Sheldon:

Welcome, advocates, to another episode of the Leading Equity podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school. I got a special guest today here, Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, is here with us and I'm excited to have her on the show. Man, we've been chatting for, I don't know, at least 20 minutes, and we haven't even started recording and I'm excited. So without further ado, Yolie, thank you so much for joining us.

Yolanda:

Thank you so much for having me Brother Sheldon, Dr. Sheldon, thank you. I appreciate being here.

Sheldon:

The pleasure is mine. I'm excited. Before we get started into today's topic, I'd love for you to share with our audience out there a little bit about yourself, and what you currently do.

Yolanda:

Currently, I am an associate professor at Teachers College Columbia university. I'm really excited because this semester one of my doctoral students and I, we are teaching a Black Lives Matter doctoral seminar, and that has been such a beautiful journey. I usually teach the staple diversity class talking about race, class, gender, sexual orientation, but I felt like something had to be different for me, and for the students, especially, this semester. I teach diversity this semester and Black Lives Matter. It's fantastic. So that's the work I do at Teachers College. I also work with school districts around the country trying to help them get it right to reduce the trauma and the violence that they enact on our children through curriculum, and through unconscious practices. And I write poetry too.

Sheldon:

Okay.

Yolanda:

More importantly, I'm also a mom, and I'm a daughter.

Sheldon:

Nice. Okay. I got a question now. I'm going to make sure I heard you correctly. Did I hear that you teach Black Lives Matter class? Like that's a class?

Yolanda:

It's a class.

Sheldon:

Tell me more about it.

Yolanda:

And it's a beautiful class because black folks are beautiful, and we are so multi-dimensional. And so we're looking at it from a multimodal look so we're looking at art. We're looking at music. We are looking at memes. We're looking at videos. Really this whole idea why, for some folks, why does the Black Lives Matter movement, what does it mean to you? We know that Black Lives Matter. We've been knowing Black Lives Matter, but for those of you going into the classroom, why do their lives matter to you? Why does this movement matter to you? You should be able to locate yourself. So it's a journey, and through this journey of people asking and answering that question, we just look at the beautiful blackness. So there are five themes, black joy, black genius. I should have it in front of me, but those are two.

Sheldon:

I put you on the spot.

Yolanda:

That's okay, but black joy, black genius, black art. We're just really looking at the things that show our beauty, and our genius, and not just the pain because we know that that's there. We don't need to emphasize that.

Sheldon:

See, and that was where I was going to go next because you pitched out the question why do Black Lives Matter to you? Is it out of a sense of sympathy? Oh, I feel so bad. Y'all been so oppressed, and George Floyd, or does it mean do Black Lives Matter because of the greatness, because of the culture, because of what's available, what is black. And I love how ... I'm sorry. I got some more questions about this class because I've never heard of this class before and I'm really ...

Yolanda:

I need to bring up the syllabus. I should bring up the syllabus.

Sheldon:

If I had known. So the question is did this course start this fall? Was this something that happened as a result of George Floyd, or was this already in the making? I'm curious.

Yolanda:

Well, you know blackness is always at the center of everything I do. And usually the beautiful thing that I love about Teachers College when you get to a certain point you can pretty much teach the things that you need to teach, and what you desire. And so I usually teach a master's level course, and this is my doctoral course. And some people teach the same thing every semester. I can't do that. I'm not wired that way, and I want to be relevant. And so each time I've taught this course, and it's been three times and I purposely teach it with a doctoral student of color to give them an opportunity to teach because we often are not given those opportunities as you know going through a doctoral program. Folks don't really look for us to say, hey, be my TA.

Yolanda:

So the first year I taught it, it was on feminisms. And I had a Latina assistant, my doctoral student, and we really looked at black feminist thought, right? The second year with a Latino brother, Dr. Angela Costa, he does work in mindfulness. And so the focus was race and mindfulness. And so this year it's Black Lives Matter because it's just the natural evolution of what's happening in the world. I'm already thinking about the course for 2022. I want to look at the carceral state of education. And I want to look at this prison industrial complex, and have folks, everyone from reformed police officers who were racist to formerly incarcerated folks. I work with formerly incarcerated folks as well. And having my students understand the relationship that has been made between education and the criminal injustice system.

Sheldon:

Man, if I could be a student again.

Yolanda:

Well, you can Zoom in.

Sheldon:

You got to let me come. Let me know. I'll jump in.

Yolanda:

I'll bring you as a guest speaker. I'll bring you a guest speaker with all the wisdom you have. You would have to be a speaker and not a student.

Sheldon:

I will be humbled. So we'll talk about that off the recording we'll talk about that later. Okay. All right. Sorry. We got side-tracked and let's bring it back. Okay. So you got an upcoming book. I want to talk about the topic. It's called Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces coming out May 7, 2021. The question that I have is why? Why should we even consider advancing racial literacy in teacher education, equity spaces, digital spaces? Why is that important?

Yolanda:

Beautiful question. First of all, we all need racial literacy. We're all racialized beings. We didn't build this. This is the way this country has been constructed. Constructed around gender and class and race. And so race has to be taken up by everyone, particularly, white teachers who are in the majority of teaching black bodies and brown bodies. So racial literacy, which is built in my development model on six components, the root of it is critical love. It's love that is connected to liberation.

Yolanda:

Some of the other components is critical humility. That word critical is key because as you know just like with critical race theory, we are really honing in on issues that people have tried to erase. So really talking about issues of all the social markers, gender, race, socioeconomic class so that critical means that we're going to take a critical dive into this. So the components are critical love, critical humility. You must be humble to know that everything that you think you know is limited, especially, when you are not part of that legacy and that rich history of the children that you're teaching.

Yolanda:

Critical reflection. There's a historical literacy. Gholnecsar Muhammad writes about historical literacy, understanding not just broadly how this society was made, but also what's the historical literacy around the school, right? Like where do you teach, right? Is a rich history on reservations. How much did the teachers understand about that writ large in terms of what we've done to First Nation peoples, but also about that specific history of that specific reservation, or that community, or that school. And then there's arc of self, archeology of self, which is the main piece that I have been engaging people with in professional development, which is doing that deep excavation of the biases and the stereotypes that live within.

Yolanda:

And my hope, Brother Sheldon is in doing this work, people will then interrupt. To interrupt the racist practices that are in their homes, in their lives, but certainly in the classroom. And so this book offers this model of racial literacy development, but brilliantly, my co-author, who does a lot of work in digital learning, and digital literacies has helped to create this racial literacy for activism. And we're now in remote learning, quick, fast, and in a hurry, but really there has been a history of folks taking to the internet starting with Black Lives Matter. That all started with Alicia Garza looking at yet another injustice of a police officer not being convicted, and saying, hey, black people, I love you. Our lives matter. Hashtag Black Lives Matter that's how it started. And you can look around the world, whether it's in Egypt, rising up against the government, all over the world, the internet is the new grassroots place to organize.

Sheldon:

Say that one more time.

Yolanda:

The internet is the new grassroots place to organize.

Sheldon:

Yes.

Yolanda:

And our children are involved with it. They're not just doing TikTok videos. Okay, that's the fun stuff, black Twitter, all of that is important, but they are actually organizing. And so teachers need to understand that phenomenon, and they also need to make space in the classroom for young people to talk about what does it mean to be a digital activist?

Sheldon:

Okay. You gave me a lot. I wrote some notes and I want to break some of that down. In the beginning when you first started responding about the why. What I gathered from that I do a lot of this work. I do a lot of culturally responsive teaching, and it sounded like from what I heard was we need to go beyond just being culturally responsive because you mentioned, okay, think about the history. You work on a reservation Sheldon. Do you know about the history of their treaties? Do you know about their land? Do you know about maybe where they were at prior to being forcibly put on this piece of land that they're on now?

Yolanda:

Yes.

Sheldon:

And how does that intertwine with education? And what can you do to support the community that you're serving beyond the typical, quote, unquote, what is supposed to happen, or what standards are supposed to be met? So that's what I gathered from the beginning of your response. Then you moved into going online, and the grassroots portion of activism, and what that looks like. I think it's so important, especially, TikTok. My little girl is probably on TikTok right now as we speak, and that is her medium. That's what she loves to utilize. And I just think the amount of influence that you can have on society when you have a message that is utilizing TikToks, your Twitters. I mean, people are still on Facebook these days, but it's more like people our age.

Yolanda:

That's the OGs. The OGs, yeah, we're still on Facebook.

Sheldon:

You know what I'm saying? That's more like our age, but it's still there in Instagrams, right? So, okay. Let's get into that. What does it mean to be a digital activist? What is the definition of that?

Yolanda:

And this is beautiful. What a beautiful question. And as I look at my 16-year-old respond to some of the stuff that she saw online within her own friend group, but just out there, I saw her digital activism take place. Now, first and foremost, there are so many different communities that young people can be a part of online. And so that's one, finding a community. And we know from grassroots organizing, you first have to know who your people are. So that's the first thing.

Yolanda:

Once you know who your people are, you use that power of texting, of creating memes, of posting videos to state how you feel, what you believe, and to rally your people together around the cause. That's the digital activism piece that staying within that world of digital literacies of the internet, and you're making known. So that's one thing.

Yolanda:

It's also mobilizing. Folks are able to mobilize to say, there's going to be a protest, and this is where we meet. Like before we got into social distancing you have 500, 800, 1,000, 3,000 followers. You're able to tell them quickly if they're in that city, or that state where to go for a protest. In the past, it had to be putting up flyers, phone calls. We now can do it with one posting, very powerful.

Sheldon:

If you have that level of influence, right?

Yolanda:

If you have that level of influence.

Sheldon:

So let's say I'm just starting my account and I don't have five followers. That's my mom, my dad, and my brother, right. So I got one actual person that's outside of my family, right? What steps can I take? I want to be a digital activist, but I don't have any followers.

Yolanda:

No, that's real. That's real. And that's why you have to know the communities, seek the communities, and then you follow them. And then when they are doing let's say IG lives, or they're posting things everyone has a voice to some extent. Not that everyone is going to listen all the time, but let's say you like what John Legend is doing, let's just say, and people are open. You go, you start following John Legend. You follow the things that he's doing. You start making your comments on his page. And that way you're contributing your voice.

Yolanda:

Somebody might see something, and say, hey, I like what you said and begin to like you. And then that's how you eventually start pulling followers as well, but it's not about how many people are following you, but also how you are participating in that world. So find the people who are about something, follow them, post on their page, like it, repeat it, retweet it. That's also digital activism. A lot of people see things passively let's say on Twitter, and they're afraid to retweet it. So it's a conscious effort. If it's saying something like defund the police, you're retweeting that that's digital activism because you're letting people know that that's what you believe.

Sheldon:

Let me throw out something to you. Okay? During George Floyd, everything, you know how media goes. They highlight what they want to highlight. And so there was a lot of folks that were, quote, unquote, people of influence, and they weren't saying anything regarding Black Lives Matter. George Floyd, ain't saying nothing. It was quiet. It was crickets.

Yolanda:

Crickets, yes.

Sheldon:

At best, at best, I might have seen a retweet from some people. How important to you is it that we go beyond just doing a retweet and saying, okay, I did something. I said something. I did my part. How important do you think it is for us to go beyond just a retweet and speaking our mind?

Yolanda:

Wow, brother, that's beautiful, and you're getting to the heart of the matter because some people can become armchair activists, right? Like you can fall into that comfort, and just tweeting and retweeting and feeling like you're doing something, but you know in your heart you're not doing the right thing. You know that it goes beyond who you're following and who you're retweeting. Like when you're in spaces, when you have an opportunity to speak up, are you speaking up? Are you, if you can afford it, are you giving money to causes, right? If, particularly for those of us who are educators, how are you pushing back on some of these racist policies that you know are not serving our children well, right? And that can't be summed up in a tweet. And so for me, the tweeting is just a manifestation of what the beliefs are that I hold.

Yolanda:

So if I see someone that is putting on Twitter, something that I inherently believe that's part of my activism, but that is not all of my activism. And so we talk about that in this book, too, because particularly as we have to bring some of that energy online into the classroom space, and that has to be reflected in the activities that we ask the kids to engage with, having them make posters. We're social distanced now, but you know that there's protests happening in their communities. Make space to have poster literacy, and have them make some of those Black Lives Matter, First Nation Lives Matter posters in your classroom. And so how will you educate, or making space for this to happen? Does that make sense?

Sheldon:

I'm with you. It makes sense to me. I just wanted to make sure that my folks out there listening, all the advocates out there listening are on the same page. I think so. I believe so. So, all right. I'm going to throw another one at you because that's what I do, all right?

Yolanda:

I listen to your podcast. I know how you be. I know what you do. I had to work myself up to get on this thing.

Sheldon:

When you come into the gauntlet you got to be ready. So, so here's the thing. Here's the question. All right. I did a training with a group a few weeks ago. It was maybe the week after this whole insurrection nonsense, white privilege thing in Capitol Building, okay? That whole shenanigans, right?

Yolanda:

What a mess.

Sheldon:

So the district releases a statement, basically, to the staff, don't say nothing. Try to keep it, don't be political. Don't address this. And so you already had staff that were like, well, I already tweeted the other night like the night of, or the day of, so it's already out there, but I know that there's some staff that got in trouble at this district. They got in trouble for their tweets, their social media posts in response to what happened.

Sheldon:

Their question to me was what should I do because now in the future, I mean, I already got a reprimand, or whatever that looks like. I want to continue to be vocal, but I'm afraid that I might lose my job. One of the things that I see on their Twitter handles it will say retweets are my own, or those kind of disclaimers at the end, but what do we say to folks that say, I want to be vocal, but I'm afraid of losing my job?

Yolanda:

But then I want to say this. And I am not, Brother Sheldon, by any means trying to take food out of someone's mouth. We know the fragility that we're in, in the economy, jobs are hard to come by, but that person has to do some really deep and honest self-work. Are you about it, or are you about it? Because one thing we do know in doing this work, there is going to be at some point, you're going to have recognize what skin you have in the game, at some point. And so each time when that comes up, if you're going to retreat to fear, I mean, think about the movements that have happened that we write about, and that we talk about people lost their lives. There was bloodshed. People lost their jobs. People left colleges and schools to put their bodies on the line.

Yolanda:

I'm always asking, what are you willing to lose? There's so much to gain. There's humanity. There's the authentic relationships with people. There's looking at communities in a freer way, because if you are looking at, as Toni Morrison, TT Tony, I call her. She says, "If somebody has to be on their knees for you to be tall, then you have a problem." So you might have certain advantages, but you too are still in bondage. So it is about having all of us get free.

Yolanda:

So I would have to have that person really say, well, how deep in this are you? Are you about the equity of children as an educator, or aren't you? Because you are going to constantly be tested. So that's another thing about white supremacy, status quo, it shrouds people in fear. People are selfish by nature. And I get it, you have families to take care of, and all of that, but the people that are having inequality hurled at them they have families too.

Yolanda:

So the question becomes, why did you enter the profession in the first place? Particularly when you're teaching black and brown bodies, why are you teaching there? If you're not willing to be an advocate because it's more than being a teacher. You have to be willing to advocate for your students because so much inequality is so deeply entrenched in their lives and their communities. You can't just show up and say that I teach math and then be ready to go.

Sheldon:

No. One of the things I say is just the privilege of being able to say, you know what? I don't want to be vocal today. I don't want to say anything. Just having that privilege. I'm black every day. I can't say you know what? I don't want to be black right now. I'm choosing not to be black this. I'm going to turn it off for an hour. I'm going to come back to it.

Yolanda:

Awesome.

Sheldon:

Just being able to say, you know what? I don't want to do it. I'll be an activist later, or I'm tired. I'm tired of being an activist. I spent my whole day. I was going to go shop for some groceries. Instead, I was spending my time holding some signs out on the street, okay? People don't think about if you say that you're about this life it's not an on and off switch that you utilize. That's an all-day thing.

Yolanda:

You just said it. I don't have to add anything else. Plus 1,000, forget about plus one, plus 1,000 to everything that you said. Yes and yes. And here's the thing. People know in their hearts if they're doing right by children they know it. And with so much so open and vocal you can no longer say that you didn't know. I didn't know. Everybody knows. So let's say you didn't know before, you know now what's going to be different.

Sheldon:

What's going to be different.

Yolanda:

And if you can't do anything different then stop teaching. Go and do something else because this is a human endeavor. We use curriculum. That's how we get the paychecks and do all of that, but this is a human endeavor when you're in front of other human beings. No, I'm sorry, got to do better. Auntie Maya said, "When you know better, you do better." Auntie Maya Angelou. You know better, you got to do better.

Sheldon:

Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So let's start to wrap things up. I'm going to throw out another question to you because I know that a lot of folks will say, well, right now we're doing a lot of online learning. Right now digital equity to me is important, but why is this a sustaining conversation? Why should we be talking about this a year from now, two years from now? Hopefully, after this pandemic is over and we're back in class, or whatever, why is this going to be relevant years to come?

Yolanda:

I will say this. Hey, people, we're in the 21st century. We never thought probably that we would be doing this right now. Look at how normal Zoom is. I remember The Jetsons, that's my era, The Jetsons cartoon, which had no black characters, by the way, okay. That's another conversation. The Flintstones, all that. I think The Flintstones had one black character, right? But I was thinking when I was watching that, oh, my gosh, look how cool is that to be on a phone, and seeing somebody else's face. So to answer your question, the change is already here. Not what Sam Cooke said, that the change is going to come. The change is here and it's only going to develop and get deeper. And so this is who we are. This is how we communicate.

Yolanda:

Even post-pandemic doing the work that I do is going to be very hard for me to get on a plane again. When I know that I can do and be effective doing this work on a computer, why would I want to fly and be away from my daughter and my mom when I can be here with them in the house, and still do the work to some extent. There's no, what do you say? No substitute for in-person touch, of course, but for those people to think that we're going back, what are we going back to? Black and white television. What are we going back to? Everything you look at we've only advanced, and it's going to continue. I don't know if people are being nostalgic. If they're thinking this is a moment, and not a movement, life is moving forward. So teachers have to be on board, or get left behind.

Sheldon:

Or get left behind. This is a powerful conversation. I have thoroughly enjoyed this time.

Yolanda:

Me too.

Sheldon:

Could you do me a favor? Well, do us a favor? Would you leave us with one final thought?

Yolanda:

Love is the answer. You can look at that however you need to, but when I'm talking about particularly teaching our children because we were raised in our homes with love. We have ancestors who loved us enough to die for us. We have people in the movement who love us enough to put their bodies on the line against brutality, all of this. They love us and we are of love. And so when it comes to teaching us, you must approach us with love because that's what we know. That's how we're still here. So if you're coming at us some other kind of way, it's really not going to stick. And I think that's why we're in the mess that we're in because teachers are finding it very difficult to love children who are not their own.

Sheldon:

Yolie, we got some folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Yolanda:

Yeah. Can I share some news, also, if it's okay?

Sheldon:

Do your thing.

Yolanda:

So you know the book Love from the Vortex I told you that's coming your way, but there's also an audible album that's going to be dropping. And I want people to look out for that because this book has brought healing to people. I've read all the poems, it's set to music, it's set to original sound. So I'm excited about the audible album. I want to share that, and then just follow me on my socials.

Yolanda:

I've been teaching for 29 years, but I'm one of those teachers. I'm not on TikTok, that's my daughter, but I am on IG @yolie_sealeyruiz. I'm on Twitter @RuizSealey. I have a website, yolandasealeyruiz.com. And you Google me and I'm out in the internet world. I welcome emails. I welcome feedback. And we have to be in this thing together so I'm always looking for fellow warriors to chat it up with. Much like yourself, brother, thank you for being that warrior.

Sheldon:

Well, thank you. I'm going to have to follow you on IG. I'm trying to get my IG back on track. I kind of fell off for a while. So I'm trying to get back.

Yolanda:

Come on back.

Sheldon:

And, also, again, your book is coming up, Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces, looks like it's coming out May 7, 2021.

Yolanda:

Yes. It's going to be hot. Hot in the sense that we got a chapter in there say their names. You don't usually see that in traditional educational texts. And I always want to remember my brothers and sisters who have fallen just because of the skin that they're in. We got to stop it. We got to acknowledge it, but we also have to stop it.

Sheldon:

We do.

Yolanda:

I'm excited about it.

Sheldon:

Well, it has truly, truly, truly been an honor. And it's been a pleasure. I thank you so much for your time.

Yolanda:

Thank you for having me.

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