What Next: Committing to PoCC Action
Another People of Color Conference is in the books, your photos have all been posted, and your courtesy head shot has already replaced your existing profile photo on your social media. Many of us have returned home or are starting our journey back. If you need it, please feel free to send your colleagues this post about Re-Entry (it’s so real!) so that they can be prepared to support you upon your return.
If you are in any workshop with me, you know that one of my common phrases are, “Please do not let our time together be an exercise in theorizing about the academy. You must be prepared to do something, to act now, and to make things better.”
For white folks, you took up space here at PoCC. You had the privilege to be among brilliant, strong, and courageous Black and Brown educators at a time when they feel loved, supported, and visible. You likely saw a side of your colleagues you have never seen before — because, at PoCC, you have witnessed their lives in an environment different from the one they wake up to each and every day in your home communities. You have seen them be their confident, bold, and vocal selves in a way that our home communities diminish, silence, and render us a threat. You have seen them thrive in a space that is intended for them to thrive. You have a responsibility now that you have seen this. To do nothing after PoCC means to believe that your colleagues should only have these three days to feel this way. To do nothing after PoCC means that you willingly are allowing systems and structures of white supremacy and white dominance continue to be the norm in their work spaces. To do nothing after PoCC means that you believe that whiteness should remain centered and centric. You must do now. You must act. You must show up differently to work than you did on Tuesday before the conference began. You must remember this experiencing of bearing witness to what it means to center Black and Brown narratives, bodies, experiences, brilliance, and positionality in your work, decision making, hiring, retention, and support. To leave PoCC and to do nothing continues the white supremacist ideology that you so greatly benefit from each and every day.
For the people of color family, while you deserve to feel loved and belong each and every day, we know the realities of returning back to our school communities. We know that this means we will face structures that were never meant to benefit us, and yet we will be asked to show up every day. We know that the daily assaults on our humanity — many of them simply because of the color of our skin — will render us both invisible and threats. We know that we will need to rely on the work of white colleagues to dismantle racism. And we know that we will grow impatient and frustrated while they struggle to figure out if they are ready to do so.
For my family within our people of color community, our political solidarity is everything. To be united as one identity creates critical mass and power. And yet, within our own community, we need to do things better. We need to show up for each other and the struggles of each community. Black folks need to show up for Asian folks need to show up for Latina/o/x folks need to show up for Indigenous and First Peoples folks need to show up for Middle Eastern folks need to show up for Multiracial and Multiethnic folks need to show for Queer and Transgender People of Color need to show up for Transracially adopted folks need to show up for the many racialiized identities that do not fit within a neat category. Our solidarity cannot mask the horizontal oppression we oftentimes exert upon each other, and that oppression simply serves the purpose of white dominance. What do you need to know, learn, and experience to work within our identity? For example, how many of you/us participated in local learning related to Asian Pacific Americans in Seattle? How many of you are reading that last question and thinking, “Huh? What Asian Pacific American issues?” Yes, this is what I mean. But, I’m not too mad at you — there was not even mention of this in the larger structure of our 3-day time together.
Without an informed narrative, and in the absence of an uninterrogated critical coalition, we allow whiteness to define our narrative.
For all, I encourage you to think about your Do Now. If you are leaving PoCC simply with a “that was nice” experience, you have missed the point of actionable change. What must you do now? What are you compelled to do? To change? To start? To stop? To continue?
Here are some helpful steps as you transition back to your home communities:
Reflect on those moments at PoCC where you were compelled to act. Maybe it was something you heard or overheard in a workshop. Maybe it was a fact or aspect of history that you hadn’t heard before this week. Maybe it was something you quickly wrote down in your notebook or on your social media. Maybe it was a photo of a slide you saw during a presentation.
Write down those moments.
Write down what you believed you are being called to do, to learn, to un-learn, and to get closer to. Why did you notice that moment? Why did you take a photo of that slide? Why did you write down that quote? Go back and revisit that moment and find out what it was calling to you.
Write down the FIRST step you’ll need to take to address that issue. Maybe it’s “google those terms” or “find a good blog post” or “subscribe to a podcast” that might address this issue.
Create an accountability calendar. If you are going to get good at this work, you need to do the work. How much time can you spend on your learning? An hour a week? Two hours a week? Write down that schedule and commit to those learning times and action items.
Journal about your accountability. What makes this action difficult? What makes this important? What should be different after you have done this action item?
Make your action visible. I don’t necessarily mean tell the world about what you’re doing (although, that public accountability does work well). I mean, “How will others know that you are on this journey?” What does that look like? What do your actions say about you?
The next PoCC is in about 363 days. What will be different about your attitudes, behaviors and beliefs? How will you know it’s different? How will others know?
Many of us are here to actively work towards dismantling racism and centering the voices and experiences of people of color.
What will you do to make this visible?
Peace and love,
Liza T.
