Chapter 3 of “Teaching to Transgress” by bell hooks was an enlightening read. On one hand, it’s sad to see that, though this was written years ago, our education system still has many of the same problems regarding teaching in a multicultural setting. On the other hand, though, the existence of scholarship such as that of Dr. April Baker-Bell shows that people are carrying on bell hooks’ work and ideals and are continuing to push for changes in the system.

I found the series of seminars that bell hooks and Chandra Mohanty held at Oberlin to be an excellent idea. hooks talks about the intent to raise critical consciousness, to have a space for constructive confrontation and critical interrogation, and to have a setting for people to voice fears and to discuss what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and why they’re doing it, all in order to help these people shift their paradigms around more inclusive teaching. This all feels especially important today; you can see just by looking at news channels or social media how defensive people get over their mistakes today. When a mistake is pointed out, there’s a huge tendency to become defensive and double down on that mistake rather than accepting the criticism, apologizing, and aiming to improve. These spaces that hooks and Mohanty created seem to aim to move past this defensiveness and help people to actually learn and grow.

hooks mentioned how she and Mohanty felt greatly disappointed when the meetings concluded because they saw just how much work would have to be done, how much the faculty would have to unlearn racism to create and appreciate a new sort of education. They were definitely right in their realization that much work would have to be done, however it is a good thing that hooks, her contemporaries, and educators today continue to pursue this goal. Baker-Bell’s “We Been Knowin: Toward an Antiracist Language &
Literacy Education” gives some examples that clarify why this work is so important.

Baker-Bell’s parents did not finish high school because of negative racial experiences, taught by teachers who believed and upheld racist stereotypes of black students. Baker-Bell herself felt the white-centeredness of the education system when school offered her no opportunity to process the racial violence she’d seen in the police murder of Malice Green. Stories and experiences such as these have led her to pursue questions such as how can she produce anti-racist scholarship and what does racial and linguistic justice look like in literary/language education? She goes on to describe some antiracist critical media literacies such as digital activism as well as a discussion of Black English and how student’s should not be forced away from their own language, in this case a language that is often not even recognized as one. I am reminded of Vershawn Ashanti Young’s work “Should Writer’s Use They Own English?” (link) in which he discusses the harm that standard language ideology does to minorities in academia and how it serves to gatekeep many from entering the field. Young’s work is an excellent and insightful piece that I highly recommend to anyone interested in these ideas of multicultural scholarship/anti-racist scholarship/anti-racist language and literacy education.

Two insightful reads that really dived in deeper on a subject that is there but not something that is talked about enough. While I was reading Teaching to Transgress two things that I found interesting in the reading where; how many people needs to unlearn racism to learn about colonization and declaration, and how the fear of teaching race, sex, and class is rooted in the sear that the class will be uncontrollable. It’s not that I didn’t know these things, or I couldn’t guess; I just don’t think about it enough I guess. In my mind I’m confused as to how many people need to unlearn racism or the fear of teaching. But a big part of that may have to do where I live and my upbringing. Living and growing up in Newark we never faced these issues (not that I am saying people are not racist in Newark) but in school my teachers never had fear on teaching us anything, most of the time we dived deep into class discussions on important issues. But this may center around the fact that Newark is a minority area and many of the teachers are also minorities themselves? I do think that area and where you live plays a role into this and that fear of teaching or having to unlearn racism. Because from my own personal experience from high school to college, nothing was ever off limits when it came to teaching and talking about things that mattered or where important.

In the essay, We Been Knowin’, I definitely agreed with April Baker- Bell when she said that black people play an active role in highlighting, deconstructing, and addressing patterns of media injustice, and engage in Black digital activism to raise awareness of the crisis of racial injustice. One thing that stood out the most to me was the talking of the Trayvon Martin murder. When the incident happen, I was in high school. Close as well to the age of seventeen. During that time, my school devoted time to talking about it and the importance of why America needs to do better and be better. I will say I was shocked when Bell said there were articles that flipped the script and made it seem that George Zimmerman was a good person. Because I never read those articles or even heard of them. From my memory, we knew George Zimmerman was an awful person and during that time period we were all shaken up from the incident. But the fact that there were articles that tried to change that narrative you can see that Black people definitely need to do their role in helping media injustice. But it’s not only them, everyone needs to help this issue. The fact that would even happen after someone dies, is not only disrespectful but morally insane. My mom always said never to speak on someone who has passed away, especially to say wrong or hurtful things about them. But before I keep going on a rant, I do agree with this essay and there needs to be talks and there needs to be a continuation of work being done in efforts to support and raise awareness.