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

by Bettina L. Love

My parents wholeheartedly trusted my teachers with my education; they had no choice. My father had an eighth-grade education, and my mother earned her GED. They believed education was the great equalizer, but there was a caveat: education was not to be confused with common sense in the Love house. Education was what you learned in school and common sense was what you learned to survive, and they taught us that upward mobility done with your dignity intact depended on a combination of the two. Common sense meant trusting your gut, reading between the lines, listening before speaking, and never, I mean never, telling your family’s business, especially to White folx. We never explicitly discussed racism because it needed no exploration; racism was simply an ever-present part of our lives, like oxygen—but unlike racism, oxygen is necessary to survive. It was implicitly understood in our house that you had to be twice as smart as White folx, had to never let down your guard, never lower your head in defeat, and had to possess a confidence that should never be mistaken for arrogance. To my parents, if you were going to be something in this world, being an A student was just the tip of the iceberg.