Opinion
Equity & Diversity Opinion

How to Make Anti-Racism More Than a Performance

Whether white people are ready or not, policies have to change
By Bettina L. Love — January 12, 2021 5 min read
Illustration shown.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Since the world watched Minneapolis resident George Floyd die at the hands of a police officer named Derek Chauvin and learned police in Louisville, Ky., shot and killed Breonna Taylor in her own home, an outpouring of attention has focused on anti-racism and equity. Countless anti-racism book clubs were formed; books addressing America’s racism shot up The New York Times bestsellers list; big-name corporations with feeble track records on diversity and inclusion made public statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. And the field of education saw a resurgence of calls for anti-racism and equity.

School districts and colleges around the country formed task forces, committees, and working groups to address what they already know: that despite good intentions for racial justice, the work is at best elusive without substantive commitment from the institutions and is dead on arrival without significant structural changes that address systemic racism.

Much of what goes by the name “equity work” is a collective hoping for racial justice. This hope too often hinges on the idea that before we change policies, we must change hearts and minds. So equity work becomes trying to help white people learn to be less racist. The work is dependent on the level of commitment of white people—especially white people in power—and their awareness of racism.

In education, too often change happens when white people are ready for change, and until then, directors of diversity, equity, and inclusion wait, teach, and create reports that tell the story of racism at the very place they work. Under these conditions, the promise of equity is ultimately empty.

We have to actually trust the people we say we want to empower to make structural changes.

Real equity work is attempting to undo and heal generations of violence, trauma, and racial and economic inequities. In the current environment, it relies heavily on the ingenuity and brilliance of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people to fix problems people of color did not create. Equity workers of color are the backbone of equity work.

We are asked to chair diversity committees with little to no compensation, as if we should be honored to help fix the problems of racism. Our voices are now valuable but only in conversations surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are asked to speak at conferences and gatherings because organizers see diversity as a conference theme—not necessarily an institutional value. As feminist writer and scholar Sara Ahmed reminds us, “The diversity worker has a job precisely because diversity and equality are not daily practice.” Even in the midst of all this talk focused on equity work, we must remember Ahmed’s words.

In his brilliant speech “A Talk to Teachers,” the American essayist and novelist James Baldwin told educators that we are trying to undo “many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society.” This type of truth telling is needed in equity work because yet another task force or another report is hollow without taking direct aim at the generational harm done by whiteness.

Anti-racism work is all too often done as a performance—to be popular and look “woke.” It can be painstakingly ornamental. It needs instead to embed community efforts, organizers, and the actual people who live with America’s oppression. It needs to make structural changes that dismantle centuries-old, racist institutions from the ground up in order to rebuild with a commitment to community, safety (without police), justice, diversity, and actual equity. For equity work to work, it must be handed to the community. We have to actually trust the people we say we want to empower to make structural changes, not just tinker at the edges of injustice.

The contemporary abolitionist movement I am part of does not focus on the edges; abolitionists want to create communities free of systemic oppression. We are watching reform that will not address racism, as school districts widely are implementing anti-racist curriculum with no structural changes to how racism functions in their districts. According to a 2019 report by EdBuild, a nonprofit organization that focused on school funding issues, predominately white school districts get $23 billion a year more in state and local funding than predominately nonwhite districts despite serving the same number of students. What good is anti-racist curriculum that does not address racism right under its nose?

See Also

BRIC ARCHIVE
Design: Vanessa Solis/Education Week, Images: Getty
Equity & Diversity Opinion It's Time to Move Beyond Buzzwords and Radically Re-imagine Schools
Jamilah Pitts, June 16, 2020
5 min read

Abolitionist and anthropologist Savannah Shange rightly tells us we have to work “within, against, and beyond” for collective liberation. In the current push for anti-racism and equity, some long-fought battles in education have recently been won. The Boston school committee voted unanimously to suspend admissions tests to the city’s three most prestigious schools in favor of an analysis of grades and test scores along with affording priority to students who live in the city’s poorest ZIP codes. The San Diego school district unanimously approved a grading system that will assess students on mastery of a subject, a change intended to make grades more equitable. Additionally, ethnic-studies courses will be a graduation requirement in the district. After backlash against these structural changes and the move toward anti-racism, the district doubled down on its commitment to equity, a bold move that takes leadership and community support. These systemwide wins are due to years of parents, community members, teachers, and equity workers fighting for and demanding justice.

While the wins are important, we cannot stop here. There will inevitably be white pushback and resistance that will undoubtedly find a way to continue to allow white parents to hoard resources so they are not available to Black and Brown students. (See, for example, Amanda E. Lewis and John B. Diamond’s book Despite the Best Intentions.) This cycle is why we must fight for equity and move toward abolition of all oppressions because reform is not liberation. Nonetheless, the shifting of ground by equity leaders and communities does give me hope.

Related Tags:

A version of this essay appeared in the Jan. 13, 2021 edition of Education Week as “Empty Promises of Equity.”
A version of this article appeared in the January 13, 2021 edition of Education Week as Empty Promises of Equity

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
College & Workforce Readiness Webinar
From Classrooms to Careers: How Schools and Districts Can Prepare Students for a Changing Workforce
Real careers start in school. Learn how Alton High built student-centered, job-aligned pathways.
Content provided by TNTP
Student Well-Being Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Drive K-12 Academic Performance and Wellbeing
Wish you could handle emotions better? Learn practical strategies with researcher Marc Brackett and host Peter DeWitt.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Equity & Diversity Trump Sues California Over Law Letting Trans Athletes Compete in K-12 Sports
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit after California on Wednesday refused to repeal its state law.
Lia Russell, The Sacramento Bee
5 min read
AB Hernandez, a transgender student at Jurupa Valley High School, competes in the high jump at the California high school track-and-field championships in Clovis, Calif., May 31, 2025.
AB Hernandez, a transgender student at Jurupa Valley High School, competes in the high jump at the California high school track-and-field championships in Clovis, Calif., May 31, 2025.
Jae C. Hong/AP
Equity & Diversity Opinion How to Keep Supporting Students in a Hostile Political Environment
Protecting kids outside of school may be beyond educators' means, but here are ways we can help them.
10 min read
Conceptual illustration of classroom conversations and fragmented education elements coming together to form a cohesive picture of a book of classroom knowledge.
Sonia Pulido for Education Week
Equity & Diversity Opinion It’s Been 5 Years Since the George Floyd Protests. Where Are We Now?
Promises of equality and justice languished and then under Trump, were declared void.
Tyrone C. Howard
5 min read
Demonstrators kneel in a moment of silence outside the Long Beach Police Department on May 31, 2020, in Long Beach, Cali., during a protest over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer earlier that month.
Demonstrators kneel in a moment of silence outside the Long Beach Police Department on May 31, 2020, in Long Beach, Cali., during a protest over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer earlier that month.
Ashley Landis/AP
Equity & Diversity Opinion Let DEI Practices Die. Replace Them With Something Better
Individual student agency enabled by strong families and schools can lead students to success, writes a researcher.
Robert Maranto
5 min read
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon meets with students during a visit to Vertex Partnership Academies in New York on March 7, 2025.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon meets with students during a visit to Vertex Partnership Academies in New York City on March 7, 2025.
Courtesy of U.S. Department of Education