control of society, as they work to unjustly and immorally construct a higher social status over people of color” (p. 687).
DiAngelo (2017) challenged all White people to name the real issue in our politics and to begin the work of dismantling White supremacist ideologies in ourselves and the culture:
Naming white supremacy changes the conversation because it shifts the problem to white people, where it belongs. It also points us in the direction of the life-long work that is uniquely ours; challenging our complicity with and investment in racism. Yes, this work includes all white people, even white progressives. None of us have missed being shaped by the white supremacy embedded in our culture. (p. 33)
The ideology of White supremacy is found in every corner of American history and life, from the first Conquistadors and Pilgrims to the founding of a nation that espoused liberty but still protected slavery. It includes Jim Crow, crime bills that caused mass incarceration, and crowds calling for a wall on the southern border. White supremacist ideology allows White people to justify their lack of faithfulness to the democratic ideals of the founders and their own moral principles. Its purpose remains to define White people as superior. White supremacy, once it is named, can be seen everywhere in society and though it is often more hidden, in the school structure. As hooks and other scholars pointed out, it is the root of how school is structured from preschool to graduation.
Centering Race, Not Talking about Race, Offense, and Avoidance
McIntosh (2001) observed that there are unearned privileges given to Whites based on the fact that they are White people in a country where whiteness is normalized. James Baldwin clarified that whiteness is an illusion (Coates, 2015). Allen and Liou (2018) have explained whiteness as being “rooted in the active pursuit of White racial interests through the creation of institutional norms framed by the White supremacist social structure and its related normalized systems of practices” (p. 679).
Bonilla-Silva (2010) explained that there is a pervasive practice in schools referred to as “color-blind racism” (p. 2). This tendency allows White teachers to blame Black students for their failure, and Black parents can be ignored for not attending to their child’s schooling. Ideological color blindness is a major force in the larger society (DiAngelo, 2018). As Hayes and Juarez (2012) explained, “holding on to a color-blind framework allows people to address only the egregious forms of racism” (p. 7).
The practice of color-blindness allows White people to ignore “the very knowledge of culturally responsive teaching and social justice that is needed to transform the whiteness of education” (Hayes & Juarez, 2012, p. 7). In multicultural classrooms, centering race and culture is an exercise in freedom for both teacher and students. If race and culture are not out in the open but are left unsaid, secret, taboo, and untouchable, the messages conveyed to students reinforce oppression and privilege and devalue students of color (DiAngelo, 2018).
It seems counterintuitive to some White people that talking about race is the best way to combat racism. The avoidance of race talk largely derives from a misunderstanding of race combined with an unwillingness to begin dismantling White supremacy in individuals and structures. Not talking about cancer did not lead to a cure for cancer. Not talking about sexual assault has not led to an end to sexual violence. Not talking about a subject has never solved it.
For example, Arizona has a troubled past and present when it comes to race and culture in the classroom, even taking the unusual step of banning “ethnic studies” courses in 2010. The climate of fear that surrounds schools in many states when talking about race and culture means that when teachers do engage in discussions, they risk infuriating White parents and legislators (Palos & McGinnis, 2012). Yet, when they do not have these conversations, students will act out in ways that reflect their lack of understanding.
In