ThrobbingHood
Take from the b*tch, give to the whores.
I asked Takyrica why she chose to teach at one of Chicago’s "busiest" neighborhoods where gunfire rings out daily when she could have applied to one of Oak Park’s cushy schools. She simply said that she was from the West Side and that was where she was going to teach. Then she said, "Math is a superpower and I know if I can instill the love of math in my students it will open the world for them. Education is what got me to where I am today. It wasn’t activism."
Martin echoed similar sentiments. More than Takyrica, he has already felt the effects of CRT at his school; he has clashed with administrators over his refusal to be reduced to Whiteness. I asked him, why fight? Why not bow your head and collect your paycheck for the sake of your family, especially as a White teacher at a nearly all Black and Hispanic school? He said that parental involvement and high expectations from teachers were the two keys to a student’s success and he was not going to abandon his responsibility. He also said, "If I allow myself to be taught self-hatred because of my Whiteness, then how can I love? You have to love yourself in order to be able to love and inspire others."
I wondered out loud, to Takyrica and Martin, if Maggie had given any thoughts to how her CRT beliefs impacted an interracial family that does not fit conveniently into America’s race boxes. Martin turned to me, "How does that work? Are my kids half-oppressor and half-oppressed?" Takyrica took it a step further, "And when they come home, who do they see? Their parents? Or do they see an oppressor and the oppressed?"