The Sunday Six: Articles Worth Sharing from the Past Week #sundaysix #linksilove

I learn so much from organizer and prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba on Twitter. Her opinion piece for the New York Times, Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police, packs so much history, knowledge, and persuasion into a small space. (Bonus read: I also loved Eve Ewing’s interview with Kaba, Everything Worthwhile Is Done With Other People, for Adi Magazine.)

Young adult author Nic Stone is on my list TWICE this week because I just can’t choose between these two fantastic pieces. In EW, Nic Stone and fellow YA author Kim Johnson are in conversation about systemic racism, literacy, protest, and how their books speak to and reflect the context of young people’s lives.

And if I could ask teachers to read just one article this week, it would be Nic Stone’s impassioned piece in Cosmopolitan, Don’t Just Read About Racism–Read Stories About Black People Living. Teachers, please don’t just assign books about racism: assign books about Black life in all its fullness, richness, complexity. We have so much work to do to address anti-Blackness in our schools, and our curriculum can be such a powerful tool for this work. Black kids and teens deserve to see themselves reflected in their school curriculum as fully human and fully valuable outside the story of racism and the fight for justice (vitally important as that story is)–and white kids and teens absolutely need to see that too–many, many examples of that.

(Another bonus: if you’re looking for YA books that would fit the bill, check out this list from Buzzfeed of 23 Phenomenal Young Adult Books by Black Authors from the First Half of 2020).

At Culturally Responsive Leadership, Joe Truss has got the reading list teachers need: 40+ Books for Anti-Racist Teachers. Several of my must-read favorites are on this list (Dr. Bettina Love! Whom I talk about so much even my son knows who she is!)–plus a few new-to-me titles that I’m looking forward to reading.

Jasmine Robert White Academia: Do Better shares 10 “tangible actions” for white academics to do better–and it’s totally applicable to all educators. Of the many posts circulating right now about next steps for white educators, this is probably my favorite. (But read them all!) (Medium)

Finally, this is a 2018 piece from Shawn Ginwright that’s really pushing my thinking this week. Ginwright provides several important cautions about trauma-informed care and argues in favor of a shift to healing-centered engagement: The Future of Healing: Shifting from Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement. (Medium)