Afterword: How I Use #BlackLivesMatter as an Entry Point and a Disruption Tool

White Supremacy as a Pedagogical Tool

I am a southern black woman from Albany, Georgia. My grandparents are also from Georgia and came of age in the Jim Crow South. My grandmother and grandfather were educators in elementary and middle school, respectively. They stressed the significance of academic achievement and progress as a tool of black progress. Raised as a member of the “southern grandparent generation,” I was never unaware of white supremacy and racial prejudice. I knew of archetypal white supremacy like the Ku Klux Klan, but rarely imagined white supremacy as a burly man in a white sheet and pointy cap. My run-ins with whiteness were more subtle: a white person’s random glare on the street or being stopped by a smiling white woman to touch my hair and asking my grandmother how I was “so clean and neat.” However, the majority of my learning about how to maneuver around white people was experienced in the classroom. One particularly striking memory was in eighth grade. The director of the gifted and talented program refused to test me for admittance because “it was too late in the year and would not be beneficial.” My grandmother protested and I was given a slack test of pronouncing difficult words. After four or five words, the test was over. I passed immediately and was placed in the program for the following year.

White supremacy in my house was a pedagogical tool used to help me develop a consciousness of who I was as a young black southerner. My grandfather frequently reminded me “what whites don’t want blacks to know is put into books.” Black folks’ historical and social-economic investment in literacy notwithstanding, I simply loved to read and be nosey about other black folks’ lives. Reading about black folks was important for me because they were often left out of daily learning in my classroom unless it was Black History Month. “Black history is every day,” my grandmother said. My initial investment in #BlackLivesMatter was locating and falling in love with stories about black folks who refused to be pushed to the side. Mildred Taylor, Eleanora Tate, Virginia Hamilton, and short stories illustrated by Jerry Pinkney lined my bookshelves. Documentaries like Eyes on the Prize were staples in our home. Reading about black folks, especially little black girls with pigtails like me, helped establish footing that black girls were special and possessed magic outside of the understanding of white folks.

Toward a #BlackLivesMatter Pedagogy

As a college professor at a predominantly white institution, I rely heavily on the “teaching moments” of my youth to curate my pedagogical approaches. My classroom is constructed as a reclamation space for my students to engage with black literature and culture. Students are challenged to acknowledge marginalized experiences that are often outside of their own comfort zone. I recognize that I am often a source of discomfort for students because I am a woman of color at the front of the classroom—a feat many of my students have not seen previous to my class—who encourages them to confront their own prejudices and privileges. In my syllabus, I typically offer students the following disclaimer:

…the tone and language used in this course will not be sugarcoated. I will intentionally provoke you in order to stimulate conversation and challenge your comfort zones. This is by no means an attack on your personal beliefs or character. Rather, my intentions are to challenge you think about issues and concerns from various viewpoints outside of your own perspectives.

This disclaimer warns them of my stance to push them outside of their comfort zones and crack, if not break, their rose-colored glasses that we have overcome all racial and social injustices. Students learn the first week that relying on the stance of being colorblind will not help them complete the course or avoid interrogation. This is especially critical when introducing the concept of #BlackLivesMatter during a time when Americans would prefer to look the other way and push conversations of race to the...