WMCAT 20/20 Participant Reflection: Education for Different Bodies
By Ericka Lozano-Buhl
Ericka is a participant in the eight-month series, WMCAT 20/20: Exploring Conflicting Visions for the Future, hosted by the West Michigan Center for Arts + Technology (WMCAT). The March 11, 2021 Community Meeting included content contributors B.A. Parker, and SuperDre. This blog is a reflection on Parker’s presentation, “Education for Different Bodies.” Learn more at wmcat2020.org.
At WMCAT 20/20’s March community meeting, B.A. Parker discussed a story she produced for This American Life titled “The Miseducation of Castlemont High.” If you’re old enough, you might remember the 1994 incident: a group of mostly Black and Latinx high school students in Oakland, California laughed during a showing of Schindler’s List. They were tossed from the theater and labeled as anti-Semitic.
The news coverage, while extensive, lacked context. The kids never had any comprehensive education about the Holocaust beforehand. They were watching a three-hour, black-and-white arthouse film on Martin Luther King Day. The students laughed after a scene in which a woman is shot in the head by a Nazi guard – not, they said, at the death itself, but at how the actress in the scene fell in an unrealistic way. Their laughter could also have been a psychological response to the stress and anxiety of viewing something so shocking. Despite publicly apologizing, they continued to be vilified on talk radio and letters to the editor. In the media, the incident was framed in terms of racial and religious conflict. But if we examine it more carefully, it highlights the educational system’s fundamental disregard for students of color.
In the United States, educational lessons are for the most part selected, written, and presented by white people, regardless of the demographics of a particular school district. Power dynamics and gatekeeping built into our country’s education system place nearly all decisions regarding curriculum, schedules, standardized tests, and funding within the hands of primarily white elected officials and political appointees. As recently as 2018, roughly 80% of public school teachers were white. Yet more than half of public school students are children of color.
How can we ensure that the identities and voices of Black and Brown children are centered within education given these parameters? B.A. shared with us four pointed questions she would ask of educators regarding lesson plans: What is the intention? For whom? What is the plan of action? What is the follow through? It’s hard to imagine that Mark Rader, the science teacher who arranged the Castlemont High School field trip, took these questions into consideration and it was his students who paid the price.
Black and Brown students are taught a version of history that excludes their narratives and perspective and also expected to absorb and understand the stories of white Americans. When my daughter’s class learned about Theodore Roosevelt earlier this year, he was portrayed as a charismatic and accomplished leader who established national parks, with no mention he had Native Americans forcefully uprooted from their lands to do so. It was up to me to tell her that Roosevelt said, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.” I had to explain that the 26th president believed that Black Americans were “altogether inferior to the whites.” It is painful to me that I learned these facts on my own, not as a result of my own public school education.
Even when lessons focus on Black, Indigenous, Asian, or Latinx history, they tend to be relegated to cultural heritage months. And across the country, lessons highlight the same people year after year, often whitewashing our history. Children learn to associate Dr. King with non-violent protests and racial unity; they do not know that he called “the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice” the great stumbling block to freedom for Black Americans. They draw pictures of Frieda Kahlo during Hispanic Heritage Month without being taught that she was disabled and bisexual.
B.A. spoke of the value of curated education, one that takes into account the lived experiences and voices of students of color. I wonder, is it possible for all of our children to have this, or must we curate our own lessons to fill in the gaps through which the stories of Black and Brown communities have been discarded?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ericka Lozano-Buhl founded Mixto Communications to help public, nonprofit, and educational organizations across the country build meaningful connections in diverse communities. Her work focuses on community engagement, racial equity and representation, strategic communications, branding, and website design. Her client list includes the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan State University Alzheimer’s Alliance, Family Outreach Center, Oregon Health Equity Alliance, and Unite Oregon, among many others. A Midwest native, Ericka lived on the West Coast for more than two decades before moving to Grand Rapids with her husband and daughter in 2018.
