In my short 50 years of life, I have had some experiences. One of those experiences has been the early days of DEI efforts in White institutions to the present day, where it is a booming almost billion dollar business. Through these experiences, I have come to believe that DEI in many institutions is a scam. To paint a picture of why I have come to feel this way, I will share parts of my journey in education, coming in and out of White institutions. My personal experience and/or encounter with the work of DEI will hopefully provide a clear understanding of why I feel that DEI needs to go through a major change in order to really alter the historic plague of racism in our country or be torn down all together.
As I write this, I am plagued with fear because I am currently a member of Academia and I am not tenured. What I am about to share could possibly hinder my progress in Academia, because I cannot support an effort that often is only used to line people’s pockets and give the titles to brag about at an HBCU or Ivy League homecoming. If I am never able to find a solid home in a university because of what I share then Academia is not the place for me. I don’t really want to work in places that refuse to do DEI in an authentic way anyway. Hopefully someone out there will be blessed by this post. Hopefully, an institution out there will read this and make the necessary changes to bring healing. Hopefully, the person who has had similar experiences will find affirmation and comfort in the words that I share.
New Teacher in 1995
My senior year at Howard University, where I graduated with a degree in elementary education took a surprising turn. In second semester, my professor asked me to be part of a DEI effort to bring Black teachers into primarily White school districts (I will not share the name of the district). 7 of us were chosen from my graduating class to complete our student teaching in this county. 3 of us were placed in a school, where the principal made it very clear upon our arrival that she did not want us there and was just doing this because the county was requiring her to. The three of us felt so alone there, even though we had one another. The principal wrote up bad reports about us in the county office. She griped about wanting us out. It was a horrific experience. The other 2 student teachers had teachers that shared the principal’s feelings, and together they made it so my 2 class mates struggled to finish their student teaching and ultimately were not offered a job to teach in that county. The hearts of those leaders did not change. So DEI for my 2 classmates did nothing to help them. It changed nothing.
For me, I was blessed to have a supervising teacher who was so kind to me. A Jewish woman who shared her life with me, taught me everything she knew and advocated for me through my entire time working with her. Because of her, my student teaching experience was amazing. Outside of her classroom, I felt the hate of the teachers and principal, but within her classroom I found a haven and an ally. If everyone had her heart, DEI would have worked. People being forced to open the door to Black people, does not create authentic healing. Hearts have to change.
After my student teaching ended, I was surprisingly offered a job in the same county. I took the county teaching exam and passed with flying colors. I signed my teaching contract before I walked across the stage to get my degree. During the summer, I rested after 4 years of working hard to achieve my goal to be a teacher. Then just before the summer ended, I was placed in a school that served primarily Black and Latino students, where most came on free and reduced lunch…in the same White county where I served my student teaching. The principal was Black as well, a product of DEI seeking to open the doors to Black people.
On my first day on the job she explained why she asked for me to be placed with her. She knew about the principal who tried to keep us out of the county. She also went on to tell me that my supervising teacher wrote on my behalf so I could get hired by the county, hoping to counter the negative reports the White principal was sending. My supervising teacher was seeking to live out authentic DEI and the new principal used her position to hire me (and other Black teachers), instead of just holding on to her title and position for her own good. I stayed with that principal for 4 years (until grad school) and she taught me everything she knew. She made me team leader of 5th grade and asked me to run after-school programs. She used her position to help me progress, to warn me when racist efforts could hurt my career, to protect and affirm me as a young new teacher in a county that really didn’t want Black people there. DEI efforts led by people who are still White supremist will not work. Hearts have to change.
I continued to thrive in this county. I went to grad school for 1 year and was able to do it without losing my job in the county. When I finished my degree I went back to the county to teach and another Black principal met me while we sat on a park bench. This same principal used her position and title as one of the top principals in the county to give me a position in her school. She taught me everything she knew. She mentored me and for 2 years I stayed with her. I grew so much as a teacher there. I still love her so much. After 2 years, I left public schooling to earn more degrees and to help my parents open a classical Christian school. The years I learned from that school system were so essential in shaping me as an educator and I am thankful, even though I was able to see the inauthentic DEI efforts.
Starting My PhD in 2005
After earning a masters in music education from Howard University and a masters in liberal arts from St John’s College, I decided to earn a PhD . I never intended to go this far in my education, because honestly I never liked school (which is strange that I wanted to be a teacher…I just didn’t enjoy being a student!). At the end of my masters program at Howard University, my professor (just like the professor when I was working on my BA) called me into his office and told me that I should pursue a PhD, but that I should not do it at an HBCU. I did not want to leave Howard (I never want to leave Howard and yet they keep pushing outside of my comfort zone). Howard has always been a haven for me, because outside of that space, I find myself often as one of few Black people brought in to meet an affirmative action quota or to satisfy a DEI objective. It has always felt inauthentic. It makes you feel unsettled and unsafe. You feel the resentment of those who don’t really want you there and who feel that you’re only there for DEI and not because of your own hard work and intelligence. My professors at Howard knew all of this, but to take the opportunity and use it for my own progress.
Each time a professor from Howard pushes me out of the “nest” I am usually schooled on what Whites will say to keep me from owning my right to be in the space. He told me they would say things like “You aren’t PhD material so maybe you should get an EdD.” He told me that when they say that, to insists on a PhD because even though they are essentially the same quality, Black people are often passed over for a White person with a PhD. Yet, if I can survive the experience and get my PhD then it would be hard to question my expertise. Employers sometimes are slow to hire those who only have degrees from an HBCU, but if you have degrees from varying institutions, then it shows an ability to thrive in any type of setting. I took his advice. I took his advice with fear and trepidation. I had every reason to be fearful.
I was not taught about CRT at Howard. I was taught about CRT at the university where I earned my PhD, by White professors who weren’t really champions of DEI. It was sort of thrown around like a memorized catch phrase, and with no real heart change. In fact, when I chose my research topic on the relevancy of classical education in the Black community, I was told by one of these professors, “Those books are not for your people.” and that phrase was within the context of CRT giving him a reason to think he could tell me what to expose Black students to. It was a sort of twisted way of using something that was meant to explain how racism still exists in America. I have met many White DEI scholars (or those who think they are scholars), demonstrate White Supremacy by taking their scholarship in DEI to control what we learn and experience. In the name of Culturally Relevant Teaching, they will keep Black students from being exposed to universal school experiences, segregating them only to learning about the Black experience…even though they are Black and already LIVING the Black experience.
I struggled through my PhD program because of my refusal to let go of my passion to research classical education in the Black community. The odd thing is that Blacks and Whites struggled with my desire to research this. Whites saw my work as somehow leaving my authorized place in education. How dare I teach Black students THEIR Western tradition! Blacks saw my work as an effort to educate in assimilation and feared that providing a classical tradition would elevate the narrative of the colonizer over the narrative of Black people. Racism in different forms, plunged me into a dark space as I worked on my doctoral research. I was not in the Urban Education track as most Black doctoral students were, my topic definitely didn’t fit into the CRT foundation of a degree in Urban Education. They didn’t know what we know now about how classical education is part of the Black story. Actually, at the time, I didn’t even know it. It would take time for me to research beyond how it improves academic performance and to uncover its history in the Black community. My PhD is in English, theatre and literacy education and because I chose that path instead of Urban education, even Black professors distanced themselves from me. Because I did not enter into that segregated space, I was not welcomed into any space.
Some Black professors I think understood my heart and their warmth was always comforting. I appreciated how they used their position to be a support of Black doctoral students. One of them worked hard to help me get through my program, but sadly most of them left the university and I was alone for my remaining time there. There were others who were careful about getting too close. They failed to understand what Anna Julia Cooper felt when she said, ““only the BLACK WOMAN can say when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.” When Black people find their way into those spaces that have worked hard to keep us out, it is not for your own progress. It is not to just protect your position and title or your job. When we make it into these spaces, we are to do the work to bring our community in and to support those who struggle to find their footing once they’re in. Just because a DEI effort opens up a space for people of color to come into it, doesn’t end the hostility that awaits them when they arrive. Black people who are there shouldn’t be so afraid of losing their privilege or their position to lend a hand to the new ones coming in and are in need of community. Doing otherwise only supports White supremacy and racism. People who do this, are no different than the Black overseer on the plantation who caused trouble for Uncle Tom, Frederick Douglass or others. These overseers were so focused on self-preservation, they were willing to reject their own people and even work against them.
I continued to wander around in dark isolation during my doctoral studies. Just like my Howard U professor warned, my advisor at the time suggested that I change to an EdD, instead of a PhD. Thank goodness for the preparation I had for going into spaces where racist hearts have not changed, and that claim to do DEI, because I was ready for him. I kindly declined the offer and continued to push forward. I graduated with my PhD and a dissertation that helped to spring me into the Black Intellectual Tradition. I achieved this even though those White professors teaching CRT accused me of teaching against culturally relevant pedagogy. Because you know, culturally relevant pedagogy means we should only limit our Black students to learning about the Black experience, instead of cultivating citizens of the world (that’s not really what it’s supposed to mean…some people need to reread Gloria Ladson-Billings). I achieved this even though those Black professors teaching CRT distanced themselves from my work, because it did not fit their narrative. Professors of every shade were teaching about DEI. Diverse people were being appointed to leadership positions. Yet, nothing was changing. There were no conversations happening where as a community we could discuss our experiences and together strategize to bring necessary change. There was always a “Brown Bag Discussion” about race. There was always a symposium about race. Someone was always getting a degree in Urban Education or Urban Education Leadership or whatever, and still the toxic environment persisted. No one was willing to fully face the issues of that racist space so that it was a more welcoming space for me, and ultimately no one was willing to do the work to bring authentic change so that ALL students could thrive there.
People think that if we sit a whole bunch of academics in a room and tell them all of the evil their ancestors did and all of the evil their ancestors went through, and how that has created our racist society, then they will leave that seminar and fix everything. Many go there because they are forced to and roll their eyes as they take a seat in the room. The Black person usually assigned an important title proudly leads the training. The training ends and nothing changes. I would sometimes reflect on the irony of experiencing so much racism in a space that claims to be a champion of DEI (remember I learned about CRT from this same space). Nothing changes, because hearts are not changing. Forcing DEI on people does not change hearts. The end of my dissertation talks about my desire to use classical studies as a way to foster civil discourse that could help to bring racial healing and I still desire that. I firmly believe that coming together this way, can help us to understand one another and begin to chip away at our hearts of stone.
By the time that I graduated, I was so heartbroken about my experience that my husband and I both cried the evening of my graduation. We were both just so thankful that the whole awful experience was over. Because of the disappointment of not feeling supported by my own community and the trauma from the racism I endured for the bulk of my doctoral studies, I vowed to never go back into Academia again, but God had other plans.
Part 2 coming soon…
Dr. Anika T. Prather 