The “Critical Race Theory” Panic Reveals Why White Students Must Be Included in Our Equity Efforts
Over the past few months, schools across the country have been embroiled in controversy as far-right leaders attempt to ban the teaching of anything related to race and racism, which they have inaccurately grouped under the label “critical race theory.” White parents have flooded school board meetings in mostly white districts out of fear that “critical race theory” — a 40-year-old academic field which they don’t actually know much about — will somehow harm their children. White teachers, administrators, and school board members (some of whom are committed to equity work, but also don’t really know much about “critical race theory”) have struggled to respond to angry parents and cookie-cutter bills proposed by far-right politicians that explicitly lie about what critical race theory actually is.
Ironically, while the far right is panicked about the impact learning about racism could have on white students, most equity initiatives in actual schools are primarily focused on Black students. As a person who does social justice education for a living and has written multiple books and articles about issues of race in schools, I wish we were focusing as much on what white students are learning about race as the far right seems to think we are. Instead, “DEI work” (diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, anti-racism, cultural proficiency, cultural responsiveness, or whatever it’s being called in your school) is almost always framed as being for Black and Latinx students.
Even in overwhelmingly white districts, equity initiatives focus on what to do about the one or two percent of Black students who are being bullied, failing tests, or getting suspended, with virtually no thought given to what to do with the 99% of white students. Or worse, such districts simply assume there is nothing about equity, justice, or anti-racism work that is relevant to them at all because they lack racial diversity. While efforts to make schools better for Black and brown students are undeniably important, there remains a very significant “elephant in the classroom”:
What about the white students? What do they need? What are they learning?
Why do I ask these questions? Because even as our country is becoming more racially diverse, every single institution where there is racial inequity (so all of them), is primarily run by white people. In order to create a more just nation we actually need the white people in charge to be committed to racial justice. And our schools are perhaps the only institution with the potential to make this happen, because they are the only socializing force that almost all of us participate in. Consider this:
The police officers who are more likely to stop people of color are disproportionately white.
The lawyers who fail to adequately represent people of color are disproportionally white.
The judges and juries who are more likely to send Black, Indigenous and Latinx defendants to jail are disproportionately white.
The employers who are less likely to hire candidates of color are disproportionately white.
The doctors and nurses who are less likely to prescribe adequate pain medication to patients of color are disproportionately white.
The producers and creators who fail to adequately represent people of color in television, movies, books, and magazines are disproportionately white.
The government officials who overlook the policy priorities of communities of color are disproportionately white.
It’s not a coincidence that these white decision-makers almost certainly went to K-12 schools somewhere in the country where:
Teachers who are disproportionately white struggle to create historically accurate and inclusive lessons.
Administrators and school boards who are disproportionately white struggle to make anti-racist policies and put them into practice in unbiased ways.
School resource officers, counselors, and social workers who are disproportionately white struggle to see the full humanity of students of color.
Professors and faculty members in schools of education who are disproportionately white fail to prepare future teachers to teach in a pluralistic society.
State officials who are disproportionately white struggle to create school funding models that are equitable.
National and state leaders who are disproportionately white decide on common core standards that don’t give guidance for how to teach about issues of race and racism.
Authors who write textbooks, publishers who approve them, and curriculum directors who purchase them — who are all disproportionately white — don’t insist that people of color are fully and fairly represented.
Standardized test makers who are disproportionately white struggle to create unbiased tests.
Students who are disproportionately white end up in the news for engaging in racist bullying against their classmates of color.
And on and on and on…
The history we have been doomed to repeat is our national failure to teach students — especially white ones, who are significantly less likely to learn these things at home — anything useful about race, racism, building relationships or engaging in difficult conversations across difference, intervening in racist bullying, leading in anti-racist ways, or making unbiased decisions. The people in our country with the most power have the least information about one of the issues most relevant to how they wield it. Why? Because their schools didn’t give it to them. We have an education system that has not concerned itself in any way with producing white people committed to racial justice.
If you are a teacher, school, or district leader that serves white students (who will become white adults), and you are not laser focused on making sure they graduate committed to racial justice, your work amounts to putting a Band-Aid on the broken arm of our society, regardless of how many trainings you attend on connecting with Black students, because the problem we face is not students of color, and it never has been.
So, what should schools that serve white students be doing?
First, many of the efforts meant to address the needs of students of color are also good for cultivating anti-racist white students. Diversifying texts helps ensure that students of color have mirrors of themselves in their learning and white students have windows, which helps all students have more empathy for, knowledge about, and connection with people from other racial groups. Creating lessons that explicitly address race and encourage critical thinking by using tools such as the Justice Leaders Collaborative A RIDE model helps all students, including white ones, better understand the world around them. Other efforts will be more specific to the needs of white students, such as helping them develop an anti-racist white identity.
At a minimum, our K-12 education system should be designed in developmentally appropriate ways such that every person in the United States graduates with:
an understanding of what “race” and “racism” mean;
an understanding of the ways that colonialism, genocide, enslavement, and immigration shaped the development of the country;
an understanding of the experiences, cultures, histories, and contributions of Black, Indigenous, Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islander, Latinx, MENA, multiracial, and white people, starting prior to colonization;
an understanding of the true experiences of each racial group in the U.S. since colonization through the present when it comes to education, immigration, housing, healthcare, the criminal justice system, media, and other systems;
an understanding of why there continue to be social inequities by race;
a strong and positive sense of their own racial identity;
an appreciation for diverse ethnic and cultural traditions;
skills for building meaningful relationships across race;
skills for interrupting racial bias and discrimination; and a
personal commitment to working toward a society in which race is not a factor in determining success, whatever they do next in their lives.
School leaders should be able to articulate why it is important that their students, including those who are white, learn the truth in their K-12 schooling, otherwise schools will always be vulnerable to attack from those who seek to mandate the telling of lies. At Justice Leaders Collaborative, we work with educators on analyzing and rebuilding systems using our Education Justice Assessment and Transformation Tool (EJATT) because we believe that schools have a responsibility to make our world better. This means DEI efforts must start by asking, “Who do we serve and what do they need?,” rather than assuming that these efforts are always and only for Black students. And then schools must align their efforts, money, and time in ways that address the answers to those questions.
As someone recently said to me, what Black, Indigenous and other students of color want are better white people — better white teachers, better white administrators, better white school board members, better white lawmakers, and better white classmates who will grow up to be their children’s white teachers, administrators, school board members, lawmakers and, hopefully, friends. Being concerned about the white students we are graduating from our schools is not only essential for the liberation of Black, Indigenous and other people of color, it is also essential to the liberation of white people, who have for too long been fed lies and misinformation for the benefit of those who would prefer they be kept malleable, ignorant, and willing to publicly advocate for the continuation of their own miseducation.
The most common reaction of the white educators I’ve worked with over the years is anger about what they were not taught in school from their very first day of kindergarten— lies and omissions that have made it difficult for them to make sense of the world they live in, for them to feel solid in their own identities, for them to have honest conversations, for them to build relationships with people from diverse backgrounds, for them to be as economically secure as they wish, and for them to have the skills to make our society more fair and more free for us all.
I want my children to live in a world without oppression and a lot of white people want this too! But we’re only going to get there if we are committed to making sure the next generation of young white students graduating from our K-12 schools have the knowledge and skills to take action for racial justice.
Some resources to get your started:
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey (https://jenniferharvey.org/raising-white-kids/)
Raising Antiracist Kids: An Age by Age Guide for Parents of White Children by Rebekah Gienapp (https://www.rebekahgienapp.com/antiracist/)
Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom by Donna Rich Kaplowitz, Shayla Reese Griffin, and Sheri Seyka (https://www.tcpress.com/race-dialogues-9780807761304)
This Book is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work by Tiffany Jewell and Aurelia Durand (https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780711245211)
Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. Adapted by Sonja Cherry-Paul. Illustrated by Rachelle Baker (https://www.lbyr.com/titles/jason-reynolds/stamped-for-kids/9780316167581/)
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Otiz Adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567131/an-indigenous-peoples-history-of-the-united-states-for-young-people-by-roxanne-dunbar-ortiz-adapted-by-jean-mendoza-and-debbie-reese/)
Seeing White — Scene on Radio Podcast (https://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/)
Teaching Hard History (https://www.splcenter.org/20180131/teaching-hard-history)
Shayla Reese Griffin, PhD, MSW, is the co-founder of Justice Leaders Collaborative, author of “Those Kids, Our Schools: Race and Reform in an American High School” (Harvard Education Press, 2015), co-author of “Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom” (Teachers College Press, 2019), and author of the forthcoming book “The Big Book of Race & Racism for Kids and Grownups Too!”