Category: Critical Race Theory

What’s your story?

Looking at an event from one perspective is dangerous and can reinforce systemic issues associated with the -isms of our society.

The Danger of a Single Story given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (https://youtu.be/D9Ihs241zeg)

I’ve been in drag three times in my life. The first time was when I was three and my sister put a dress on me. The second time was in high school, and we read a short story titled, “Travel is Broadening”, in which four characters told the same story from their perspectives. Two characters were men, and two characters were women. We had to act the story out on stage. The group I was in was all boys, so two of us had to dress in character as women. The point here is not that I was in drag for this second occurrence, but that of the story of my character was different from the other three. Looking at an event from one perspective is dangerous and can reinforce systemic issues associated with the -isms of our society.

And the third time I was in drag … well that’s another story…

Critical Race Theory

What is critical race theory (CRT) and is it an appropriate lens to be used in public school education?

Books on Critical Race Theory

I am an antiracist activist and believe that the public school system needs to decolonize the curricula. Decolonizing the curricula allows for the voices of the traditionally marginalized and minoritized communities to be heard, learned from, and punctuate how a white centered lens has been used in education as the norm of instruction. Based upon my limited knowledge, critical race theory (CRT) seems to consider not only the white-centric lens, but the lenses of African Americans, LatinX, Natives, Asian, and other minoritized and marginalized communities. Recent protestors outside city hall in the City of Virginia Beach, where I live, argued that CRT is a ploy to give preferential treatment to students of color in the school system at the expense of white students.

I seriously question this assumption and believe it is a lack of understanding and misinterpretation of CRT. Because of this, and because I plan on running for the Virginia Beach City School Board as an at-large representative, I need to better understand CRT. The challenge will be reading and writing from an objective point-of-view because I am actively engaged in breaking down the barriers of systemic racism. However, I am an academic scholar, credentialed in education and education research, so I will do my best to apply my academic lens and included the data along with the discussions.

I will be looking at the overarching question of what is critical race theory (CRT) and is it an appropriate lens to be used in public school education? Along with that, I will investigate why are people protesting or supporting CRT, and what political efforts are being done to oppose or support CRT?