30. The DEI Mess Part II: Red States vs. Blue States, No One is Doing it Right

This episode, recorded a few years ago, explores the complexities and pitfalls of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in K-12 education. The hosts discuss the superficial virtue signaling associated with DEI movements and its consequences. They emphasize the need for authentic inclusivity and intersectionality, pointing out the negative impact of ignoring historically  marginalized identities. The conversation also covers the ongoing culture wars affecting educators and students, with a detailed critique of current educational frameworks. The hosts share personal stories, highlighting the importance of understanding varied forms of trauma and invisible marginalization. They call for open, honest conversations and genuine empowerment of teachers and students to foster a truly equitable educational environment.

00:00 Introduction to DEI and Virtue Signaling
01:03 The Backlash and Inclusivity Challenges
01:48 Audio Quality Disclaimer
02:09 Rebel Teachers and Social Justice Reforms
03:31 Teachers' Role in Culture Wars
06:20 Pronouns and Safety in Schools
07:41 Equity Work and Teacher Frustrations
11:48 Polarization and Its Impact on Education
22:02 Teachers' Expertise and Systemic Issues
29:09 Teacher Pay Structures and Cost of Living
30:13 Challenges Faced by Teachers in Different States
31:24 Defining Equity in Education
32:33 Understanding Historically Marginalized Identities
34:23 The Social Construct of Race
36:17 Visible vs. Invisible Marginalized Identities
37:21 Historical Context of Racial Oppression
38:38 Dominant and Marginalized Groups in Society
40:40 Trauma and Its Impact on Students
45:11 Challenges in Addressing Equity in Schools
48:18 The Importance of Inclusive and Intersectional Frameworks
54:53 Final Thoughts on Equity and Social Justice in Education

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Transcript

The DEI Mess Part II: Red States vs. Blue States, No One is Doing it Right

Trina: [00:00:00] Welcome to part two of the introduction to the DEI and K 12 mess. This episode is a couple years old. Um, it was recorded before DEI was really a common term heard in popular culture. And as a matter of fact, DEI wasn't even a term being used in my district that was attempting to install, um, from the ground up.

An equity platform that was really lacking in inclusivity, so I was trying to get everybody on board with the phrasing at the time no one knew what I was talking about this episode is really a good one to help you understand the dangers of virtue signaling virtue signaling is It's this phenomenon of the left to try to make themselves look very progressive by doing highly superficial and inauthentic things that draw attention to themselves as being a social justice warrior, um, and ticking of boxes to make things look [00:01:00] good on paper and really leaving a lot of people out.

And where we are today with the huge backlash to DEI. If we had been more inclusive from the beginning, if more people could understand that DEI was including most people in our society, we would be in a better position right now to fully implement inclusive practices to bring about greater equitable outcomes for our nation's children.

And if we don't sort this out, if we can't disentangle DEI from political jargon and bad ideas, and on the right, and virtue signaling on the left, if we can't figure this out, Our children, our nation's children, in our schools will continue to be caught in the crosshairs of our culture wars. Another note about this episode.

As I mentioned, it's rather old and it was before I had purchased my fancy schmancy mic for the podcast. Remember, I am a working full [00:02:00] time teacher and at the beginning of this podcast, I didn't have all the right equipment. So forgive the poor audio quality, will ya? Thanks guys. 

We know you sense it. You see that there is something terribly wrong in our world.

Are you confused about how we got here? We have a huge missing piece of the puzzle that's been kept from you. We're rebel teachers who are shining a light on the mess in K 12 schooling that is eroding our democracy from within. No one wants our job anymore, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Creating a space for fellow rebels to speak truth to power and offer love and hope for the world. We are rebel teachers.

Trina: We have all heard about social justice based reforms in education, right? It's been in the news a lot. For example, we've heard terms like critical race theory and [00:03:00] reparations, and these words are being thrown around as our conversations about non binary bathrooms at school on either protecting or outing LGBTQIA.

Identities and folks are just up in arms about whether or not these topics should be addressed in our schools, or if they are how they should be handled and these and other critical conversations about social justice based reforms are the basis of the culture wars that are playing out in our schools.

But not so much by teachers and kids, because remember, just like all the other conversations we've talked about, teacher pay, teacher preparations, CAT and curriculum, we're not a part of those conversations. Teachers don't get to shape, much less lead them. We're just sort of ebbing and flowing in the culture war tides, because everyone around us thinks they get to create the conversations for us and for our kids.

This is a place. that are where our [00:04:00] larger society is able to wage these wars and the kids and teachers are just kind of caught in the crosshairs and are really under attack. So whether you're in a red state, a blue state, a place where this conversation is happening, or a place where the conversation isn't happening, in a way, it doesn't really matter where you are because it's not happening authentically anywhere.

We hear terms like equity or even like what we hear to DEI, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. But to a lot of us as teachers, it seems like folks do not have a clear understanding of what these terms mean, right? And if you feel that way, I want to say you're not alone, and you're not stupid, they are, and by they, I mean just about everyone using these terms, especially and particularly in K 12 education, they're not using the terms right.

Amanda: I agree. I think they're really, really loaded terms, and we're [00:05:00] going to talk about, you know, the continuum of this, uh, approaching these issues soon, uh, and how different schools are approaching it or not at all. Yeah, and I think teachers are just. Kind of getting this lip service and you know, some school districts are using a lot of these terms but the actual like what's what's actually happening in classrooms every day Isn't really being considered Uh when these terms are being thrown around but I do want to say one thing too About in our district.

We have this way of changing our signature And I absolutely love the information. So anytime that you email someone within our district, yeah, there's a lot of really important information that comes with your signature, Trina. And I actually took one of those, [00:06:00] my signature to too much stuff. Well, because a lot of teachers in our district and like in California, where we're at in on this continuum is a lot of people are using these terms, talking about these terms, but it's still problematic even in California where we're supposedly a progressive state.

So a lot of people identify their pronouns. in their signature, right? She, her, they, and then they have a link that says why this is important. And a lot of teachers are asking their students to give them their pronouns, your signature. And, and this, these are small ways that teachers are making a difference.

Undeclared. Undeclared. Yeah. Why? Because it's not safe in our schools yet to ask people to be declaring their pronouns. And I took that. That's in my signature too. And it's an affront to people who are sharing their pronouns and expecting [00:07:00] others to as well. It's like, okay, teachers. Yeah, we have power. We, but even teachers.

Aren't really that safe sharing, sharing these things either like their neurodivergence or their gender pronouns or their sexual preferences or whatever, like all of that is still not that safe for us. So, I mean, that's kind of what I have to say about it. Like, we're being left out of the conversation, but teachers like you and I are finding these tiny little ways to just insert poke people big into the right direction.

Yes. 

Trina: Big and small ways. Like, my own personal practice is I've developed an entire equity based pilot. But, you know, when teachers roll their eyes, when they hear about DEI, it's not because they're dumb and they don't know, they don't understand the theory behind why it needs to happen, or it's because they've watched these pendulums swing back and forth.

And they've heard [00:08:00] educational leaders, like, forward their own careers over implementing things. In a half assed way, and the work that they bring to these districts doesn't feel like accurate, correct. authentic to the teachers. And so that's a perfect example, right? Of like, we were told, Amanda, we were told, um, by an interim superintendent, everybody declare your pronouns.

We need to be a district that has, you know, a progressive approach to gender identity. And I'm thinking, no, making everyone declare their pronouns is the icing at the top of a very high cake after we've done. A lot of work making our campuses safe. You don't just say, we don't just don't do the work and then say everybody declare your pronouns because you're forcing students and staff school community members to either out themselves to a hostile [00:09:00] community or lie.

And if you look you just see pages and pages and gobs and gobs of cisgender people declaring their pronouns. Feeling really good about themselves. Giving themselves a pat on the back. Uh, no. That's not the work. The work is creating safety and inclusion for the LGBTQIA students and staff. And look, You can have your own opinion about how correct or incorrect it is to be LGBTQIA.

That's not what this podcast is about, trying to change your mind, make you a lefty leaning liberal. That's not what we're doing here. But I know that, you know, because I listened to teachers all over the country say this is regardless of our personal religious, whatever opinions we want our kids, however they show up every day to be safe, to feel supported.

And to be able to learn and get the best learning outcomes. That's [00:10:00] all this is about. That's it. And people put their egos involved in the mix. And it leads to these ridiculous ideas of, Everybody declare your pronouns. I won't do it. I won't do it until it's safe for everyone. How, how privileged of me as a cisgender female to say, My pronouns are her and she and hers.

Yeah, that's great. Um, and then we, you know, force our students to out themselves to us and use their pronouns and kids, you know, will often be out to only me. And I have to constantly code switch in the classroom and use different pronouns. And I'm talking to the whole room versus when I'm talking to themselves versus when I'm talking to their parents.

So unless you're really willing to do all of that and you're ready, you should tread very carefully. You know, I think that's just your example, Amanda. It's just one really cool and important way to like, look at how oppressive the [00:11:00] equity work is happening in K 12, right? But about, like, not using these terms correctly or people having very confusing ideas about what is quote unquote equity work, we're going to sort that out today.

We're going to try. We're going to try. And if you have criticisms, please. Email us respond to us. We're also going to have other guests on that are going to going to bring their own examples of problems in equity work to future episodes. But if you haven't dug into this kind of thinking as a teacher before, or if you're honestly kind of closed off to it because of what you notice as hypocrisy from educational leaders, then if you know nothing at all, then this episode is for you.

Our goal today is to speak plainly and directly about the topic. But since this is part of larger issues that the adults in our world are very polarized around, and folks are using our schools as battlegrounds in this culture war, we need to say that they do this because they can. [00:12:00] It's because it's easier to bring up the stuff in classrooms.

Because our entire K 12 process is open to political debate, so you may not be able to, like, insert your thoughts about equity into the political process for adults, or insert your ideas into your adult workspaces, but you can in K 12 because it's open to everyone, right? And I've explained why this is before, but it's tied to that systemic sex sexism, that because we're largely a profession, we were ex we, our profession was created for females.

And so we've never been given access to the creation of the standards of practice for our profession. Adults who do not work in our schools are often the chief culprits of stoking these flames. They don't seem to care about the other very deep and systemic issues in our schools, but which are desperately in need of their passion and attention too.

And if you have half a brain and you work in our schools, you know, that our main goals are to keep kids safe and teach them the [00:13:00] content. Period. If kids show up to school drowning in trauma stemming from the culture wars going on outside of our classrooms, it's our job to help them leave that crap outside and just love the kid for who they are, so they can feel safe and calm in our presence.

This is it. They cannot learn if they are scared and triggered. Right? And we were talking before, Amanda, about the trauma informed approach. You were bringing up that, like, we came back from the pandemic. And we were given like a two day PD, professional development, on trauma informed practices and then we went right back to work as business as usual, didn't we?

Amanda: Grades are due, syllabuses, syllabi, hand those out, back to school night, like, what's our first unit, Ms. Werner? Yeah, 

Trina: totally. You know, in all of this, it's clear that adults forget how hard it is just to be a kid. You know, we put blinders on and move into adulthood and we forget what that was really [00:14:00] like.

If you ask them, the kids, what they need from us at school, it wouldn't be this poop show. It wouldn't be all this culture wars and the adults screaming at each other and school board meetings. People everywhere in the US are more polarized than ever because I mean, I feel like it's a cold civil war. You know what I mean, Amanda?

When I say cold civil war, what do you think? 

Amanda: There's no, well, weapons, but words can be weapons. There's no, like, weapons or anything really. Like, no one's, like, fighting physically. Um, but there is a lot of fighting going on between two sides, right? Like, that's what I think of. 

Trina: Yeah, and that's a cold war, right?

So it's like growing hostilities and tensions between the far right and the far left. 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Trina: And they, you know, I say they, I mean, the people with all the political power are elected officials. They can't [00:15:00] talk to each other. And they have forgotten how to be civil and how to create collaborative conversations.

And that is trickling down. Like, you guys, I'm speaking to the politicians, the mess that you have in Washington D. C. is it's bleeding into our schools and the adults are very polarized right now, and that is affecting our kids. So I refer to the situation in the United States right now as a cold civil war, because I think it's very accurate.

And, you know, I certainly have my own views on these issues, and they are deep and stem from a lifetime of fierce exploration of the truth, like a capital T, okay? But my political views, or any educator's views, are not applicable here. I tell my kids it's my job to teach them how to think, and not what to think.

And I teach them the step by step skills to seek out and fully digest only highly credible sources. [00:16:00] I wish I could sidestep this with just sixth graders, but I can't. I have to teach them about bias, and I have to, uh, tell them that today's grown ups, their parents often, are an example of what not 

Amanda: to do!

I love it. I mean, I just, it's, it's hard because like, where are you getting your information, you know, and I really think that whatever news sources you are consuming, that's going to influence the way that you think. Yeah. Um, and, and I think that in schools, it's a really great place to give kids.

information that conflicts, you know, like from various sources and then have kids kind of develop their own opinions about it and just exposing kids to the different sides. And, and that is the beauty of, you know, being a [00:17:00] teacher is, yeah, you, you do have to leave your own views. Outside of the classroom.

And I think a lot of political leaders think that teachers are like kind of bleeding hearts, you know, and very liberal and do bring their political views into the classroom, but they're wrong. Like, I am very, very careful about what I say. To my students. I mean, sometimes they'll ask me really blunt questions.

Like, who did you vote for? And things like that, you know? Yeah. And we're like, what's your religion, Ms. Werner? And, and I'm like, you know, I'm not, I have to remain, you know, completely, um, unbiased, you know, and like neutral on these issues. Um, but I'm happy to hear what your views are and, you know, and like.

Facilitate kind of debate healthy debating in our classroom 

Trina: that I mean, that was so eloquent because that's exactly what we're doing here. Like, despite what [00:18:00] the public thinks, we're not like treating our teaching. experience as a pulpit to indoctrinate your kids into our political or religious ideology.

Like we're just not doing that. There isn't time for that. We have so much else to teach. Um, yeah, sorry, go ahead. 

Amanda: When I think our signatures and us, uh, you know, Kind of having a more divergent view of that are like, not necessarily a very common. I feel like proves it, you know, because we're kind of like, almost going against the liberals who are like, let's share our pronouns and, you know, be super, uh, like for having me.

Open and like all of, you know what I mean? Like we're even questioning the liberal side of, of that, like those signatures of sharing your pronouns. 

Trina: It's all like people who are exceptionally privileged in the world who want [00:19:00] to like. earn their progressive stripes, show up in these conversations and don't realize they take over.

Amanda: They 

Trina: take over these spaces and they don't include other stakeholders. They don't include the other identities for whom they're trying to help, right? So it's a bunch of cisgender straight people creating that conversation, right? Yeah. Um, just talking about like, where all these bad ideas are coming from.

And you were talking just a second ago too, about like, making sure you're getting, telling your kids you get your information from only the most credible sources. I just got to say that like a lot of us have fallen prey to media out there, which has absolutely targeted our weaknesses as a nation.

Outside forces who closely investigated our society found weaknesses in it. Cracks in the quality of our life indicators, which is something I mentioned before, and I will mention again. These are like things like the US life expectancy rates are infant [00:20:00] mortality rates, maternal mortality rates, and they've noticed that we live in a very segregated society.

Like we are weak because of our quality of life being so low. Right. And that's something again that seems like a well kept secret that we do not have a very successful country in terms of how well we are all living. And in fact, our quality of life indicators are actually falling and dipping. And yet we're the most wealthy nation in the world.

So there's a lot of motivation for outside forces to stoke those flames against us. And there's a lot of opportunity too, because we are a group of people that have a growing, growing unhappiness with each other. And we've been carefully spoon fed a diet of mistrust and downright hatred of one another.

Which is, was targeted at keeping wealth in the hands of the few and the outside sources who wanted to destabilize our society preyed on that, and they succeeded. We are so angry at each other now that we cannot, cannot even hold [00:21:00] civil conversations with one another in government. Right. And in the beginning, when we talked about why we have to fix the teacher shortage issue, this was one of the big reasons why everywhere, especially here too, democracy is under attack.

We need thoughtful, highly literate people to get us back on track. The reality is that this polarization of our nation is leading to our teachers being attacked from really all sides of this debate, right, and contributing to the shortage. They're so embattled. They are leaving the profession. Our teachers are barely holding on here, folks.

We feel like we can't win. 

Amanda: Yeah, for sure. And we're, yeah, that we don't have a say, but we have a lot of knowledge that's not being really respected or it sometimes feels like we're all so busy. No one's really digging into like what we could actually do [00:22:00] to make positive changes in our schools. Like just it's systemic idea, right?

Like that all of these problems are so interconnected and like who's really in charge and like how can change really happen in such a like. Entrenched system where like teachers aren't really they I feel and I'd also feel like a lot of times leaders think teachers are overburdened. So let's not burden them more by like tapping into their expertise or whatever, which is ridiculous because that's so empowering when leaders ask teachers, like.

And I don't really think this has ever truly happened like with authenticity that they're actually going to use what we say to make a change. Do you know what I mean? Like they ask us, but it's like they're just doing it to like look good and make us feel good. And that is 

Trina: so true. Like this kind of bull.

You know, dog and [00:23:00] pony show of let's let the teachers say what they want to say about this, that or the other, including equity, and we're going to pretend like we're going to listen, then we're just going to do our own thing. Like, I'm so tired of being pulled into conversations where I, like, prepare and give my information and my knowledge and my wisdom, and then it's just not even used.

You know, like that's really insulting and what you were just describing is the very paternalistic attitude that educational leaders have about teachers. Like we can't handle creating frameworks because we have too much going on. So let's do it for them. They're barely holding on. No, we're barely holding on.

Because we're cur we're dealing with the mess that you, the educational leaders, have created! If you will let us, we will guide you to a more humanizing and successful way to be! Like, I am so pissed when I hear this idea That creating a curriculum is too much work for a teacher, you know, [00:24:00] reforming school discipline, addressing the school to prison pipeline is beyond the intellectual capacities of a teacher.

I'm here to say right now, we are the only ones who can do it. Everybody else needs to shut up and listen, because we have the keys to fixing those problems we're the only one and the kids. Right? The kids themselves. Anyone who is not working on the ground floor in our classrooms needs to step back and maybe facilitate, but not lead.

Like they need to listen to us, right? 

Amanda: Absolutely. And I love that you said to the kids too, because the kids, yeah, they're the victims too of all of this. And are our schools responsible for the oppression of our kids? 

Trina: Yeah, they are. They're very good question. And they're not just. Like receiving oppression out in the world and then coming to school traumatized by it.

They're being re traumatized in our school. Yeah. And does that need to [00:25:00] be addressed? Yes. So although we're critical of what K 12 equity frameworks are doing, but we're still saying it needs to be done, right? There are basically two ways of dealing with it, not addressing it at all and even being openly hostile to social justice problems in schools.

And then there's These baloney frameworks we're going to be talking about too, right? So who gets to make the action plans? How do we decide who gets the help that they need to be made whole? So we're back to some of the same old themes we've already talked about. Folks on the ground floor are not brought into the work, so what winds up being brought to schools isn't effective and can even be harmful sometimes.

That is the case. Our attempts at trying to address equity issues in K 12 tend to be almost as bad as the original sources of oppression in the first place. Yes, this goes back to the fact that teachers are not included in the work as they should be, but it also intersects with the issue of the oppression of just kids.

Right. They aren't [00:26:00] asked just like we said before, and they're ignored, and they are not included in developmentally appropriate ways in the process either. So sometimes we bring them in and we expect them to act like little adults, or sometimes we bring them in and we don't honor their contributions, and oftentimes, they're not brought in at all.

And then when teachers. See districts forking over big money for what we see as foolish plans delivered by consultants like equity DEI consultants, and they can see that these plans are not going to work. Um, so we have really these two spaces. One, a district has strong rhetoric, but it's not implementing inclusive and authentic plans.

Or two, a district is just totally opposed to having any conversations at all. 

Amanda: Well, and we're in a blue state and we are, you know, experiencing what that's like. And it's really hard sometimes, you know, thinking about what teachers go through and say Florida versus [00:27:00] what we're going through here in California or like Texas, you know, and I think a lot of teachers, they're kind of comparing how bad it is.

Trina: Yeah. You 

Amanda: know, in different places like, Oh, you California teachers, you don't even know how bad it can get. And I think they're right. You know, like, I mean, and I taught in Utah for a while too, for five years in a title one school. Yeah. Just, I know that it can be really, really, I've definitely been in schools that it was terrible.

And the way that teachers were treated was just. It's terrible. Like, and I have a friend who teaches in, um, in Vegas and they don't even have a contract right now. And like at her school, three teachers quit in first three weeks of school. They were just like, I'm done. And I, I know that it's horrible, like, but I feel like that we're all teachers in America.

Um, [00:28:00] and there's problems everywhere and comparing how bad it is one place. To another place, like, does that really help? Anything like does that actually like solve any problems because that's like what I'm here for. I'm here to like, change things, you know, and, um, so I guess yeah, that's kind of what I have to say about it.

And yeah, I don't like, is it about politics? Like, From the outside, yeah, it is, and like, all of our parents communities have their own politics, their own religions, our kids have, you know, they usually align with their parents, and like, yeah, I tend to, I'm like you, like, I, I want to be thoughtful and realize that both sides Can be wrong and both sides can be right, like, at the same time, which is really complicated, you know, like, um, so, yeah, 

Trina: I mean, I really, really love that.

You brought up other [00:29:00] states because, you know. You did get that, or I should say weeks. I'm your cohost negative comment. I want to, I think it was the teacher pay episode, right? Of a teacher being like, Hey, cause we were talking about step and column. And look, I love this comment. So if that was you, please listen.

I love you. Hey, like I, we don't even have columns in my state of Texas. We only have steps or it was, we only have steps. We only have columns and not steps. It was one of those things. And so like their pay structure was. I don't know. It depends on the, if you adjust for cost of living, but it looked like it might even be more oppressive than ours because we have to keep going to school to earn our full salary.

And remember, that's at our own expense and they don't, they just have to do years. But, um, if the final analysis is that they aren't given an opportunity when adjusted for cost of living to earn what we earn. And I don't know what that is. You said it was what, like 80, 000 or something, and we get up to [00:30:00] 120.

But this is Alameda County, folks. An average, very small, modest home is almost two million dollars. So I don't, I, and I can't own a home. I, I'm completely locked out of the real estate market. Um, so I'm not sure, but the point is, is that we don't know what's going on in each other's Districts much less states because we are intentionally siloed the only way we can have this conversation.

And if you're like, I don't, I don't hear enough of what is going on in my district or my state to relate to this. Call us up, get on the podcast because we're trying to create that conversation from scratch right now. Cause you're right. We don't know what's going on in other States, but I will say this.

Like when I hear about what's happening in Florida, my heart breaks. Like I cry on a regular basis, my fellow teachers and the students there, like what you're going through and not just Florida, other places too. It just feels like you're under constant attack. And I am so [00:31:00] sorry that you're experiencing that.

And that is completely unfair. And that you don't need to be a liberal bleeding heart to want to say no when your district is telling you, you have to out your trans students like you. That's why it's not about politics. You don't want to harm your students, period, right? 

Amanda: Yeah, wow, yeah. Oh my goodness. Um, so, should we kind of define some of these things?

Like, like what is equity? Because we have been talking about like, LGBTQIA students in this episode, but we also, there, yeah, there's a lot more to this. There's a lot, 

Trina: yeah. So, okay, so traditionally, And by the way, that this is another eye roll, like everybody uses the word equity has their own idea of what it means, right?

Traditionally, equity in school going all the way back to FAPE by [00:32:00] thinking about special education was making sure that however a kid shows up with a difference in learning a difference in socioeconomic status, whatever. However a kid shows up, they deserve the same opportunities to learn. Right? So that's why we have special education programs.

That's why we have intervention programs. It was about meeting the needs of the kids, recognizing not everybody has the same opportunities. That's what equity has always been from the beginning. What it has. Grown to include is the consideration of what we call historically marginalized identities. And that is a, that's a very complicated term because In every society, there are a set of identities that are marginalized, and then there are in other societies, the same identity is not marginalized.

So, historically marginalized identities is a really important term to [00:33:00] get behind, and I hope my students understand this by thinking of the margins of the page. Like, where are the margins? They're off to the side. So we're talking about, like, identities that have, for reasons of their, um, their categorizing into this group, have not been given equal opportunities.

To, to succeed in society. So then they show up with the trauma of those experiences. They show up with the, you know, the, the inability to quickly and easily engage with content or quickly and easily, easily understand what's going on. Um, because of the trauma of those experiences, right? So in order to understand who the historically marginalized identities are, you need to think about the labels of dominant.

So the racially dominant group we know is white. We all understand that white people have had a greater access to [00:34:00] success. And resources in society, like I, if you don't see that, like, if you're not at least to that place where you can agree with that statement, you need to do some more research and read credible resources.

I, I'm sorry, I can't help you if you don't agree with that statement. So can 

Amanda: I say one thing. 

Trina: Yeah. 

Amanda: So I was teaching a lesson to my ELD class. Um, we watched a little video about like multiculturalism and they used a lot of words like ethnicity, culture, race. And in the video, the video brought up a really, really important point about race.

And I definitely highlighted it with my ELD students that race is a socially made up. Oh yeah. Phenomenon. And I actually made The point that, like, that race actually doesn't exist, it's [00:35:00] just a thing that humans made up to categorize each other and oppress each other, really. I just think it's important, you know, to like talk about these terms with kids and expand their understanding.

But like if you have a classroom, so I know a lot of teachers, they'll say, well, my class, you know, it's all like homogenous, like, they're all white kids, like, I don't have any kids who. Are like black or brown. So why should I even like talk about this with my students and I'm like, oh my 

Trina: And you're right.

I definitely studied that in my undergraduate work in anthropology Like I studied the invention of race as a social construct And it is invented and racial categories have morphed and changed to meet the needs of the dominant group 

Amanda: throughout 

Trina: history So it's all about whatever group is dominant Getting to create these categories out of greed really trying to keep the resources in their hands, the hands of the few, the hands of the [00:36:00] dominant, and then using racial categories to subordinate.

groups to oppress them and also to pit other people against each other. Like it's very deliberate on their part, right? But it's much more obvious, um, to have those outward cues that someone is different. And this is really important to note that like visible versus invisible marginalized identities is a whole dynamic that people within historically marginalized identities deal with.

There are real issues around the inability to hide these identities that some historically marginalized identities have to deal with while others don't. You and I talk about me being neurodivergent. We're not so neurodivergent that we don't pass if we like keep our mouths shut and like don't. You know, keep our mouths shut and act normal.

We can do that for a very long time. Other people don't have that luxury and that needs to be like brought up and mentioned here. And when it comes to racial identities, particularly like [00:37:00] black or African American racial category, we need to be very clear that they don't have that luxury, unless they have very fair complexions.

That that very outward sign of them being different and creating a racial category for that that was perpetuated for greed, pure and simple. After emancipation former white wealthy male slave owners actively and intentionally stoked the fires of mistrust against the recently emancipated slaves, and they constructed it.

Whole narratives stoking mistrust and hatred, um, that included all whites, even poor whites who would have had a lot to gain if they joined up with the freed slaves to organize over a lot of the labor rights that we enjoy today. That would have happened much sooner if we had all been united with the recently freed slaves, but the wealthy whites didn't want to share their wealth.

They were angry for having lost most [00:38:00] of their wealth in the form of their human property, and they whispered like Lady Macbeth into the ears of other classes and convinced them to create crap like the KKK. And then as soon as, uh, you know, emancipation happened, they also created prisons to continue to have a slave labor force.

To keep them wealthy and flush with their, you know, ill deserved, not deserved wealth. The fact that it is a social construct and invented doesn't make it any less, like, real in the lives of the people, yeah, that are experiencing it. 

Amanda: So what are the other dominant categories? Yeah, 

Trina: for sure. So white, whatever white means, and white has changed, right?

Like when my Um, great grandparents came from Sicily. They were not considered white, but they are, they would be today, right? Um, so that changes and shifts throughout time, but also Christian, and I know we don't think about this a lot, but [00:39:00] we have a so called secular society and especially, you know, Horace Mann's vision of a secular school.

Isn't really the case like there's a lot of Christianity and Christian bias and a lot of the things that we do, and in particular Protestant. So if you're Catholic, you feel it and know your difference, a lot of times in our society and in our schools, but also males. Um, people who are straight, people who are gender conforming, who act like a proper girl or boy, and I will say right now, I'm not a proper girl.

Um, I identify as cisgender, but I don't act right for a girl, and I've been told that repeatedly throughout my life. Um, neurotypical people. I am not neurotypical. I get that rubbed in my face all the time. But it's like really important for me to mention again that even though I'm not neurotypical and I'm not a quote, good girl, I have a lot of [00:40:00] privilege within those identities because I am very femme facing, I can pass as neurotypical, so it's not entirely fair for me to lump myself Into the levels of oppression of other people who are like gender nonconforming or not neurotypical, because I have a lot of privilege there too.

Uh, people who are not traumatized, if you haven't had trauma, especially in your center core group of your nuclear family. Like if you haven't had trauma amongst your primary caregivers, you, you have experienced the world in a much better easier way than people who have in specific other ways right. And about trauma.

Um, I'm a survivor of multiple sources of trauma. Some in my core nuclear family. Um, there was a lot of domestic violence and sexual assault in my home as a kid. You know, seeing my mother experience that repeatedly over many [00:41:00] years is extremely traumatizing. I have post traumatic stress disorder, but I'm also a survivor of sexual assault and sexual harassment and stalking, um, outside of the experiences of my childhood and nuclear family.

So I have like various forms of trauma. And I can tell you that if you have experienced trauma, if you have post traumatic stress disorder, like Many of our service members have, um, anyone who's survived a traumatic event or experienced family trauma the way I have. You feel very different from people around you in ways that are difficult and hard, and you wonder why in the heck you just can't fit in.

Amanda: And this is a source of invisible Marginalization. And I don't know how you feel about like the terms big T trauma and little t trauma because I, I would say that I had pretty [00:42:00] traumatic experiences as a child, but they're not like what you would consider as typical. I would think I would say more generational trauma and.

And also trauma in my middle school experience, being bullied by the entire school. Um, but no one knows any of that about me or, like, it's just invisible. It's, it's something that you bring with you every day. And, and kids in our classrooms, we don't know what they're bringing every day. It's, it's not something we really, uh, can see.

Trina: Right. I mean, I think, you know, in that way you can hide it for a while like you can keep that close to the vest in a way that kind of invisible marginalized identity is a way of you having distance, keeping connected from people around you. Like you don't run around forming student [00:43:00] unions at school over people who've had sexual trauma.

Like that's just not, you know, that's not something, a pride flag people wave. Maybe they should. I think people do. I think adults do. Adults, adults come together. Like a lot of the survivors of, um, the Catholic church sexual assaults, um, have bonded together and they work really hard to not feel shame. But I mean, it's really hard for kids.

We don't have Pride and those identities are so much shame in being a sexual assault survivor. 

Amanda: Yeah, well, and kids just being a kid is they're in a position of very little power. And so that I think that's important to to realize that kids have no power really at all. 

Trina: Right. Yeah, I mean, kids are their own marginalized identity.

That is something that I have learned. Throughout working in K [00:44:00] 12 and then also like advocating for other historically marginalized identities, like when I was working really hard to try to bring like the Me Too movement to K 12, because like. When the comment that Trump made hit the news during his, um, campaign, his initial campaign to be president, um, there were just all these girls who suddenly started coming to me with their sexual assault experiences at school, and this was a middle school.

And then I watched, you know, hopefully, gleefully, as, you know, I'd been a feminist activist for sexual assault, sexual violence for, you know, decades, and, um, yeah, I ran a domestic violence shelter, we talked about that before, and rape crisis hotline, but I saw this finally take root in our culture, like we were finally not tolerating it anymore, and I waited for it to trickle down to the kids, And I waited for it to trickle down into K 12 and it never did.

And I [00:45:00] advocated hard. I emailed Time's Up. I wrote Me Too. I collaborated with the Women's March people and it was false promises and or no replies at all. 

Amanda: Okay, let's keep talking about the other dominant groups that exist within our society. 

Trina: Right, so another important dominant group, which really came up a lot during the COVID pandemic, were people who were like medically stable, medically strong.

And so the alternate of that is what we call people who are medically fragile. And these are people, um, because they have weakened immune systems, or if they got COVID, or if they get sick, it is a, it is a life threatening. situation for them. And there's a variety of medical diagnoses that fit with that.

But I really, um, felt so disappointed in K 12 leadership when they were figuring out their COVID mitigation and how brave and upfront they were [00:46:00] about what we knew was the truth behind the science of how COVID was spreading and what our kids needed. Um, That weren't kids. Those kids were not able to come back to school in the same ways, for example, that kids who are more medically stable.

So medical fragility is definitely an historically marginalized group, people who are typically abled physically, um, you know, as well as mentally, if you're middle or upper upper class, if you don't have a mental health illness, You don't, you, that's also the privileged group if you're slim, right? So if you're heavy, you experience an oppressive society.

Like even just the size of the desks at school are not made for children who aren't slim. You have, if you're not at least moderately attractive, you're going to be experiencing oppression at school. If you're not in very good health, physical health, you're going to experience oppression at school. No, I have, um, uh, celiac disease.

[00:47:00] But I, so I understand a little bit about what it means to be left out of food at school and at work, but there are a lot of like things that a lot of kids struggle with with asthma and other physical medical diagnoses that oppress them at school. And of course, they're all children. So all children are oppressed.

Right. So these, all of these labels. Are defining the dominant identity, right? You can see that at least in some part of our life. Everyone is outside of that a little. Right. But if these are all of the, you know, labels, the more you have, the more your oppression is going to be. And when you privilege one of these identities over another and say that the equity work is only about this group, like you were saying before, comparing and contrasting different teacher experiences with social justice nightmares at school, it's hard to, it's hard to compare them.

It is very [00:48:00] hard to compare and play the who's got it worst game with these identities. It can be very difficult. In some spaces, it sucks to be more a girl. In other spaces, it's going to suck to be non white. In other spaces, it's going to suck to be non Christian. It just is hard to not be these dominant identities in general.

And so if you don't have what I have come to call an inclusive and intersectional framework, um, which means you recognize all of the identities and then recognize that more of the identities you have, the harder life is for you. You're already setting up your equity framework to fail. 

Amanda: And I think when we talked about the two buckets of schools, Right?

There's one bucket like they are very much against all of this equity talk and maybe they have an idea in their minds that like, you know, racism doesn't even exist anymore. What are you talking about? Like, there's people out there that. Think that that systemic racism [00:49:00] is just something that liberals made up or something.

I'm not sure. Um, but then there's this other bucket that I think we kind of live more in in California where they are doing equity work, but it's not from an intersectional place. 

Trina: All of these social justice movements hold space for one and exclude others. And it's dealing with that privilege that you have within a marginalized identity group is very hard work, right?

And as a white feminist, I've confronted this a lot. The women's movement is one of the most noticeable justice movements to struggle with inclusivity, because we're 50 percent of the population. Right. We're not a minority group. We're, we're everywhere. So we, we for sure get inclusion in all of these other privileged and oppressed identities.

And it's just super [00:50:00] noticeable and easy to see the problem with exclusivity and the needs for inclusivity in the women's movement. And also it's one of the only examples of oppression that is inter is universal. It's international. Every single society struggles with. Um, oppression of girls and females.

And it doesn't matter when or where you've existed, and you can't, it's difficult to say that about other groups too, so it's often really insidious. It's, it's the oldest form of oppression, it's baked into all societies with strong language in our religions and our culture and practices, and we see it in K 12.

And yet, women do benefit from their other privileged identities. So folks have been very critical rightly of this and have called out feminism for their colorblindness and other exclusionary practices, but really the deal here is all social justice groups really struggle with dominant group privilege.

There was a Christian privilege in the civil rights movement, male [00:51:00] privilege in the LGBTQIA movement, even though Stonewall, right, which Stonewall was the riots that led to the current iteration of the modern LGBTQ, um, i. e. movement. Stonewall was led by trans women. So privilege can take over spaces which are targeting social justice causes just like it can any other space.

And guess what? That's exactly what's happened in K 12. Their social justice DEI frameworks really only target and privilege certain identities over others. And even the ones that are discussed are done so in an inauthentic way, which really like tokenizes certain identities. And there are a lot of historically marginalized identities that our kids hold.

Amanda: I'm sure to different, to other marginalized groups, it can feel really hard. [00:52:00] Um, and I, I, I just wonder, Trina, you know, like school systems and like the goals, you know, like, like that we have to jump through hoops. There's always these hoops. in the way of, of like seeing all the nuances around these things that we have to jump through and they're just the way that schools are set up and just the way that our entire education system is set up to jump through coops.

Get good grades to, you know, move on to the next grade and teachers, you know, it's all about the content and like, and yet, and then teachers don't know what to say. They don't know how to like deal with it and neither do the. Counselors or the administrators and like, it's just like, Oh my gosh, like, can we please just have like open, honest conversations about these things.

Trina: I know. Are [00:53:00] you a big one I've been dealing with his students using gay, the term gay as a project. Yeah. Oh, it doesn't matter, Mrs. English, because, um, he's, he's not gay. You don't know that. And it's still not okay. Like, the kids need what, what, what I've always been saying is the kids need global messaging, which means we tell all the kids all the time about what is acceptable to say and what isn't.

Like, what is true hate speech, right? And like, I don't think any African American, getting back to one of your points you made a minute ago, I don't think any African Americans would say, oh, we're getting all these fantastic, um, you know, direct access to anti oppression work, we're getting all this help to help mitigate our oppression.

They aren't. And that's the point, is that like, they're getting like platitudes. 

Amanda: Yeah, 

Trina: they're being and when I say they're being tokenized, they are like really [00:54:00] these equity frameworks that you buy these can frameworks that you buy are going to sell you on the idea that you don't really have to do anything differently.

You just package things and sell things and come up with assessments that make it look like you're doing things, because really addressing that oppression would turn teachers and school leaders. into social justice activists, changing the society in general, which I always say education is activism. And the point is, is that like, even if you are being discussed about in these educational equity frameworks, and most of us aren't, most of them, most of the kids aren't, You're not being done.

So in a humanizing way, it's not humanizing, right? Because they're not really making sure that anything they're doing is actually going to work because they're not talking to us about it. 

Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, this has been a very, very intense [00:55:00] discussion about the problematic way that schools are either not approaching equity work, social justice work, or, or, I don't know, attempting to look like they're approaching this work.

And we're not done talking about. Any of this and we really like can't wait because I don't know about you. But part of the reason I'm a teacher is because of the traumatic experiences I had as a middle schooler and I identify as neurodivergent. And I also don't really present as like. The female I'm I think I'm more masculine actually.

Um, but anyways, and I'm also a Mexican, even though you might not see that like I'm just a white woman, right? Like, I don't know. I'm sharing all my, my identities, but I have a lot of privilege as well. Like, and so, but yeah, like being able to see And I'm like, I can't wait to see all of that about a person and then like, figure out, okay, well, how can we change [00:56:00] our schools to serve all of these different identities?

Like that's, that's the real work. And I'm like, really excited about that. Like how, and I have so many ideas, you know, and I know a lot of teachers do. This 

Trina: is a, this is a really big topic and I'm sure if you listen to all the episodes, you're going to notice we haven't covered it all. You can't cover it all.

Did you hear all those marginalized identities? Like, We can't cover them all, but what we want to do is just honor the idea that they all deserve space in the work. Yeah, like we can't, we can't address every single issue, but I, I do think that just putting it out there into the world that like, if you have a can for, if you have a K 12 educational equity framework afoot, it is exclusionary.

And I, I. I know that a lot of us have a lot of ego and wrapped up in the work, but if you have said we only have time to talk about this group or we can't talk about that if [00:57:00] you've had those conversations in your meetings, you've started off on the wrong foot, because there is a way to include everybody and to honor everybody's oppression in that space.

And if you've gone forth with ideas that were exclusionary, you need to dial back and start back at the beginning. You really do. And I'm going to just say particularly gender equity, but push back, you guys, you know, email me and tell me I'm wrong. I, you know, I think. There's a lot of we could say about other marginalized identities, too.

But yeah, when we talk about Title IX and the lack of implementation there, my argument rests there about the lack of gender equity focus in Cato. 

Amanda: Right, Amanda? Yeah, and you've taught me so much about that. And because you've expanded my understanding of gender equity, I feel like I'm looking at all of these problems in schools from like a whole other kind of lens and also everything I've learned about [00:58:00] neurodiversity.

And so I can see why people get really passionate about their oppressed group, you know, and their, their problems they're facing. But I, I do think it's so important to understand it all and to like build our schools in a way. And our instruction in a way that like you said is humanizing for all of the groups and all of the oppression that's been done to us through our society and I do feel like schools can be a beautiful like utopian like safety bubble because our kids, they are so impressionable, you know, and like what we like do in our classrooms and what we allow space for her.

Kids like they get on board really quick, especially and they see through our fake attempts, you know, like [00:59:00] really, really quickly and easily and kids are like, I feel like this generation of kids, they're ready, you know, for like, these changes, I really think they are and a lot of them are speaking out like, and it's, it makes me so proud and excited for the next generations.

Trina: Yeah, for sure. I mean, they do they see through. All of the baloney and, you know, just like the adults in the spaces when they hear things that don't make sense coming from up high, there's never any expectation that they should say anything because there's no, they have no. Opportunity to insert themselves meaningfully in the conversation.

And really, why do you want to care about equity? Why do you want to address social justice problems in education? Because remember, folks, we don't have enough intelligent, thoughtful people to staff our white collar positions. We're hiring from outside of our country because the oppression that's happening inside of our country is limiting the opportunities, learning opportunities to such an extent that [01:00:00] we are reading.

At the 54 percent literacy rate in this country, like you want real facts to back up what we were saying. There you go.

Thank you for listening, everyone. Please go to rebelteachersrising. com to contact us if you would like to be a guest on a future episode and to sign the petition to save K 12 schooling and our precious. And fragile democracy.