Black Students Matter: Here's Why

Repost from June 2020, seems just as relevant today. <br><br>I've written this for Black and for White teachers. As I am a White teacher, I'm talking to you specifically. If the shoe doesn't fit, wear it anyway. Your students need you now more than ever.<br><br>---<br><br>You have an influence on the next generation. How are you going to use it? The question isn't what you can do to change the past, but what you can do with your life right now to create a better future for your Black students. As they grow and flourish in your classroom, you can help them grow not only into educated and thoughtful young adults, but also into proud, confident, and unafraid Black men and women.<br><br>This is not a political issue. This is an issue of basic human respect, fairness, and kindness. If you don't believe me, imagine an officer kneeling on your child's neck while they call out for you, screaming in agony. Watch the videos again, from the perspective of the mother or the father of those arrested and beaten, humiliated and assaulted. Imagine your child bleeding in the street, surrounded by people who see them not as a human being, but as a threat to be eliminated. Imagine your child's last moments on this earth: image her thinking of you, image him calling out for you, crying in confusion and terror and pain.<br><br>If you can do that, if you can put yourself in our shoes, if you can feel even an ounce of the fear and heartbreak and horror that parents of color feel for our safety and our well-being every single day, then you will have done something this week to help our children, because you will have begun to understand.<br><br>We are scared. We are tired. But we are not hopeless, because we know that there is an entire generation of our nation's White people, White people like you, who are willing to stand with us against a system that has failed us for centuries.<br><br>As a teacher, you have the power to shape your students' perceptions of who they are, where they belong, and what they are worth. The education you provide, the support you give, the role-modeling you do, the conversations you have, and the curriculum you use all help to create the adults they will become. If you take this responsibility seriously, if you value the safety and success of your Black students above all else, then you will have done something this week to help our children.<br><br>Here's the thing: the kids you teach are not children. They are young adults. They've seen the videos. They've heard the news. They know what's going on. If you haven't had "the talk" with them, and with your White students, then you should be ashamed of yourself, because you have failed them. Now is not the time for neutrality. Now is not the time for silence.<br><br>Who are you going to be for them? Who are you going to be for the rest of your career? They are looking at you to see what kind of change you will stand for. They are looking at you to make them proud. They are looking at you to help them build a future that they can be proud of. They are kids, but they are also young adults, and they have more power than they know. If they feel empowered, first by you, to change the world, then there is no stopping them. There is nothing they cannot do.<br><br>So talk to them. Listen to them. Help them. Teach them. Bring them together to talk about what they can do, to make sure that their Black classmates are safe and valued and respected. Make them laugh. Make them feel proud and strong and beautiful. Be their rock. Be their ally. Be their safe haven.<br><br>This is what teachers do.<br><br>If you know nothing, or next to nothing, about Black history, learn more. If you have never read James Baldwin or Toni Morrison, read them. If you have never listened to Kendrick or Public Enemy, listen. If you have never seen "12 Years A Slave" or "Roots", watch. If you have never known anyone who was Black, meet them. If you have never been to a Black church, go. If you have never had a Black friend, be one.<br><br>You have an influence on the next generation. How are you going to use it?