Join host Keiyonna Dubashi as she sits down with Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock of We Are (Working to Extend Anti-Racist Education) and how she is thinking about what it will take to move our institutions in North Carolina toward more anti-racist outcomes, particularly in our schools. 

We’re doing something a little different for the next few episodes. I’ll be stepping aside while my friend Keiyonna Dubashi, founder of Profound Ladies, temporarily hosts the podcast and shares some conversations from the Profound Ladies Equity Pledge series that took place last spring. Profound Ladies is dedicated to recruiting and retaining Black and Indigenous Women of Color and equipping them with the mentorship, leadership, and career development pathways necessary for them to succeed, grow, and thrive. Prior to the Brown V. Board, 35-50% of teachers — and an equivalent percentage of principals — were Black, particularly in the south.  Today, that number is only about 6% nationwide.  Organizations like Profound Ladies have set out to change that. 

In the wake of the Brown decision and the subsequent desegregation efforts, over 40,000 African American teachers and school leaders lost their jobs. That’s because desegregation has always occurred at the pace of white comfort.  

In the first of the series, Keiyonna sits down with Dr. Jerry Wilson of CREED (Center for Racial Equity In Education). They talk through the current state of education, what it will take to confront how we got to where we are today, and how we can join in solidarity with efforts happening right now to close the gap between our values and our actions. 

Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions. The theme song mirrors is by Joseph McDade. 

All instruction is culturally responsive. The question is: to whose culture is it responsive? The idea that public schools should focus on nothing but "the basics" of reading, writing, and arithmetic is not only wrong morally, but it's wrong scientifically too, because the research is crystal-clear: feeling seen, safe, and affirmed in the classroom is literally a prerequisite for learning anything else. In this episode, Bria Wright joins as co-host and we dive into identity and how we can tap into our own as well as those of our students to become more culturally and community-responsive in our practice. Special guest Dr. Erica Buchanan-Rivera, author of the book Identity Affirming Classrooms: Spaces That Center Humanity joins to ground our conversation in the research and also her personal experience as an educator and director of equity for Washington Township Schools, a district on the outskirts of Indianapolis, Indiana. Thanks also to Dr. Jeff Duncan Andrade and Dr. Fabienne Ducet for contributing as well.

Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions, the theme song Mirrors is by Joseph McDade.