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A review by skrajewski
Everything I Learned About Racism I Learned in School by Tiffany Jewell
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
After reading books like The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, We Want to Do More Than Survive, Caste, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, and Pushout: the Criminalization of Black Girls in School, which discuss the facts and the history of American schools, this book is something a bit different. Author Tiffany Jewell mainly focuses on the personal stories (though Jewell does weave the facts and history into some of her sections). Many authors of the global majority come together to share their school experiences, and it’s not pretty. I was upset while reading this book. The experiences of what education was like for Jewell and others were often demeaning and just wrong. Kids were knocked down instead of lifted up. No child should be made to feel worse about themselves while (supposedly) getting an education. All children, no matter their race, should be learning about more than just white, male, Eurocentric history. Read their stories about what they went through. Compare their experiences to your own. You’ll see the problem is not just with certain individuals, but the whole American school system, which needs a complete overhaul.
As Jewell says, “the culture of White domination is inescapable…and when we let it be our normal, it divides us from other people and communities” (153-154). When we are taught histories, we learn about topics like enslavement, not the stories of the people who were enslaved and what they actually went through. This harms us all, White people included, and when we know how it harms us, we can actively resist. This book shares the stories missing from our textbooks. Readers may feel uncomfortable by some of them, but “upholding the belief that only some have a right to comfort, that people in power have the right to emotional, physical, and psychological comfort while others do not, is another characteristic of the culture of White dominance” (157). This is how many children of the global majority feel in classrooms, and they are often silenced when issues are raised that veer from the traditional.
I read an ARC of this book, but I’ve already pre-ordered a physical copy. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, and it’s one I’ll go back to as I think about, and revise, my teaching philosophy and methods. It’s a necessary read for everyone.
As Jewell says, “the culture of White domination is inescapable…and when we let it be our normal, it divides us from other people and communities” (153-154). When we are taught histories, we learn about topics like enslavement, not the stories of the people who were enslaved and what they actually went through. This harms us all, White people included, and when we know how it harms us, we can actively resist. This book shares the stories missing from our textbooks. Readers may feel uncomfortable by some of them, but “upholding the belief that only some have a right to comfort, that people in power have the right to emotional, physical, and psychological comfort while others do not, is another characteristic of the culture of White dominance” (157). This is how many children of the global majority feel in classrooms, and they are often silenced when issues are raised that veer from the traditional.
I read an ARC of this book, but I’ve already pre-ordered a physical copy. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, and it’s one I’ll go back to as I think about, and revise, my teaching philosophy and methods. It’s a necessary read for everyone.