For the fifth year of #31DaysIBPOC, I was going to write about how I’d made the decision to homeschool/unschool my Black boy and how that decision was the best one I have ever made. I should have made it sooner. We are slowly discovering what freedom and learning look like and how it happens everywhere, all the time. And about how oppressive systems can nearly destroy Black boys if someone doesn’t step in to affirm, liberate, and advocate for them.
Now, I’m living in the horror of the after and I really don’t want to write about anything other than this:
We loved him so much. He was our everything. We are devastated….
So, between writing his obituary, his eulogy, and the language for his mother and siblings’ (my sister and my niece and nephew) Go Fund Me, I have no more words.
Thank you to everyone who has reached out, has spoken this beautiful, beloved child’s name, has hugged their own children.
Thank you, especially, to my dear friend Tricia, who has carried on the administration of 31 Days while I have barely been able to get up most days. Thank you to our writers and supporters of this site. If you’re looking for PD providers, please consider all the 31 Days folks! They are experts! The essays have been moving and important. I appreciate the love of the community that buoys us all, and has buoyed me, especially, during this time.
This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read yesterday’s blog post by Dr. Tracey Flores(and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog series).
One of my favorite emails to receive arrives on Sundays. Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Diaries prompts. She began these tiny delights early in the pandemic. I signed up randomly then, not quite sure what to expect, but also relishing the fact that it would be something I could look forward to that would temporarily transport me from the dread and uncertainty I felt as everything changed so rapidly.
Fast forward three years, and while life continues to be uncertain, I still receive these Sunday joys. I don’t always write to them, but I read Suleika’s invitations, which have documented much of her life throughout this time, and welcome them for the potential that beckons, simply by slowing down to read them.
It is in that spirit that I write this post to kick off our fourth year of #31DaysIBPOC. Wow it’s been a YEAR, hasn’t it? I’ve never quite felt so weary, so disappointed, so…as I have over this past year. I’ve often found myself coming down much more on the side of thanking clarity for the gifts it reveals about people and systems, and also rage that this is how we can treat each other, particularly our Black children. I’ve felt so vulnerable as I’ve witnessed and experienced how, again and again, schools can give up on Black children and Black families, how “community” doesn’t necessarily mean all children, and how “normal” has meant a nearly soul-crushing march back to maintaining systems that have never even thought of Black folks as human.
Thus, when this week’s Isolation Diaries prompt, #192, arrived last Sunday, it was a perfect meshing of National Poetry month and a reminder that even in a storm, there is good. That good can be so small, though, that it can be overlooked, I realize.
My post this year is just that: a response to Nikita Gill’s poem “Reasons to Live Through the Apocalypse”. The prompt was: “What are your reasons to live through the apocalypse? Record them in a prose poem or a long, lovely list.”
As you read this month’s entries, there are plenty of moments to reflect, pause, and think about what good remains (however you choose to define it, and not in some toxic positivity way), and how each #31DaysIBPOC writer is helping us to think about our current moment. And, too, if one of these writers has a book, or a fund they support, or something else, please support them, as these gifts they are giving us all require a tremendous amount of energy and vulnerability. Happy May. Thank you for joining us again.
Reasons.
The weeks when yellow forsythia bloom. Calling an old friend who says, “I’ll always pick up the phone when you call,” and knowing he means it. Losing my balance and my 7 yo reaching out with “Mommy, let’s hold each other’s hands.” Spring peas that are beginning to grow up a trellis. Stopping by to play dodgeball with second graders. My partner’s insistence on dancing together in the kitchen as well as her constant reminders and quoting of the Nap Ministry that rest is our right and I need to do more of it. Surprise deliveries of Jeni’s Ice Cream from my bestie. Thoughtful packages that arrive in the mail containing books of poetry, excerpts that are invitations to a book I might like, and a Ketanji Brown Jackson postcard reminding me to persevere. That moment when, on college trips with high school juniors, we crest the hill of a gorgeous campus on a day when the sun is shining just right and they can see themselves thriving there. Anyone who purchased, shared, reviewed, or recommended Literacy Is Liberation. Fiction, especially ones listed here. Unschooling. Black children playing outside together. Listening to their laughter. Dreaming of summer on the Vineyard. Writing and sending a card to someone and telling them that I bought it “because it reminded me of you” (and actually having the stamps to do it!). Deep River sour cream and onion potato chips. Bearing witness to a new teacher talk through their career plans and desire to teach Black children in the city. My mom’s recounting of the fun she had going to lunch with her two sisters.Melissa on the Real World: New Orleans Homecoming. Finding a candle with a nice scent at T.J. Maxx that won’t give me a migraine. The monstera plant my partner gifted me that sits beside my desk and brings more comfort and joy than I ever expected (does this make me a #plantmom?!). When my nephew keeps one of my audio messages. Podcasts, particularly Didn’t I Just Feed You, Still Processing, Truth Be Told and The Stacks. Reading all three of Jacqueline Woodson’s most recent picture books (SO GOOD). Group texts that are simultaneous sites of encouragement, celebration, mourning, love. Red Birkenstocks, especially when my sun takes them and wears them himself. Voice notes. The way my mom asks, “He diiiiid?” when I tell her a story. A wise friend’s advice about how to accept compliments, especially as a woman writer: “Thank you. It’s true.” Carolina Wrens that visit the window bird feeder long after the other birds have departed. Brunch. Sitting on a bench reading beside my sun who is also reading. Our morning walks to his school. Donut holes. Pho. Happy stories of Black women winning…
This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature the voices of Indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars.
Please CLICK HERE to read this year’s and previous years’ contributions.
I loved concluding the series this year. It allowed me the time to go back, reread and savor the gift that #31DaysIBPOC is. I was able to be moved over and over again at the range of experiences, the brilliance of the writing, and the complexities of living.
Thank you to everyone who wrote, to everyone who read and shared these essays, and who will continue to revisit them in the year to come. To our growing family of supporters: Pleasesupport these professionals! For the ones who have Venmos or causes they support, donate in solidarity or to say thank you. If you are looking for people to lead your professional development, please, hire these folx and all the folx who have written for the series over these three years. And, of course, please pay them what they are worth.
I pulled lines from all this month’s posts to compose this found poem of gratitude for all of our writers and to close out May.
The highest gratitude goes to my dear friend, Tricia Ebarvia, who is the very best collaborator I could have wished for and who is proof that I am abundantly blessed with so many good people in my life. Be well, everyone.
Assembling a poem, being moved by the voices…
Found Poem for #31DaysIBPOC
Because I come from a lineage of strong-willed, determined, fierce women I foolishly thought I was invincible.1 I didn’t talk about this Black soul scar with my parents until I was 43 years old.2 Imagine being afraid to sleep for days, months, years, and lifetimes and you will still only understand a fraction of my rage, my exhaustion, my fear, my loneliness, and my deep, deep sorrow.3
Today, I am ready to tell the story of my darkest times, to reckon with these times publicly because in the light, there is healing.4
I knew the power of stories, that’s why I began telling stories in the first place.6 I shudder to think of all the cultural pride I sacrificed at the altar of attempted assimilation over the years.7 What is “excellent” about lacking the courage to face our history, learn from it, and forge a path forward that is not built on the backs and blood of Black people, the theft of indigenous land, and the criminalization and imprisonment of those we fear?8 A Palestinian mama has no control over her fate or the fate of her children. Her daughter is a Palestinian.9
If we truly believe that we want schools to be a safe place for students, why aren’t they?10
Despite my own experiences and intimate knowledge of the variations of being Black, here I was limiting my view of Black students and what they would need and where they would be. 11 I will not traumatize you based on YOUR cultural identity and connections to family, place, land, tradition, and language; rather it will be a celebration ALL year.12 I want more parents to ask questions. I want educators to welcome their questions, and when necessary, I want us to change what we’re doing in the classrooms or spaces where we teach.13
And all that I had lost, willfully lost…was it too late to reclaim? 14
But she has shown me, even still in these struggles, we resist, we love and we find joy.15
Sitting next to all that is too much are also other things, things like truth, community, kinship, and love.16
The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is that as an adult, I don’t listen to other voices to validate my own experiences anymore.17 I center Black joy and Black folx living they regular degular lives in my instruction.18 We need to resist through joy. We feel it deeply. We feel it urgently.19 Our power resides in our collective strength. We are what we are seeking.20
As a Black person I couldn’t believe that escaping for freedom was even debatable.21 They may fire their cannons or launch their missiles, but I stand firm with my flag erected, for I will fight no more. Representation is important but that is only a step toward liberation.22
I am getting better at reminding myself that those who harbor hatred need to work on themselves…and get out of my/our way.23 You are a divine being worthy of rest.24 You, showing up exactly as you are, isn’t just good enough–it’s inspiring, and brave, and powerful.25 We can be the love we need and the joy this world tries to take away.26 We can come to realize how small our world is and how big the rest of the world is but, even with our wings clipped, we can visit beyond the margins of our cage.27
This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read yesterday’s blog post by shea martin(and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog series).
In our house, we use that phrase as a playful, cautionary reminder to be thoughtful about making decisions and to not be fooled.
When school was called off seven weeks ago and I became my child’s full-time teacher, I almost did, indeed, fall for the okey doke.
How could I help my sun master–wait; let’s be real here–maintain the skills he’d been working on if he wasn’t in school daily? It didn’t matter that I’ve been teaching young people and adults for nearly two decades. An almost-six-year old is not a high schooler, no matter how much their dispositions are similar on a given day.
I immediately went down the online rabbit hole of fancy schedules, programs, and apps that had no diverse books or materials, and what seemed an endless stream of worksheets for printing (and my annoyance for the prevalence for these with a lack of regard for those of us without a printer).
Around the same time, I started leaning really hard into rituals and routines that have always anchored me, especially during chaos and transition (cue current moment). Those include running, journaling, and reading. And by reading, I mean fully immersive reading, where I lose track of days, what my kid is doing, everything.
I’d picked upA Black Women’s History of the United States (ABWH) by Drs. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross at Boston’s fantastic Black-owned Frugal Bookstore, with every intention to read it some day. But once #pandemicreading ensued, I couldn’t quite find a book that spoke to me. Young adult authors, contemporary fiction– books that usually were the perfect balm–weren’t working. When I remembered the copy of ABWH in my car (my greatest fear is to be stuck somewhere without a book, so I have them everywhere), I went looking for it, thinking (hoping?) that it might be an answer to getting my reading life back on track.
I could not put it down, and the voices of all these Black women ancestors shook me, telling me: look, you got this!
This being educating my child and building on the traditions that Black women (and in this case, Black women educators) have been doing for Black children, families, and communities since we were in this country.
Ms. Nannie Helen Burroughs Photo from Library of Congress
An educator and activist, Burroughs’ dedication to Black women and girls, and her belief in the brilliance of them, led to her founding of the National Training School for Women and Girls among many other accomplishments. The writers summarize: “…she embraced both industrial and classical education, and expressed early Black Nationalist and feminist ideologies. She encouraged race pride by celebrating dark skin, and she remained a champion of Black women’s voting and labor rights” (p. 2). I also kept circling back to Burroughs’ motto for her school: “We specialize in the wholly impossible.”
Throughout the book, I read and learned about SO MANY Black women who have done (and do) just that: specialize in the wholly impossible by dedicating their lives and work to collective struggles for Black freedom for Black women, girls and femmes, especially during times when so many others denigrated and dismissed us.
ABWH reminds me that the ancestors are always watching and helping if I just listen. Black women have been here educating children and adults for generations. With schools that have systematically attempted to destroy us, we’ve made our own classrooms in places within our communities, written or revised texts to make them affirming and empowering for Black children, and been the teachers, time and time again. While adversity that included racism and sexism was consistent, our responses to it have always been to creatively organize ways to help as many folks as we can, with whatever tools we have. We have consistently specialized in manifesting the wholly impossible, and we’ve always been creative and resourceful.
Who am I to forget that or to not do the same?
Because there is a foundation of Black women educators who have assured the flourishing of Black children (and many others), certainly I can teach my sun and in the process heap tons of love on him. Surely I can understand that schools can be damaging, traumatic places for Black children and decolonize my own thinking that what we do at home isn’t as good as–if not better–than what schools might be trying to teach. Absolutely I could reach out to all the wonderful early childhood educators I know (his teacher included), and figure out how to design instruction that resonates with his deep desire to know, ask questions, and be immersed in learning.
I would merely be doing what Black women educators have been doing all along, and what Black women educators have been doing for me all along.
And along the way, we could read books written by Black authors that reflect my child (like The Brownies Book); books by other authors of color that offer mirrors into experiences he needs and wants to know more about (like We Are The Water Protectors); and have a few moments of transformation. We also could be aspirational and think about the skills, dispositions, and experiences I want him to have and then think about how to realize them beyond the nearly oppressive chatter of “gaps” and “deficits” and “learning loss” that threatens to drown out any other more important talk about normalizing high achievement for all children in the district.
I’m learning much about early literacy as my sun learns how to read, and I’m also remembering how my own grandmother taught me. She collected scraps of wood from my uncle’s shop. As a carpenter, there were always remainders amidst the piles of sawdust. She had him cut them into smaller sizes, and on those she wrote letters and words. As I gained proficiency, she’d add more combinations of words, requesting more scraps as she needed. She, too, specialized in the wholly impossible. The everyday, wholly impossible. She didn’t see it that way, though; rather she’d simply say “I haven’t done anymore than I should have done.”
Let me remember the foundations on which I stand.
Let me not fall for the okey doke.
Instead, I find myself feeling relief and gratitude for being able to learn about the phenomenal history of Black women who have actively worked to make this world better. I am working hard to remember their names and to make sure my sun learns their names and their accomplishments, too. Daily, I inventory more “funds of knowledge” (Amanti, Neff, Gonzalez, 1992) our family has (and that we’ve always had), and think about how we can use those to connect to other things we desire and need to learn.
I hope to make my world a bit smaller by figuring out how to work together with other Black educators who have the ability to teach through their screens and make it feel like their children never left. I’d like to be able to think about how they can share their brilliance to even more families who are working hard to help their children thrive.
Together, we channel the spirit of Nannie Burroughs–and the millions of Black women who have and will continue to be here–as we continue specializing in the wholly impossible: yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Dr. Kimberly N. Parker 