We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

Chapter 1 opens with a quote by W. E. B. Du Bois, which claims that Black people see racial injustice in America with greater clarity than white people. Love adopts Du Bois’s term “dark” to remind readers that skin color is the root of systemic discrimination and state-sanctioned racial abuse. She advocates for abolitionist pedagogy. This teaching promotes justice and focuses on thriving, mattering, resisting, healing, freedom, joy, and love—not just surviving. People are diverse in their races, cultures, religions, abilities, genders, and sexualities. Intersectionality uses these social markers as analytic tools to explain overlapping, interdependent forms of discrimination and disadvantage. Intersectionality also allows educators to have constructive conversations around students’ identities, giving them a better grasp of the challenges students face, while also shedding light on the ways schools perpetuate injustice.

What is Mattering?

Mattering is about humanizing people of color. It refers to the relationship of Black Americans to the country, not to their communities or families. According to Love, systems and institutions protect and reinforce discrimination of all forms. The collective identity of people of color grew out of acts of rebellion, so they must continue to fight to dismantle systemic and institutional discrimination. Only then will they begin to “matter” to their country, according to Love.

Welcome Struggle

People of color struggle for justice in various aspects of their lives, including education, employment, and housing. Their common goals include freedom, justice, and creating a better country. Some Civil Rights activists promoted non-violent resistance and self-determination, implementing social and educational programs. Black Americans have also organized mass movements promoting community sovereignty. These struggles, as well as the current fight for educational justice, are driven by “the spirit and ideas of folx who have done the work of antiracism before” (9). Thus, they recall the 19th century abolitionist movement. Dismantling systemic discrimination is an act of survival for people of color. However, the goal is not merely to survive but also to thrive.

Reform Ain’t Justice

The education system profits when Black children fail, writes Love. Standardized testing companies make $2 billion in annual revenues, ostensibly to enhance academic performance. Love argues that Teach for America, a program that sends inexperienced educators to work in underfunded schools for two years, needs Black children to fail to justify its existence. Educational reformers focus on improving test-taking skills, but they do not address systemic discrimination, the impact of poverty on education, or other structural barriers to that prevent Black children from thriving. Education reformers also promote the prison narrative insofar as criminality and low achievement are linked in the minds of many Americans.

Love proposes to re-envision schools, not reform them. She provides a list of things that are central to her vision: Teachers and communities must work in tandem to promote abolitionist education. Curriculums must be rewritten to provide children with examples and strategies of resistance. Schools must protect and support immigrants and their children by joining pro-immigrant organizations. They must also embrace women and queer leaders, as well as teaching civil disobedience, direct action, and other freedom-fighting techniques. Students must feel safe in school and have time to play. Teachers and parents must stand in solidarity to oppose standardized testing, racism, and turning schools into prisons. Conversely, they must support Black Lives Matter and other racial justice movements. They must also embrace critical race theory (CRT), Black feminism, settler colonialism, and other theories that address racism and oppression. Finally, schools must be familiar with their communities and support “freedom dreaming,” a vision of a more just, equitable, and accepting classroom and country.

Do We Really Love All Children?

According to Love, America’s educational system is punitive and destructive. Schools must abandon gimmicks and quick fixes and instead emphasize social justice and collective dignity. Teachers who do not support Black Lives Matter do not understand social justice, nor do they love or appreciate Black students, writes Love. Teachers have biases. Some are racist, transphobic, classist, and Islamophobic. Others have rigid ideas about sexuality and gender. These teachers should not be in the classroom. Many schools in the US are places of racial suffering. Within this suffering, however, is the joy that comes from resisting anti-Blackness. Abolitionist teaching promotes civics, community, creativity, love, and joy. In short, it focuses on mattering and helping Black children thrive.

Love uses data in support of intersectionality and educational justice. The medical field demonstrates the urgent need for intersectionality. Male doctors earn about $20,000 more each year than female doctors. Similarly, white male doctors earn about $65,000 more per year than Black male doctors, while white women doctors earn $25,000 more than Black women doctors. In other words, Black women doctors earn less that white women, white male, and Black male doctors (4). They are paid less not just because of their race, but also because of their sex. Their salary does not reflect their education level or skills. Rather, it demonstrates how different social categories—Black and woman—intersect to exacerbate discrimination.

Data also brings educational injustices into sharper focus. For example, in New York City, schools expelled 53 Black girls in 2012, compared to zero white girls. Furthermore, research shows that Black girls in all states are more than twice as likely to be suspended as white girls. Black girls who have darker skin, moreover, are three times more likely to be suspended as girls with lighter skin (5). Studies reveal that these higher suspension rates are not based on misbehavior, which is itself subjective, but rather on the sexism and racism of educators and school officials.