We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

by Bettina L. Love

Abolitionist teaching is the practice of working in solidarity with communities of color while drawing on the imagination, creativity, refusal, (re)membering, visionary thinking, healing, rebellious spirit, boldness, determination, and subversiveness of abolitionists to eradicate injustice in and outside of schools.

In education, it is not well publicized that Black girls are suspended at a rate that is six times higher than that of their White female peers. In 2012, in New York City, fifty-three Black girls were expelled compared with zero White girls.5 In every state in America, Black girls are more than twice as likely to be suspended from school as White girls.6 And darker-skinned Black girls are suspended at a rate that is three times greater than those with lighter skin.7 Research shows that these higher rates of suspension are not because of misbehavior (a determination that is incredibly subjective, especially when race is a part of the equation) but because of racist and sexist stereotypes that teachers and school officials hold against Black girls. For too many, suspension is a birthright of being young and Black.

Black girls stats

When teachers shy away from intersectionality, they shy away from ever fully knowing their students’ humanity and the richness of their identities. Mattering cannot happen if identities are isolated and students cannot be their full selves.

Mattering and teachers

To want freedom is to welcome struggle. This idea is fundamental to abolitionist teaching. We are not asking for struggle; we just understand that justice will not happen without it. When you understand how

Struggle

The four major testing companies—Pearson Education, Educational Testing Service, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and McGraw-Hill—make $2 billion a year in revenue while spending $20 million a year lobbying for more mandated student assessments.16 Prisons bring in $70 billion a year in revenue, and its industry spends $45 million a year lobbying to keep people incarcerated and for longer sentences.17

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often we think the work of fighting oppression is just intellectual. The real work is personal, emotional, spiritual, and communal. It is explicit, with a deep and intense understanding that loving Blackness is an act of political resistance, and therefore it is the fundamental aspect to teaching dark kids. I do not mean just to teach dark children their ABCs and 123s; I mean to teach them to demand what Anna Julia Cooper called “undisputed dignity.” To call for “recognition of one’s inherent humanity” with the courage, persistence, vigilance, and the

That night, Trayvon was walking home from the neighborhood convenience store carrying a bag of Skittles, a cell phone, and an iced tea and wearing a hoodie. By the time the police arrived, Trayvon was dead. But Trayvon fought for his life; all the grit, self-control, critical thinking, problem solving, and self-advocacy were not enough. He problem-solved that his best option was to run, drawing on a history of White violence toward dark bodies. When attacked by Zimmerman, he advocated for his life. The night of the murder, Zimmerman was treated for a fractured nose and cuts to the back of his head. By fighting for his life, Trayvon showed his grit and tried his best to stay alive. He stood his ground.

Measuring dark students’ grit while removing no institutional barriers is education’s version of The Hunger Games. It is adults overseeing which dark children can beat the odds, odds put in place and maintained by an oppressive system. In the state of Georgia, the Governor’s

White folx cannot be coconspirators until they deal with the emotionality of being White. A cofounder of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza, says, “Co-conspiracy is about what we do in action, not just in language.” She adds, “It is about moving through guilt and shame and recognizing that we did not create none of this stuff. And so what we are taking responsibility for is the power that we hold to transform our conditions.”37 Studying Whiteness, White rage, and violence is a fundamental step to moving from ally to coconspirator.

Research shows that White medical students believe that Black people’s blood coagulates quicker than Whites, that Black skin is thicker, and that Blacks have less-sensitive nerve endings. Simply put, White doctors believe that Blacks do not feel pain. So, either Black folx are superhuman or not human at all. This is how Black folx are seen and treated as disposable. This is how unarmed Black people get shot or strangled to death by the police or other White men, because White people believe we feel no pain and we have strength beyond the average human.

Those who cling to their Whiteness cannot participate in abolitionist teaching because they are a distraction, are unproductive, and will undermine freedom at every step, sometimes in the name of social justice. Being an abolitionist means you are ready to lose something, you are ready to let go of your privilege, you are ready to be in solidarity with dark people by recognizing your Whiteness in dark spaces, recognizing how it can take up space if unchecked, using your Whiteness in White spaces to advocate for and with dark people. And you understand that your White privilege allows you to take risks that dark people cannot take in the fight for educational justice. Wendy Kohli says it best: “The times require us to have the courage to be dangerous, at the same time recognizing that there are differential dangers. Not all teachers are at equal risk; much depends on how you are positioned, on your identity(ies), on your particular situation.”16 Abolitionist teaching means putting something on the line in the name of justice. Wanting dark folx to thrive and giving up power and positions in order for dark folx to do so.

For schools to be well, educators need to be well. Educators need free therapy, love, compassion, and healing, and to embrace theories that explain why getting well is so hard. Teacher wellness is critical to creating schools that protect students’ potential and function as their homeplace. Educators, students, and parents need to be on a path to wellness together for schools to be sites of healing. Schools cannot be doing just alright; they have to be well by putting everyone’s mental health as the first priority and understanding how systems of oppression spirit-murder children.