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The College of Education will host an interactive keynote, "Teaching for Black Lives," on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 4:30 p.m., in the Carney Family Auditorium.

In this presentation, Dyan Watson and Wayne Au, two of the editors of Teaching for Black Lives, will discuss their book and the overall project of making black lives matter in schools.

This event includes a discussion between Watson and Au, a classroom activity and an audience question and answer session followed by a book signing and reception.

A former public high school teacher, Au is a professor in the School of Educational Studies and currently serves as the dean of diversity and equity for the University of Washington Bothell (UWB). He is a long-time editor for the social justice teaching magazine, Rethinking Schools, and his work focuses on both academic and public scholarship about high-stakes testing, charter schools, teaching for social justice and anti-racist education. Recently, Au has been working in the Seattle area to support the Black Lives Matter campaign and ethnic studies in Seattle schools and surrounding districts. His recent books include Rethinking Ethnic Studies, co-edited with Tolteka Cuahatin, Miguel Zavala, and Christine Sleeter; Teaching for Black Lives, co-edited with Dyan Watson and Jesse Hagopian; A Marxist Education; and Reclaiming the Multicultural Roots of the U.S. Curriculum, co-authored with Anthony Brown and Dolores Calderon. He was honored with the UWB Distinguished Teaching Award in 2015, given the William H. Watkins award for scholar activism from the Society of Professors of Education in 2017, and was honored with the Distinguished K-12 Educational Leader Award from the Evergreen State College MiT program in 2019.

Watson teaches at the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling in Portland, Oregon. She teaches methods classes for pre-service social studies teachers, research methods classes for doctoral students and researches how race mediates teaching. Watson began her professional career teaching math and writing for young mothers working on their GEDs in Portland, Oregon. She taught social studies at the high school level in a suburb of Portland before pursuing her doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Watson is an editor for Rethinking Schools, and the author of Urban but not too urban: Unpacking Teachers' Desires to Teach Urban Students, Norming suburban: How teachers talk about race without using race words and A Letter from a Black Mom to Her Son; as well as the co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives; Rethinking Elementary Education; and Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice.

Link:
Teaching for Black Lives: A Keynote Event with Wayne Au and Dyan Watson - UMass News and Media Relations

17 February 2020, 17:22 | Updated: 17 February 2020, 17:33

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You isn't just about Lara Jean, Peter Kavinsky and John Ambrose' love triangle.

To All the Boys 2 shines light on some important social justice messages in and amongst Lara Jean's romantic escapades.

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is out now. After months of anticipation, Netflix released the long-awaited To All the Boys I've Love Before sequel last week (Feb 12) and it doesn't disappoint. Not only does To All the Boys 2 show us much more of Lara Jean (Lana Condor) and Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) but also introduces us to John Ambrose (Jordan Fisher).

READ MORE: QUIZ: Would you date Peter or John Ambrose from To All the Boys 2?

Much like the first film, there is plenty of drama to be found in To All the Boys 2 but there are also some key hidden details in the movie that you may have missed. The film references Black Lives Matter, Trans Rights and the Me Too movement.

If you look closely at any of the dining hall scenes in To All the Boys 2 you will see that the room is covered with posters that contain messages about social justice on them. For example, when Lara Jean is signing up to volunteer at Belleview, you can prominently see a Black Lives Matter poster in the background. There is also a Believe Women poster.

Later during the Valentine's Day segment, there are posters saying Justice for All, Trans Rights Are Human Rights and Hate Is a Choice, Being Trans Is Not. The posters seem to make clear that there is no room for racism, transphobia or sexism in the To All the Boys universe.

While To All the Boys 2 doesn't explicitly deal with any of these topics, or feature any trans characters, it's great to see a teen rom-com champion these causes and sentiments.

Read this article:
To All the Boys 2 contains Black Lives Matter, Trans Rights and Me Too easter eggs - PopBuzz

MILTON - Ared car swerved onto a collision path with a boy biking near his home. It pulled away atthe last moment.

The 12-year-old saw that same car one day earlier, according to the October 2019police report. The driver, amale with a scruffy beard, maybe in his early20s, had flipped him the finger as he passed.

Two years earlier, his family's movie nightwas interrupted by popping sounds.

By the time they realized what was happening, more than 100 paint balls had been fired at the Doners' home.They'd hung a Black Lives Matter flag by the front door months earlier. The paint balls were blue.

Those are several of the actions targeting the Doner family thatare documented in police reports obtained by the Free Press. They serve asugly reminders that despite its crunchy, progressivereputation intolerance of one type or another also exists in Vermont. That intolerance runs the gamut fromabusive social media posts toacts meant to intimidate and frighten, carried out the dark of night.

The Doner family has experienced both.

Quinn Ember Doneridentifies as a non-binary trans woman, who usesthe pronouns they/them.Doner supports theBlack Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ rights, and other progressive causes.

Someone took a photo of Doner at a 2018 gun-control rally in Montpelier. It showed up on the Vermont Parents for Gun Rights Facebook page, showing Doner smiling andholding an anti-gun poster that read "F*ck this Sh*t" withthe letter "u" replaced by a drawing of a flower and the "i" with a drawing of an assault rifle. The photo post onthe pro-gun groups page hasmore than 40 comments.

Some raise serious arguments about gun ownership rights. Many more containfairly benign, teasing or just crudeinsults. But a handful of comments are much more disturbing.

"Smash on site," saidone Facebook commenter of the photo of Doner.

"Waste of good air," another stated.

One person went as far as to comment about where Doner lived, including thestreet, a detailed description of the two flags that hung out front, and even that the family bought the residencethroughHabitat for Humanity, an affordable housing program.

"That was a little unnerving," Doner said. The family decided to call police,afraid of what might come next.

Milton policetried to talk to the commenter, but wereunsuccessful in making contact, they said. Though a concern to authorities, the act by itself didnt break any laws.

Doner has been the target of abusive comments on other various Facebook posts as well. They've been called a "freak," a "thing," and "mentally ill."

According to Facebook'sown community standards, many of the comments about Doner on the Vermont Parents for Gun Rights Facebook pageseem to violate one or more rules.All told, the section contains a nearly 28,000-word outlineof what isn't permitted.But, as most Facebook users know, posts on the social platform are riddled with insults and personal attacks that endure.

The Free Press contacted one of the administrators of the Vermont Parents for Gun Rights Facebook page who identified herself asLiz Mason.

"We don't condone such comments," she said via messenger of the comments made on the Doner photo poston the group's page. "But we also support the bill of rights. Freedom of speech is included in that."

After the photo was posted, Doner messaged the Facebook group and asked that it be removed.

"I'm sorry you don't like your photo being blasted on the internet," was the response from an administrator. The photo remained as of the publication of this story.

Doner is a substitute teacher in Milton and goes by the gender-neutral title of Mx. at school. Theyalso frequentschool board meetings and had strong opinions during the 2016 Black Lives Matter flag raising debate at the high school. All of this had made Donereasy to recognize.

When Doner walks around town, sometimes people passing by in a car will shout obscenities at them. If the insults are bad enough, Doner jokes that they give them the finger in response.

"I got beat up plenty," said Doner of growing up in Enosburg Falls, about a 40 minutes north of Milton in Franklin County. "This hasnever been a kind state if you are different."

A vehicle swerved into the path of Quinn Doner's son while he was biking near his home, described in this complaint to the Milton Police Department obtain through a Freedom of Information Act request. RYAN MERCER/FREE PRESS

Doner, now 51,jokes that back then the bulliesthought they were gay instead oftrans, not that it would have mattered much. As for the shouts from passing cars now, Doner triesto laugh that off,but behind the humor lies a deep-seated fear that, at some point, those insults could turn into acts of violence.

"I will watch my back I suppose," they said.

Most of themore than 10,000 residents intown are happy to leave well enough alone when it comes to each others' personal choices or political views. Incidents like the ones impactingthe Doner familyare rare, according to Milton Police Chief Stephen Laroche. He believes the people behind the incidents at the Doner home are few. But even still, he is deeply troubled by what they've endured.

This isnt what our community is all about. he said, adding that this is the first time in his memory that something like this has gone on in town.

"Most in Milton are good people," Doner said. One grandmother brought thefamily cookies when they put up the Black Lives Matter flag, they said.

Abusiness next door to the Doners home provided their security camera footage to the police after the last flag vandalism in November 2019, but the quality and the angle of the video allowed any would-be suspects to remain uncaught.

WATCH: Security cam shows vandals at Milton home stealing Black Lives Matter flag twice.

Vandals targeted the Doner home in Milton in September and November of 2019, stealing two Black Lives Matter flags from the home (Via Milton Police.)

Ryan Mercer, Free Press Staff Writer

But Chief Laroche is far from giving up.He hopes that someone in Milton knows who is behindthe acts and will do the right thing and come forward with information.

So far, no one has been charged.

Gus and Annmarie Klein of Burlington woke in 2018 to find their flag pole toppled and theirTrump flag leftsmoldering on their front step.Gus Klein later told the Free Press that they were lucky the house didnt catch fire while the coupleslept.

It could have gotten ugly, he said.

The Kleins are arguably as opposite the Doners as you can get politically. The KleinssupportPresident Donald Trump as much as Doner opposes him. Despite this,when it comes to freedom of speech or expression, especially on one's own property, the Kleins say no one shouldexperience what theDoners have.

Another side: Trump supporter wakes up to burnt flag on Vermont porch

Thats their home, their personal lives, their beliefs..its just wrong, Annmarie Klein said in a phone interview with the Free Press about what the Doner family experienced. Its their identity, it's a violation of them personally. I wish I could give them all a hug right now."

Shame of anyone so full of hate, said Gus Klein, a veteran of the Vermont National Guard with two Bronze Stars for service in Iraqand Afghanistan.

Vermont owner of vandalized Trump flag: 'Shame! Shame on you!'

Gus Klein woke up Sunday morning, Nov. 25, 2018, to find his "Trump 2020" flag burned, left on the doorstep of his Burlington home.

Ryan Mercer, Free Press Staff Writer

Doner doesn't approve of what happened to the Kleins. But they are quick to point out that what is happening in Milton is quite different.

For starters, the culprits behind theKleins' burnt Trump flag,two teenage kids, were identified. Burlington police released a statement that the parents of the two teens helped in the investigation.

Doner acknowledgesthat the vandalism ofthe Kleins' flag could have become deadlybut noted that the police investigation revealed there was no intent tophysically harm the Kleins.

"If I get killed it's not going to be an accident," Doner said.

"Social media has complicated things over the years," said Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George, who admitted that she's completely abandoned using Facebook personally due to the ugliness of comments made there, although her office holds an account for professional use.

George looked over the comments leveled at Doner's photo on theVermont Parents for Gun Rights Facebook pageand shook her head. But there is little state law can do about it, she said.

Quinn Doner of Milton, a trans woman who uses the pronouns they/them, believes they've been targeted because of their gender identity. RYAN MERCER/FREE PRESS

That's because Vermont's primary tool for his kind of issue is a statute first created in 1967. The first part of13 V.S.A. 1027, known as"Disturbing peace by use of telephone or other electronic communications" starts off with:

"A person who, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, or annoy, makes contact by means of a telephonic or other electronic communication with another and makes any request, suggestion, or proposal that is obscene, lewd, lascivious, or indecent; threatens to inflict injury or physical harm to the person or property of any person; or disturbs, or attempts to disturb, by repeated telephone calls or other electronic communications, whether or not conversation ensues, the peace, quiet, or right of privacy of any person at the place where the communication or communications are received shall be fined not more than $250.00 or be imprisoned not more than three months, or both."

"It requires that it be directed at that person," said Deputy State's Attorney Sally Adams of any threat or comment that could be acted on by law enforcement. And that's where social media by and large gets around the law. Adams recalled a case where a threat was made on a social platform, that it was obvious who was being threatened, but because that threat wasn't explicitly communicated to the subject, it didn't meet the requirements of the law.

"It's unfortunate because it clearly was a horrible threat" she said. "But it wasn't a threat that was communicated to that person, and that's the issue."

Despite being updated in 1999 and again in 2013, George thinks the legislatureneeds modify the law further to addresssocial media, but how is a big question.

Something like H.496 might help, introduced in 2019 afterVermont State RepresentativeKiah Morris of Bennington, who is African American, resigned, citing what she described as targeted harassmentbyMax Misch, a self-described white nationalist. But that bill is a long way off from becoming law.

According to one of its sponsors, Rep. Martin LaLonde, the bill is under major revision. It receivedpushback from racial justice proponents and even Morris herself for not having enough input from the communities it was trying to protect.LaLonde pointed out that trying to create a law that protects a victim from the hate speech or bias while preserving freedom of speechis no easy task.

"That's what we are trying to figure out," he said.

Hate crimes in Vermont:Four case studies on how enforcement is practiced

For now, a legislative solution that would give law enforcement and state prosecutors a better tool seems far off.

As for the vandals, Donerhopes that the police will catch them. When asked whether they would just take the Black Lives Matter flag down, they said it's too late for that now.

"That's exactly what these kinds of peoplewant us to do...to take it down," they said.

"We didn't even meanto have it up forever...then when people lashed out so vehemently, now we can't take it down."

Contact Ryan Mercer at rmercer@freepressmedia.com or at 802-343-4169. Follow him onTwitter @ryanmercer1andfacebook.com/ryan.mercer1.This coverage is only possible with support from our readers.Sign up today for a digital subscription.

Read more here:
'If I get killed it won't be an accident': Progressive family in VT faces threats, vandalism - Burlington Free Press

Close

Ashlee Day, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, speaks to attendees on the importance of speaking out and using your voice.

Faye White

Ashlee Day, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, speaks to attendees on the importance of speaking out and using your voice.

Faye White

Faye White

Ashlee Day, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, speaks to attendees on the importance of speaking out and using your voice.

February is upon us, which means so is Black History Month. We keep intentional remembrance throughout the entirety of February of the decades of vibrant and tragic history Black people in America have experienced and continue to experience in 2020.

To kick-off this paramount month, the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) teamed up with the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) to host a Black Lives Matter discussion on Feb. 5. Ashlee Day, assistant director of the OMA, and Travis Kim, a CCE graduate assistant, co-led the discussion. The timing of the event combined the CCEs Winter Wellness Week and Black Lives Matter in Schools week.

As the CCE is committed to living and leading as an anti-racist organization, my colleagues and I thought it was important to have a program within Winter Wellness Week that involved a conversation around Black Lives Matter at Seattle University, Kim said. Keeping in mind that the schools in the Seattle University Youth Initiative are located in the Central Districta historically black neighborhood where families are now facing displacement and gentrificationwe wanted to create a space for students to discuss, learn, and engage with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Day and Kim decided to collaborate and put on an event that would base conversation around the 13 Guiding Principles for Black Lives Matter. They both agreed this was a solid starting point, but ultimately the conversation would be guided by the group of participants.

The couches and chairs set up in a circle in the OMA office space were filled with students, faculty and staff from different areas of the Seattle University community. Right off the bat, Kim asked the participants to shout out guidelines to establish community agreements that would be respected as the conversation progressed. Listening first, thinking before you contribute and moving at the speed of trust were some of the suggestions.

After a respectful plan was solidified going forward, Day asked the group to go around, introduce themselves and define what Black Lives Matter meant to them.

I believe that it is important to have conversations about race, and particularly as a Black person, it is important to remember that racism isnt over; anti-Blackness still runs rampant in our society and change is not going to happen if people are silent, Day said. I think for many, Black Lives Matter is just a hashtag that does not actually lead to actionable behavior in their day-to-day lives. However, being willing to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement and how we can align with the principles developed by Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors can help us move into taking action.

The responses around the room were highly personalized, and many participants noted they had never been asked to define what the movement meant to them personally before.

From there, Kim read out the 13 Principles of the Black Lives Matter movement: restorative justice, empathy, loving engagement, diversity, globalism, queer affirming, trans affirming, collective value, intergenerational, black families, black villages, unapologetically black and black women.

The discussion broke into small groups and discussed which one stood out to them the most. Each small group had their own enlightening conversations for about 20 minutes, then were brought back into the large group to share. Black mens mental health, the importance of Black womens roles and the inclusion of queer and trans people were some of the main topics that came up.

Finally, the event leaders introduced an I commit to activity ending in the words Black Lives Matter. The activity was a call to action on our part to take what we had learned and put it to practice.

Second-year Sociology major, Nick Andino, attended the event and committed to challenging biases.

I committed to challenging any biases I hold regarding all communities, specifically the Balck community. I am in a sociology class that teaches about how stereotypes form at a young age, so navigating anything I learned growing up and unlearning those biases is important, Andino said. Especially understanding I am POC, as well, land face many of the same issues so why would I perpetuate the stigmas myself?

Retraining thought processes and consciously being aware of seemingly invisible biases is a great place to start when combating the decades of mistreatment faced by the Black community. Continuing educationon the ingrained tenants of white supremacy as well as showing up, listening and believing Black experiences are seemingly small steps that, if done collectively, will eventually make a difference.

I hope the people who attended the event have a better understanding of Black Lives Matter beyond the sensationalized news media or the single story that they may have about what this movement really stands for, Day said. I also want people to realize that having conversations is just one part of the larger work that is needed to fight white supremacy in our world and that we all have to find ways to take action and commit to living out the Principles of Black Lives Matter.

OMA is hosting more events throughout Black History Month. On Feb. 20, they are collaborating with Campus Ministry to discuss Faith and Politics. They also have a Moral Monday event, Amplifying Our Experience: A Community Conversation on the Black Student Experience, on Feb. 24 at 6:30.

According to Day, it is a real conversation about the current state of the Black community at Seattle University. They hope African/Black/African American students, staff and faculty on campus will come to share their thoughts, express their hopes and help brainstorm ideas for new programming and initiatives.

More:
Black History Month Kicks off With Conversation About BLM - The Spectator

February 18, 2020 marks the day celebrated novelist Toni Morrison would have turned 89 if she were still among the living. Sadly, she departed from us last summer, and this Black History Month, different campuses are engaged in commemorative events for the Nobel Laureatefrom Oberlin Colleges day-long remembrance to University at Albanys special exhibit of Morrisons time in Albany.

I am teaching her most acclaimed Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel Beloved, an epic tale of slavery and black womens violent claims to freedom. The central eponymous figure, a ghost in the flesh, is how I now envision Morrison and her legacy.

There was a time when black feminist literary scholars struggled to extol the virtues of the writings of Living Black Women who were oftentimes viewed as inferior to the Dead White Men of the literary canon. Now that Morrisonand others who have gone before or after her, from Audre Lorde to Toni Cade Bambara to June Jordan to Michelle Cliff to Ntozake Shange to Paule Marshallhas joined that great pantheon of our beloved dead Black Women, I can only think of them as still living, as vibrant, haunting and fully embodied in the flesh as Beloved was for her formerly enslaved community.

I have taught three other Morrison novels throughout my teaching career. The first, Sula, was assigned to an English composition class when I was a doctoral studentand when I gave the mostly white students the creative assignment to fill in the gaps of the missing years when Sula had left her hometown, their stereotypical renderings of black female sexuality left me shaking my head, and realizing why Morrisons insistence on writing outside of a white gaze was so crucial to her imaginative writing. Sula was reduced to a Jezebel-type, but in the imaginations of both the author and her black female audience, we knew Sula was more complicated than that. Still, this first-time attempt at teaching college students was an eye-opener on how to navigate the white gaze in the teaching of texts that refused to center that gaze.

I have had better success teaching Morrisons novels in the womens studies classroom. I had assigned students in a feminist theory class the task of creating a visual response to the complex novel Paradise and have kept one of my favorite pieces from that assignmenta clay sculpture of the character Seneca healing from trauma by drawing lines on a cellar floor instead of cutting into her own flesh. The student who created this work was drawn to the character because she too had been in recovery for self-cutting. I have taught The Bluest Eye in a women and media class, in which students were challenged to collect mass media images and categorize them as either undermining the self-esteem of Pecola Breedlove, a dark-skinned black girl who longed for blue eyes, or potentially fostering self-love. These assignments fully engaged students as they personalized Morrisons stories and developed empathy with fictional characters, an aspect of Morrisons writing that is critical to her creative output in telling the stories of the most marginalized people and making us care about them. Long before #BlackLivesMatter, Morrison demonstrated the ethos of this philosophy through her writing.

To mark Morrisons birthday today, I invited a few black feminist scholars whose work I admire to share with me their own best practices, their favorite texts from Morrison and how they choose to teach it in the classroom.

The morning word broke that Morrison had passed, I received a text from Simone, a former undergraduate advisee, that read: I got the update and had to step away from my students. My heart is broken. Youre the only person I wanted to share this moment with.

Of the former students I spoke with that day, Simones text cemented one of the most important aspects of Morrisons legacy: how teaching Morrisons novels invite opportunities for mentoring.

As a feminist rhetorician, I see in Beloved a charge to translate its mandates about power and healing. Statements like Schoolteachers retort that definitions belong to the definers not the defined require that students see and question how language can shape or remake an individuals subjectivity. Landscapes like the clearing where Baby Suggs warns her listeners that in yonder they do not love your flesh charge students to understand how racial terror preserves a groups need for safe spaces and affirmation. Paul Ds reminder to Sethe that she is her own best thing, underscores Morrisons argument that Black women cannot neglect self-care in the wake of generational trauma.

To teach Beloved to young Black women like Simone is to commit to bearing witness as they discover how to see and manage their own reflection. It has meant reading multiple essay drafts as students position themselves around Morrisons characters, or extending office hours so you can read a draft aloud and affirm a students ideas. It will always mean rejecting surface readings and getting comfortable with rigor. It is to sit in vulnerability and embrace on-going work.

Fortunately, as Simones text indicates, it is never time wasted.

Before I decided to major in Comparative Literature, I was interested in being a biochemical engineer. The seduction of literary study was slow and surprising and, as with any romance, a rupture of all I thought I knew. When I teach, I confess that I am striving to educate the student I once was: an eager soul who does not yet know literature as uniquely powerful. For this reason, I love to teach Toni Morrisons Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.

Playing in the Dark results from her William E. Massey Sr. Lectures at Harvard and her course in American literature. Owing perhaps to the pedagogical beginnings from lecturing and discussion, the book is concise and patient in its instruction. Morrison argues persuasively that there exists an Africanist presence in American literature, one that shapes the fundament of Americanness itself. I tend to present Playing in the Dark in two ways: sometimes, I lecture on the ideas of the text as a frame for understanding how to read American literature. In advanced classes, I provide students with the book itself for more in depth study.

Given all of Morrisons oeuvre, why would I teach her theoretical text, especially if my goal is to reach someone who is quite possibly intellectually aloof? Well. It matters how we tell stories, to whom, what about and why we believe them. The narratives we tell repeatedly, the narratives we championthose shape our world-making both as restrictions and possibilities.

Morrisons book stokes students to consider that the stories within American letters are shaped by a set of (mis)conceptions regarding Blackness. The corollary is that current narrativewhether in fiction, news media, social media, or family loreis also operating by the same logic. To be honest, I am less concerned about whether they are convinced, since after reading Morrisons work, you cannot unsee her point. What matters more is that, having discovered Morrison, students have learned how to read so much more than books.

One of my favorite Morrison texts to teach is her short story Recitatif. Morrison is so well known for her novels and essays, but Recitatif is too often overlooked, despite the fact that it is a gem of story and works really well in the classroom.

Part of my affinity for Recitatif lies in the storys curious structure: its a tale of two women, one white and one Black, who meet in an orphanage and several times over the course of their lives. Although their relationship is tenuous it is a significant touchstone for both of their very different lives. And while we learn a lot about mid to late twentieth century America through the events of their livessuch as the rise of rock and roll, affirmative action and school bussingwhat is never really clear is which woman is white and which is Black.

Instead, Morrison peppers the story with racialized generalizationsabout food, hygiene, work ethic and the likethat could apply to either race. Morrisons purposeful obfuscation of race really invites readers to consider what we really know when we know someones race. This is particularly interesting in the classroom. I invite students to speak openly about racial stereotypes and how they often function as a type of social technology for us to make sense of the world. Often, students first reactions is to argue that one character has to be Black or, alternatively, whitebecause everyone knows that these people are really like this or that. The moment they uncover their own flawed logic is always a transformative one.

Reading Toni Morrisons work makes me feel brave. Teaching her work makes me feel strong. Similar emotions, to be surebut when you are a black female college professor teaching the race-based work of Morrison at a persistently white institution, the subtleties in the definition of the words do matter.

In 2017, two years after the Black Lives Matter movement began to spread across college campuses, I launched a Black Lives Matter Social Justice course to explore Americas racial history and the pivotal events that laid the foundation for this social movement. I chose with care the books and articles that I wanted to students to read, selecting both Keeanga Yamahtta-TaylorsFrom #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberationand Toni MorrisonsRace-ing, Justice,En-genderingPowerto anchor the course.

Yamahtta-Taylors book was an obvious choice, as it was, at that time, the only book that explored the history of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Morrisons book was more of a personal choicea desire to have my students wrestle with a complicated text, a collection of essays that brilliantly analyzed how Americas racial and gender identity had been shaped and distorted by racism and sexism.I chose her book because I wanted them to be challenged. I wanted them to be uncomfortable. I wanted them to learn how to take single revelatory moments in Americas history and place them in a broader historical context.

When I first read this collection of essays, it kept me up at night, forcing me to think about who I was and who I wanted to be in this world. I thought about the power of the written word, and how Morrison used it to take Americas racial temperature and then explain to us what we were doing wrong and how we can make it right.

It is not an easy book to teach, but it is a necessary one. I knew that Morrisons collection of essays would help my students to understand how Americas propensity and desire to bury racial and gender issues kept, and keeps, us from reckoning with them. Teaching this book as a black woman in an environment where I sometimes feel that I have to fight for my voice to be heard makes me feel brave; watching my students struggle with the text and ultimately make sense out of it, makes me feel strong.

In both of these moments, I feel joy and gratitude for Morrisons work and for her words.

More:
How Black Feminist Scholars Remember Toni Morrison in the Classroom - Ms. Magazine