I Am Not Your Negro

 To be Black in America is to be tired. 

To be Black in America is infuriating.

To be Black in America is to feel out of place.

“I Am Not Your Negro,” evoked so much disappointment and anger within me, that at a certain point, I felt that I would not be able to watch until the end. The film details some of the harsh realities of simply existing while Black in America, proving that even after decades, there has not been much progress made toward racial equity. I mean, just imagine what it feels like to be perpetually reprimanded, chastised, and targeted based on the color of your skin? To say it’s exhausting would be an understatement. 

While watching the faces of Tamir Rice, Aiyana Stanley Jones, Trayvon Martin, and other young victims of police brutality fade into one another on the screen, it dawned on me that as a black woman, I can never truly experience peace. Every time I turn on the tv, there’s another black person being killed unjustly by officers that are in place to “protect us.” George Floyd may have been just another black man to the world, but George Floyd could have been my brother, my dad, or my uncle. Breonna Taylor might have been just another hashtag to most, but Breonna Taylor could have been my niece, my best friend, or even...me. No matter how many protests people of color organize, it seems that racial equity is virtually unattainable in this country. When we march in the streets begging for our humanity to be recognized, we are told that racism no longer exists. However, James Baldwin put it best when he said “History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us.” Still, we are not heard. When we burn and break things, we are told that that isn’t the right way to protest. Since when did the oppressor have the authority to tell the oppressed the “right” way to protest oppression?

White people literally followed, harassed, and spat on 15-year-old Dorothy Counts on her way to school because they were against integration. If the thought of being next to a black person in public spaces can make a race of people that angry, just imagine how we feel after centuries of being marginalized and abused. Keep in mind that Dorothy Counts is only 78 years old today. Racism is not in the past, it’s in our faces, it's in our systems, and we still have a lot of work to do.

As ELA teachers, we need to do our part to help eradicate the damage that has been done by racist systems; Remember, teaching history isn’t the sole responsibility of the history teacher. There are so many novels and texts we can incorporate into our curriculum that can educate our students about race, privilege, prejudice, and bias in our country. I remember reading the novel, Mississippi Trial, which recounts the lynching of Emmett Till in my 9th grade English class. The story sparked so much discussion amongst my classmates and me, we could not stop talking about the novel even after we moved on to the next unit. There are people my age and older who have no idea who Emmett Till is, which is why our jobs as English teachers are so important. We have the necessary tools to build a more tolerant and equitable world for generations to come. The more we provide our students access to texts that teach them about the black experience throughout history, the less likely it will be for history to repeat itself. Knowledge is power.