White Folks Who Teach In The Hood. And The Rest Of Ya 'Ll Too': Book Analysis
During the introduction of For White Folks Who Teach in The Hood...And The Rest of Ya’ll Too, Christopher Emdin (2017) introduces his book with a historical background of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. At the Carlisle School, Emdin elaborates on indigenous youth who were taken from their Native communities and stripped of their traditions and languages and forcefully integrated into the dominant white culture. Emdin compares the experiences of these indigenous youth to that of the students Christopher identifies as the neoindigenous, which he elaborates are the youth of color in today’s urban classrooms. Emdin argues that the neoindigenous suffer from controlling practices reminiscent of the Carlisle school. Through “classroom colonialism”
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Although I am only two chapters into his book, I do not get the sense that Christopher is in any way, shape or form trying to shame me for my “whiteness.” On the contrary, he is helping me broaden my outlook by allowing me to reflect and unpack the nuances of my privilege. And his approach seems to be coming from a place of authentic love and concern for one’s development as a teacher, scholar, and human being. In For White Folks, he writes, “the work for white folks who teach in urban schools, then, is to unpack their privileges and excavate the institutional, societal, and personal histories they bring with them when they come to the hood.” (p. …show more content…
When one thinks of themselves as morally and culturally superior, what motivation exists to keep working on oneself? Our growth is stifled when we believe we’ve already “arrived.” At no point in my first half year of teaching have I felt that I have completed my pedagogical training. I wholeheartedly know that we are always unfinished and developing. Letting go of the “savior complex” can allow us to finally engage in the fundamental and ongoing task of working on our own humanity, alongside our students’, not from a place of superiority, but from one of community, democracy, and
Although I am only two chapters into his book, I do not get the sense that Christopher is in any way, shape or form trying to shame me for my “whiteness.” On the contrary, he is helping me broaden my outlook by allowing me to reflect and unpack the nuances of my privilege. And his approach seems to be coming from a place of authentic love and concern for one’s development as a teacher, scholar, and human being. In For White Folks, he writes, “the work for white folks who teach in urban schools, then, is to unpack their privileges and excavate the institutional, societal, and personal histories they bring with them when they come to the hood.” (p. …show more content…
When one thinks of themselves as morally and culturally superior, what motivation exists to keep working on oneself? Our growth is stifled when we believe we’ve already “arrived.” At no point in my first half year of teaching have I felt that I have completed my pedagogical training. I wholeheartedly know that we are always unfinished and developing. Letting go of the “savior complex” can allow us to finally engage in the fundamental and ongoing task of working on our own humanity, alongside our students’, not from a place of superiority, but from one of community, democracy, and