Introduction: Teaching Black Lives Matter

Abstract

An introduction to Radical Teacher, Issue 106: Teaching Black Lives Matter. This issue brings together a diverse collection of articles exploring educator’s responses, strategies, and stories on how #BlackLivesMatter has informed their teaching practice, the content of their courses, and their personal relationship to colleagues, family, friends, and self.

Afros, activism,and affinity: the politicization of black natural hair, racism and a sense of belonging in the Greater Toronto area

“…Some of the central tenants of the Black Lives Matter movement include: a commitment to restorative justice, queer and transgender affirmation, being unapologetically Black, and practicing empathy to all comrades to understand their individual contexts (Jackson, 2016). Organizers consistently point to and seek to undermine the structural and systemic issues that promote and accept the ongoing violence on Black communities in the US and globally such as institutional racism, the school to prison pipeline, mass incarceration, redlining, and the repeal of the Voting Rights Act (Austin et al, 2016). Black Lives Matter has developed a reputation as "the new Civil Rights movement" (Jackson, 2016, p. 375) and can be expected to make known the injustices committed against Black bodies and demand that Western society reconsider how it values Black lives (Hall, 2016).…”

“…It is well known that the guiding principles of BLM are centered on gender inclusive actions and are inherently intersectional (Austin et al, 2016;BlackLivesMatter.com, n.d. Dixson, 2018). Alicia Garza highlights the importance of acknowledging the work of Black women, trans folks, and queer folks within contemporary racial justice movements (Hall, 2016).…”

“…Defiant also recalled White women expressing unease with leaving their belongings in an unlocked locker in a spa facility when they saw her entering the changeroom. The hypervisibility of Black bodies when criminality is assumed is a prominent issue in the GTA as expressed by BLM (Austin et al, 2016). This form of systemic racism is what gave rise to the Movement with the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012.…”