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

by Bettina L. Love

Teachers need to know the beauty of that culture, not just the hardships, that produces beautiful minds, many of which are sitting right in front of them. An entry from one of my master’s students’ reflection logs encapsulates this need to know more about Black culture when learning about culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), dark students in general, and Whiteness. She wrote: “When Dr. Love asked us to describe black culture after reading about CRP, I was frozen. I realized that we as educators do need to know the specifics of what cultural differences look like (I had never considered this before), but also how fine the line is between stereotyping and describing culture. After class that day, I went out to lunch, and Jiwon (a Korean classmate) asked me to describe white culture, what it was like growing up white in Mississippi. I basically couldn’t.”