Greetings and welcome to wok a F with me Danielle Moody. This week on my Patreon, I shared conversations that examined how we can reverse the damage that the last four years have done on our country and what can be done to create a better future for everybody. Today, I'm bringing you thoughtful taste from two of those interviews, looking at the structural inequities in the public school system and
the continued fight for lgbtqequality. As always, to hear these full discussions and get full one hour shows every single week, head over to patreon dot com, slash woke a F and subscribe For now. Take a listen to my talk with educational scholar Bree Pickhour, author of Reading, Writing and Racism, about how teaching race evasiveness to educators only deepens the
racial divide in our schools. What kind of pushback do you yet when you're telling people like, oh, we're doing this work, but we have to undo this work in our classrooms, Like it isn't just a you know, an exercise in like growth in our democracy, but it's like, how do we do that? I'm so glad to hear that that was your experience because it certainly isn't the
norm in teacher education programs. I think most teacher educators consider themselves specialists in the subject area that they're preparing people to teach. So I'm elementary education, my specialty of social study, so that's what I'm supposed to prepare people to do. Instead of thinking about that we are preparing a whole person that is going to be sitting in front of a whole room full of people, and that
what teachers teach is not just their subject matter. We teach our beliefs, and so if we're not giving our future teachers an opportunity to unpack what it is that they believe, particularly around race, then they're going to go in and teach mainstream, dominant racial ideology to their students.
And that's what the first part of my book is about, is the kind of racist curriculum that is going viral right now that is sort of seen as one off bad teachers or bad apples, but that really point to the permanence of racism and education because, like most of society, teachers have not necessarily done that deep work to understand they're the way that they think about race, the way
that they think about difference. You know, I've often believed, you know, we did such a grave disservice to everyone, not like not just teachers when we said, oh, you know, be blind to race, right, like, let's let's let's ignore it, let's tolerate it. Right. I grew up in a schooling system that was ninety six percent white. I was the only black kid most of the time in my classes,
and that wasn't acknowledged. Andy by the not acknowledging it, it was like it was a way to basically say, you need to assimilate, right like you are supposed to assimilate to be like everybody else, and that the uniqueness and the experiences that you're bringing into this place, we don't care. Yeah. Yeah, you know for teachers that sort of with pride have that I don't see a color.
I see blue, purple, yellow. You know, it's really based in a deficit notion of people of color when you hear white teachers say that, because what they're saying is if I acknowledge your race, then there's something negative that I'm doing. There's some reason why I'm not supposed to notice it. And if I'm not supposed to notice it, it must be because there's something wrong with it, and so there's this fear that really, what I think is
underneath that is a fear of being called racist. You know, that's the fear underneath a lot of white teachers, and so they espouse this race evasive kind of mentality. I've been moving away from color blind because I'm trying to move away, I know, and I actually when you, I know, and when you just said race a vase, I'm like, oh, that's a better term, right. Yeah, we've been working on that one in the field for a while. But I think that it's it's really what's underneath that is deficit
understandings about race. I had a student once who was like, well, it's not that I don't want to acknowledge their race, but I also, you know, I don't want to be making assumptions. It's like, what is the assumption you're afraid that you're making. What was the assumption that they were afraid that they were making. Well, it was actually very confusing when she actually started to talk about when she started to get into it, she had a lot of
confusion around race period. I Mean, there's so much right beneath the surface, you know, she started talking about how, well, if she gets a tan, then she's darker than some of her students, and so I think she was wondering
if that if she's still white. I mean it was Look, this stuff is unexamined and it's well and so if we're not giving them a place to talk about this, then the classroom is the place where they're experimenting, and we see the results of what that looks like when we see these, you know, pieces of curriculum that are floating around it. You know, as recent as three days ago, there was a curriculum out of Wisconsin around I think the words were something like something about an escaped slave yep,
and how would you how I could? I like, for the life of me breathe When these stories come out, I'm like, how how I know that each sit down and they plan out their week, they plan out their unit, and I'm thinking to myself, how how does something like
that happen? And that's where this book came out of, really was I was just I started collecting these examples like this because I have students, white students who don't necessarily believe that racism is still a problem, at least pre forty fifth president, I was like pre insurrection and you know, this sort of post racial. So I had started collecting these examples to show no, this actually is
a problem. And so after some point it got beyond the like shock value and the disturbing value of them, and I really started to question, you know, these aren't anomalies, These aren't going anywhere, and so what is their function? How are these examples actually functioning to a maintain white supremacy and be teach the next generation dominant ideology without them necessarily even knowing the history. How is it still teaching the mainstream ideas around race to the next generation.
How is it reinvesting in whiteness? And so that's really where the book started, was to analyze these examples to move past the like disturbing shock value, to see that these actually do have a purpose, and their purpose is to maintain racial hierarchies. My conversation with Bree resonated with me for days after we talked, so I definitely recommend taking a listen to the entire conversation. Just five dollars gets you access to a growing library of hundreds of
shows at patreon dot com. Slash woke f with five new episodes going up every single week. Another discussion I found residence in was with my friend Kiera Johnson, who is the new executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force. We'll jump into this conversation with me asking Kiera direction she is guiding the task force in after four disastrous years of anti LGBTQ policy from the previous heinous administration. I'm trying to move away from Trump, but it seems
like I'm never going to be able to. So, you know, what are some of the things entering into this position now that you've had to deal with, you know, over the last four years. The last four years of the Trump administration have been traumatic for so many marginalized communities, but particularly for the LGBTQ community. We were the target from the beginning, right it was like inauguration in twenty seventeen and then boom, right like, we're going to let
you know exactly what we think about you. We're going to remove you from the website right from the White House. We're going to you know, rescind protections for LGBTQ youth in school. We're going to ban transgender people from the military. We're going to take away, you know, any right right that had been one we're rolling back. So what are some of the things, like the big tackle things that came out of the last four years that you're focused
on now in terms of repair. Yeah, I mean, and you named a you know a lot of those things, and I think the overarching impact of that is fear right depression a whole. You know, I think about people like young people who were fourteen years old when he came into office, that were perpetually hearing messages that you're not human, you don't deserve civil rights, It is okay to bully you because you are, you know, you are undeserving right of compassion and joy and particularly to participate
in community and society. And so I mean, honestly, one of the big things you're tackling is hopelessness rightful. I mean, it was literally sanctioned by the state where you could harass and jail trans black women, right like. It was just it was like the new norm of the land. And so you know, those are the things we're trying to undo while also you know, working to be proactive in our campaigns and actions. So you know, it was really heartening, right to see the repeal of the ban
of transgender folks in the militancy. You know, one of the questions that has been sitting with me is does that also mean that people who were discharged do they now have access to their pensions? It's like the trickle down effect, right, they don't necessarily need or want to
be reinstated, but do they have access to VA benefits now? Right? So, you know, I think we're still trying to figure those things out, and I do want to see and I'm hopeful that the Biden administration is going to take some real concrete action to eradicate this violence against trans women. I mean, it's a real epidemic in our country right now.
And you know, every year, Kia, the numbers are worse than the year before, and you know, it is so the word disheartening doesn't even begin to describe what is happening. Right That to leave your house as a black trans woman is in fact taking your life in your own hands, you know, Like we have lost so many stalwarts of our community as well as those that just are just trying to live their life, like just trying to exist.
And I don't think that we talk about that enough. Yeah, And so I think that that should be of top of mind for the new administration. Well, and it's just a restoration of our humanity, right, like a simple is. It's as simple as that. And one of the things you know, the movement and the task words in particulars is working to further right now, is ensuring federal protections
right for lgb TQ people. I think a lot of folks you know around the country don't know that discrimination is still legal based on sexual orientation and gender identity. People can be kicked out of housing, right like people can be denied healthcare. They can still have their children taken away, turned away from a church when that's your place of worship, and it's a matter of life and death for a lot of people, right. And it's time. It's time that we own and acknowledge LGBTQ people as
full humans deserving of civil and human rights. And it's exciting because I think this is the first time in recent history where it feels like that might actually be possible, right and definitely in the last four and a half years, it's the first time I think hope outweighs the fear right that people have about what's possible We've got a lot of work ahead of us, folks, and it's intelligent, vocal leaders like Bree and Kiera who will guide us
through this turbulent moment in our nation's history. We need to stand strong together and fight for what's right and hopefully, hopefully we will not just get back to normal, but create a better society for ourselves and each other. Thank you so much for checking out Woke AF once again. You can hear five new hour long episodes every single week for just five dollars a month, with extra video and written content from yours truly at Patreon dot com
slash woke AF. We're building a network, a woke a f nation, and I would love love for you to join us and tell all of your friends. The bigger our Woke family gets, the more people we have on our side in this fight. As I say every week, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.