Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

My summer reading has continued, and I recently reread this incredible book.  Beverly Tatum does a fantastic job of discussing identity development in both people of color and white people.  I went to a relatively diverse high school (65% white) and had friends of all races and backgrounds. However, it wasn't until college when I began to feel the sense of panic that other white students have experienced in which racism took on a whole new meaning for me and it was like I was seeing it for the first time. I believe that ALL educators regardless of race need to read this book to try to understand the process of adolescent identity development.  If our goal is to educate, inspire, and empower young people, then we need to understand how to support ALL child in the identity development process.

As a white teacher in a predominantly black school, a few ideas stuck out to me.
1. Being an ally is not to help victims of racism but to "speak up against systems of oppression and to challenge other Whites to do the same" (Tatum, 1997, p. 109). 

2. "If we want to promote positive cross-group relations, we need to help young White people engage in the kind of dialogue that precipitates this kind of identity development just as we need to help youth of color achieve an empowered sense of racial and ethnic identity" (Tatum, 1997, p. 113).

3. "We may have different opinions about how to fix those inequities, but an acknowledgement of the inequities is essential to a productive conversation" (Tatum, 1997, p. 115).

4. "The antidote I have found is to focus on my own sphere of influence" (Tatum, 1997, p. 204).



As educators, we need to operate within our sphere of influence to promote the ABCs that Tatum focused on: affirming identity, building community, and cultivating leadership for our students regardless of the many lines of difference.


References
Tatum, B. D. (1997). Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? New York, NY: Basic Books.

Comments

  1. Karen DozierJuly 8, 2017 at 8:54 PM

    This is an excellent book and your have highlighted some importance points.

    ReplyDelete

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