Right now, in Indiana, parents, including my husband and I, are making a difficult decision. We have to decide whether we will keep our children at home to participate in remote learning or send them back to school during the coronavirus pandemic. My husband and I do not like any option, and we know we…
#DecolonizeYourCurriculm was the hashtag that I saw added online when my piece, “It’s Time to Revise the Curriculum; Let’s Start by Adding Juneteenth” was shared across social media. I was glad I put something into the world to make people think. It’s easy to share a call to action, but harder to see how you…
Educator Barnes offers a response and steps of action to the community members who are outraged by her teaching experience in Brownsburg Community School Corporation.
Recently, I wrote that the revolution must take place in the places where we are located. This means anti-racist, diversity, equity, and inclusion work should be happening because you are present. If it is not, real change will not come. A true revolution turns everything, everywhere, on its head. How do you actually do this…
During my senior year at Purdue University, I decided to join Haraka Writers. It was a spoken word performing arts ensemble of the Black Cultural Center. Khari Bowden, as known as Khari B. or the Discopoet, was and still is the Artist in Residence that led the group. He decided to update Gil Scott-Heron’s poem…
Why would a teacher submit her resignation for her first teaching job out of college in February of that school year? The answer is racism, mistreatment, and oppression. I was the only Black teacher in my building when I was employed by Brownsburg Community School Corporation. It was one of the worst years of my…
In a now viral video, activist Gary Chambers, Jr. made it clear that the behavior of East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member Connie Bernard was unacceptable, and he demanded her resignation. He started his speech with these words. “I had intended to get up here and talk about how racist Robert E. Lee was,…
I grew up in a two-parent household. My mom and dad married less than two months before my second birthday, and they have been married ever since. On July 6, they will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary. My father has had and continues to have a strong influence on my life. His mother nicknamed him…
I don’t feel emotionally safe at my current school. Typically, I avoid writing about my current job. I am a middle school academic dean who supervises an evaluates nine educators. I never want any person I supervise to believe I am bashing them online. I’m in a position of power, and I must use it…
When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, this marked the end of slavery in the United States … that is what a lot of people learned in school. Honestly, it is more nuanced than that. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued to free enslaved Africans in the Confederate states. Even if students learned that component, many…