I’m in my senior year of H.S. and in the process of working on a national broadcast for PBS NewsHour called Broken Justice. I’m finding out that Black students not having Black teachers negatively affects this in the classroom. Could you tell me how?

I don’t really understand your question.  What is the “this” you are referring to when you asked “negatively affects this in the classroom?”

Yes, Black students perform better when we have Black teachers, but Black teachers are not enough, you need committed Black teachers, a Black (or African Centered) curriculum, a competent Black school administration, a stable and supportive Black community, etc. 

The best Black teachers are not enough, I’ve been married to a brilliant Black teacher for 15 years, but all of her brilliance is just a drop in the bucket, without those other factors, our children can’t be fully and properly educated. 

White teachers are damaging for Black students, even when they don’t harbor any open or conscious hostility or Racism toward Black students because schooling and education dosen’t take place in a vacuum; it’s fully embedded in the larder society and systems; and the larger society and system is not only anti-Black it’s rooted in Black oppression the wealth and very identity of this system and society is rooted and still heavily invested in anti-Blackism. 

White teachers, even when they are kind perpetuate this system, the values and world view of this system; they drive Blacks deeper into dysfunction, it can’t be avoided. 

The best Blacks can do, is to educate or children on how to navigate the educational system of our oppressors.  We have to teach and learn how to learn, we have yet to build our own institution, so we have to train our youth on how to navigate the oppressor’s institutions, to extract what they need, and shield themselves from the psychological, emotional, and often physical assaults they will experience in school, from K up to PhD. 

Also, the African Centered Schools are a part of the problem, not the solution; but that’s a different discussion. 

I can’t get onto specifics but I will leave you with Bobby Wright’s advice for Black in schools: “[White] schools can give you the skills and training you need, but they cannot educate you, your education must come from your community.” 

I’m trying to keep my response as short as possible, there’s so much more to be said; but I hope I helped you understanding advance at least a little. 

Oh, and I’d like to also go on the record and state that not even White youth get a good education in the US; we all get mass indoctrination; Blacks are indoctrinated to be oppressed subjects, White indoctrinated to imagine that they are members of the Master Race, the moral and intercultural superiors of non-Whites.  We all are fed bullshit by the educational system.

A good text, although there’s a lot of shit I don’t agree with in the text, the historical aspects are solid; is The Underground History of American Education.

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