Abstract
It is difficult work, regularly underlined with frustration when institutional politics, hidden bi-ases, and a shortage of local allies impede progress. This work will never finish in the end zone with a touch-down dance, and the victories are usually small. The outnumbered minority who are doing this work are often thwarted by the actions of people who consciously or unconsciously undermine it.
I am in a transitional stage in my development as a diversity educator; while I haven't completely lost the naïve save-the-world energy I had in college, I have acquired the scars of someone who has experienced dejection and failure. Many of my scars have come from colleagues whom I naïvely assumed to be allies because they are educators. But I've discovered that it's not this strife that prevents educators from helping students achieve diversity-related learning goals; it is failure to deal with strife.
As diversity educators, our ability to create this cli-mate stems from the op-portunities we had to learn from other educators who confronted us, were patient with us, and challenged our beliefs. Like many, I can do this work because of the learning experiences that these educators offered me. In this sense, diversity educators are privileged just as the dominant population is. We had access to education and the power inherent in knowledge. With this privilege comes the responsibility to share with others the opportunities and advantages that come with accessing and applying our knowledge.
While most of the reading I do and the workshops I attend about diversity education are the work of insightful, well-educated, and accomplished professionals, too often, I experience a negative energy generated by sarcasm toward and demonizing of members of the dominant population who do not yet see how they are privileged or see themselves as partly responsible for many people's oppression. When I catch myself getting caught up in this negativity, I feel a sense of disgust.
What this negativity indicates is that diversity educators are fallible human beings with stories that too often are not happy ones. When these stories get in the way of fulfilling our educational responsibilities, students pay the price. Many an eighteen-year-old white student, ignorant of the privileged position they hold, may look, act, and sound just like the person who hurt us once, but they are not. They are the students most in need of our help, and if we are careless, the scars we carry will prevent us from effectively working with them.
I keep negativity at bay by drawing on my earliest career training in counseling. As a counselor, I relished being in a position to help people through their struggles with illness or other difficult life situations. While treating some individuals who would not take responsibility for healing themselves was frustrating, my empathy toward them prevented me from giving up. Just as I learned to recognize that dealing with depression, surviving sexual assault, or managing anxiety is difficult, I must continually remind myself that confronting racism is, too.
In White Like Me, Tim Wise describes racism as both chronic and pervasive. It is easily transmittable to others in close proximity, and children (in their developing state) are most susceptible to catching it. As with depression and anxiety, there is no true cure for racism. Those who wish to fight it and other maladies learn strategies to manage and combat the damaging effects, with help from others who care enough to teach them how. My work as a counselor intersects with my role as a diversity educator when I live up to the standard of caring without question, when I teach in every interaction, and, most important, when I place student learning and development above all other considerations.
The most successful diversity educator and activist in the past hundred years was Martin Luther King, Jr. He preached that love was the only true antidote to hate. Empathy was the vehicle through which we could look into the eyes of individuals who hate us and love them. Love and empathy for a racist continues to test the most difficult lesson I learned when I was a young child: love the sinner, and hate the sin.
As educators working to promote multicultural understanding, we have to lead with love. Our anger, sarcasm, and defensiveness may be justifiable, but they are just as destructive as racism. In fact, these emotions can lead to actions that look very much like racism. Learning opportunities are lost when students feel that they and their family are being cast as villains, when they are told that everything they have learned in their life is wrong and that our way is the right way. Our first questions must be how to most effectively teach the students we encounter and how to show empathy as they work through the difficult process of developing multicultural understanding. This is not the time or place to deal with our own personal hurts and frustrations. The student is at the center of this educational moment, not us.
How, then, can diversity educators keep empathy at the forefront while balancing it against the personal need for reciprocated understanding? This question brings me to the central message of an article by Lee Burdette Williams: behind every face is a story. The fact is, I don't know your story, and any suggestion I offer about how to keep empathy at the forefront of your work would be contrived and based on an assumption that I am able to truly know your experience. That would be disrespectful. I do believe, though, that diversity educators must find a way to manage negative emotions. At times, when I find myself just flat-out angry, the only release that works is boxing. For me, there is nothing more cathartic than sliding on a pair of gloves, working my heart rate up, and pounding on a punching bag for three rounds. I think we all experience a type of ally-rage that can be our fuel if channeled cor-rectly I believe that it is far better to put rage into a punching bag (or other stress reliever) than into the next student we encounter. This coping strategy won't work for everyone; another's stress reliever may be therapy, writing, or leaning on supportive friends. Hurt should only be used in positive ways to energize the work of educating and protecting the next generation.
I believe that diversity educators do not spend enough time healing and forgiving themselves as they do this difficult work. If we are not healthy, I wonder how we can be ready for the next student. We need love and empathy as much as others do. As a constant reminder of this, I have prominently posted on my door a quote from activist and artist Amiri Baraka: “Cynicism is not revolutionary.”