Sheldon Eakins:

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 schools. I have a very special guest, someone that I have been stalking on social media for a while now and I'm so glad that she's finally on the show. So I have Miss Afrika Afeni Mills is here. So without further ado, Afrika thank you so much for joining us today.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Sheldon Eakins:

Pleasure is always mine. So I know who you are, personally. Well, we've been talking for a while before we started recording so I feel like I started to know you on a personal side, but for those who are not as familiar with you, could share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Totally. For my work that I do, generally speaking, I am the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for a company called BetterLesson. And BetterLesson provides professional development for educators across the United States. I've been an educator for the past almost 23 years, which always trips me out, because I don't know how other people feel, but for me when I was a younger teacher, that we'd be at events and people be like, "Stand up if you've been a teacher for 10 years, stand up if you've been 15."

               I remember I always was one of the younger teachers and then when folks would stand up because they've been teaching for like 20 or more years, I'd be like, "Whoa." But now that's me too, right? So I've been an educator for over 20 years and I started out as a fourth and then fifth grade classroom teacher. And just really came into BetterLesson as an instructional coach and then moved into working as the director of the DEI work at BetterLesson. And then I also do consulting with schools and spend time like supporting educators, which is my favorite way to spend time professionally.

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah. We were just talking about we're waiting on this COVID to slow up so that we can start doing... I know me personally, I love to do training virtually but I would love to be able to shake people's hands again and see folks up close.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yeah. Just before the pandemic hit, one of my good friends and colleagues, Monica Washington and I were traveling around the country and we had an opportunity to present at different conferences, and it just was really great to be able to be in person with educators and to be able to interface, not only during the sessions, but during the keynote and networking sessions. I miss that. I miss that time.

Sheldon Eakins:

Well, hopefully within the next year or so we'll be able to start going to these conferences again in person. I look forward to those opportunities.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yeah. Me too.

Sheldon Eakins:

So I want to get into today's topic and I think this topic is important. It's a topic that I have not addressed out of almost 200 episodes, so I'm excited about this. We're discussing the importance of racial identity development. And to kind of set the tone, I would love for you to break that down what that means to you.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Absolutely. So for me, I want to talk... I'll do a little bit of like... Talking about like where this all came from for me and then talk about where I'm at with it now. Maybe about three years ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the initial of the inaugural cohort of the Boston Educators for Equity. Not even just being lip services, I'm a legit lifelong learner. And for me I'm just like, I don't feel like I've arrived. In any way, I feel like there's some things I know, some things that I have for my lived experience, but I'm always a learner and I always need to get better.

               So being a part of that space, that was some of the work that we were doing, had a lot to do with like thinking about our own racial identity development whether we are folks who are called people of color because I know we can talk about like BIPOC or people of color. I identify as Black American. So having that opportunity to be in that space like awakened a lot for me, a journey that I had been on for a while myself. So I was like, all right, so we're thinking about culturally responsive teaching and culturally responsive and sustaining teaching and learning, which is absolutely essential. It's critical, and to the point where not only sometimes people see it as something that's an add-on, but I'm like, "No, it's not an add-on, this is the lens through which we should be seeing the way that we engage with students and their families and communities."

               But I'm just like, "But something feels like it's missing, because like we don't only have black and brown kids in our classrooms in this country, we have white students who are not engaging in this work because when people see culturally responsive, they're just like, "Oh, yes, for the black and brown kids. We got to make sure they're okay." I'm just like, "Well, I don't think that's the right perspective, but what are we going to be doing when it comes to white students?"

               One of the things that folks were sharing was like, "Yeah, when we're talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, white students are really having a hard time because they're just like, yeah, you're telling black and brown kids like you should be proud of your culture and proud of your race and all this stuff." And they're like, "What are we supposed to feel?" If I say I'm proud to be white, that's not going to go very well, right? So it's just like, "So what is it that we're supposed to be doing as white kids?" So I'm like, "That's a good question."

               So I started thinking about that. I'm just like, "Yeah, they're missing something too." They're missing understanding what it means to be anti-bias and what it means to be anti-racist, and even understanding whiteness as a race and what does that mean especially in the context of our world in general, but in this country in particular. So that's when I started thinking about that too like we really have to spend some time making sure that there is development taking place for our white kids in K-12 and then thinking about what that means then for those who are teaching the kids because we can't offer students something we don't have ourselves.

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah. I think if you teach your white students to say white power, it may not go well.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

No. [inaudible 00:06:01]

Sheldon Eakins:

I'm joking, I'm joking. But here's the thing, I think you're exactly right because we teach a lot of our students of color about black is beautiful and being brown, and all of these different things. I could see how some of our white students especially those who are like I don't really know what to say, I want to be proud of who I am. We didn't choose how we were born and what race we were born into, those kind of things. So tell me a little bit more. If I'm a white student and I want to be proud of who I am, how can I be proud of who I am without coming across as a white supremacist?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Right. So I think one of the main things we have to spend some time working through with students is that historically when it comes to the United States and the many, many troubling things that have happened over since the beginning, the genesis of this country is that there were folks who came over to this country from Europe who in order to buy into the concept of whiteness and to understand that race is a... It's a social construct. In order to buy into that, and to belong to that power structure, that advantage group or that privileged group, you had to suspend your connection to your country.

               So if you were someone who comes from a specific country with specific cultural values and traditions and things like that, those are things that were taken from you. Like if your family came through Ellis Island, your name might be different. Your ability to be able to connect with that part of yourself was diminished in order to take on this other concept that has come to be known as whiteness. So there's that part of it. So really being able to connect back with your own even ancestry because a lot of those things were eliminated in order to feel like you could belong in this country.

               Then on top of that because we don't talk about race in this country well, there are things that have happened where folks have worked in solidarity with one another that white kids are not very aware of. So for example when we think back to like abolitionist movements or the civil rights movement or things like that, they are white folks who were resistors. It wasn't the majority of folks, but there were white folks who were resisters who could serve as models and examples of this is what it can look like to be an anti-bias, anti-racist white person.

               But if white kids are not seeing that possibility, then they can't even dream that. They don't even know what the way forward is because they're not seeing those examples. But one of my favorite things like... I mean, there's so much that I love about the things that folks have been putting out in the last few years. In the section of Bettina Love's book, We Want to Do More Than Survive, when she tells the story of Bree Newsome and James Tyson working together to get the confederate flag down in South Carolina, those are the stories that we need for white kids to see was like, he put his body on the line in support of what Bree Newsome was doing to make sure that the police were going to tase the pole while she was climbing up to remove that flag that she was not harmed.

               So he put his body there because he knew as a white man that they were not going to tase him while the cameras were rolling. He spent his privilege in support of liberation, right? I feel like white kids don't largely get to see those stories and see what's possible for them. So I feel like those are a couple of things that are on my mind about that.

Sheldon Eakins:

Thank you for bringing that up because and I'll even add to the Niagara Falls Movement, NAACP, white people were very influential with the organization of what we call National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I almost messed that up. But you're you're exactly right. And here's another thing that I get a lot. Because I do a lot of cultural responsive work too, culturally sustaining work and folks will think, "Well, it's for black and brown only. I only have white students in my class." And then sometimes the students will say things like, "I don't have any culture. I'm just white."

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yes.

Sheldon Eakins:

And it kind of speaks to what you were saying as far as social hierarchy and when folks started coming in from Europe, and we had the first census that was created to basically put people in places as far as hierarchy goes because we know race, it's not a biological thing, it is a social construct.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yes, absolutely.

Sheldon Eakins:

And white people are not homogenous group. I try to let folks know that you have culture. At some point, y'all came from somewhere and there's religion, there's food or traditions. They have been lost. They have been lost, but they can be gained back.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Absolutely. And that's the piece too. My husband, he does a lot. He's pastoring now, but he had been working with Boston Public Schools and led their department of out of school time work. So he talks a lot about it because he does race-related work with our denomination and talking about race and Christianity, which is its own massive undertaking. But that piece of it too where it's just like, "We've all been racialized and there was loss that we all have undergone." Now, some of us in more very severe ways that are sustained and will show up in very particular oppressive ways in the systems, and at the same time like I think it's really important to really get at that right because like you were just saying, I've heard that so many times too where kids would just say like, "I don't have a race. I'm just normal."

Sheldon Eakins:

Oh, shoot.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Okay. But I'm going to be real vulnerable and just even admit this like talking about that racialization that normal like you're saying like white as normal, it gets so insidious. It gets into your mind and you don't even know it. So one of the examples that I will often share even though it doesn't feel good to share it honestly, there was a time that I was at a conference or it was like a teaching that I was actually there to present and was so excited because like I said, I love to learn, I love to share, right? So one of the people who was also there sharing, a message put up an image. I don't know if you've seen this image of Dove Body Wash. Oh, yeah. I gotta send this to you after. But basically there's this Dove Body Wash. It was called like body shimmer or something. And it said on it for normal to dark skin.

Sheldon Eakins:

Wow.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

The person put it up and I looked at it. I heard people gasping around me, but I was like, "I'm not seeing the issue with this picture." But I kept looking at it because clearly something is there that I'm missing and then it hit me, but it took a second, right? I'm like, "Oh, this message is that dark skin is abnormal."

Sheldon Eakins:

Right.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

But it's so like just ingrained. I'm so used to seeing that. Whether it be like the different type of colors of stockings that you can wear or even before we got into like Bitmojis and stuff like that. When I got the Nintendo Wii, I'm like I'm going to try to make something that looks like me, but there's not a lot of options to really be able to represent what I look like. We've all been racialized and I don't think we spent it like white folks in particular spend enough time thinking about that racial identity development. And what does it mean for you? What happened to you? What happened to you too? How do you regain that humanity through investigating what has happened and forging a new way forward for yourself about how you perceive who you are?

Sheldon Eakins:

I had, not similar story, I guess, but I think for me band-aids was what really got to me because I never thought about like these band-aids, the color of these band-aids don't match my skin, but then I think I saw a white person with a band-aid on and I was like,  I could barely see it there because it was very close to the skin tone. And I was like, "Oh, I didn't even recognize it." I think now they make band-aids that are darker and they have like different shades, but I think that was kind of one of my first moments of thinking about like you said, normal versus dark skin. I'll have to have you back on, we can talk about this.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

We can talk about it some more, right? Isn't that what you just talked about just now? When I was a classroom teacher, that was the other piece too. A lot of times in the beginning of the year like you're getting to know your students and one of the things you do especially in elementary school, I'm not saying that folks can't do it in middle and high, but I think it mostly takes place in elementary where you'll have students doing like self-portraits and showed you a picture of you and your family. And it's like poor black and brown kids was just like, "I don't really have a lot of choices here."

               So I know like now, you'll see like Crayola has like multicultural crayons that are available with different shades of brown. So you can draw a picture that actually looks like yourself. But there's so much of that that happens. Another thing that comes to mind like my kids are older now. My son is 18 and our daughter is 19. My son is about to be out of K to 12. But when they were in, probably about fourth and fifth grade, I remember when they had like a project in school and they were just like, "Yeah, we have to do..." It wasn't quite a family tree, it was more so like draw a picture of the flag that represents your ancestors.

               My kids were just like, "What are we supposed to do?" And I'm like that's a good question, but the guidance that they got was like, "Oh, well, if you're a descendant from enslaved people, you can just put the American flag." I'm like, "Nope. That's not jumping off, not in this house." If everybody else gets to talk about the ancestry, but not putting forward this because you're asking for ancestry.

Sheldon Eakins:

What about your indigenous kids too?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Right, exactly.

Sheldon Eakins:

What are they supposed to put, US?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Right. So I mean so many issues because even like students who have been adopted, you might not know who your biological ancestors are. There's so many issues with that, but my kids, they came home and I'm like, "What did y'all do?" They had this like Irish flag. I'm like, "Why did y'all..." They were like, "Mommy, you said they are our grandmother..." I think my great grandfather was Scottish-Irish but we got the ancestry DNA now, it turns out that's not quite true. But at the time that's what we thought, so they were just like, "This is the only country that we know." So they were doing presentations about Ireland and I'm like, "Oh, this is so problematic." But that's the piece too, it's like even who you are, it's not even considered what's the space for you to be able to talk about who you are, to talk about that.

Sheldon Eakins:

So you did you did your ancestry?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

I did, I did. It's interesting because it keeps updating and stuff too. So it was really helpful to be able to see it finally because you hear stories and like, "Oh, I think that your grandmother or your grandfather on your mother's side came from like black foot Native Americans, but we don't know for sure." So I got it and then still like... Of course, it's still very varied. It's just like we believe that you have this percentage from Benin and Togo, and the Congo, and in Nigeria. So there's pieces that you see, but you also see that European piece which is a trip to look at that as a black person, to see the percentages that that are there.

Sheldon Eakins:

Who did you use? Did you go through African Ancestry?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

I didn't. I actually did it... Because I think that came out after I ended up doing mine, so I did Ancestry DNA. My husband and I both did it.

Sheldon Eakins:

You got to do Africa Ancestry. I did that one.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

You did?

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah. Because I always wondered, and I found out that I come from four... They had me down from four different tribes when you do your maternal one. So I found out that I'm kin to Kunta Kinte.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

What?

Sheldon Eakins:

Part of the Mandinka tribe. And I said, "Oh, shoot." I was like, "I'm a warrior up in here." That got me all excited. I love that that happened and then there's some other ones, but I just kind of honed in on the Mandinka.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Of course. Why not, right? [crosstalk 00:17:37]

Sheldon Eakins:

But, yeah, you got to do the African one. They have a larger database and they can narrow things down a lot further than just kind of like West Africa, but they can give you a lot more information, and they'll tell you about the tribes and you can do some further research. It took forever, but I thought it was worth the wait.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Worthwhile, right? Because that's the piece too that I really feel like it... I mean, we go through all these different levels of the psychological and emotional impact of this stuff on us.It's something that we will always keep having to come back to because even once I got the reports and I started trying to build my family line, the ancestors that I have who are European, it goes back far. It's like this is this great grandfather and great, great, great grandfather. But then when it comes to black folks, I'm just like, I can get to maybe great grandparents, maybe, right?

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

But then it stops. The information that we have is like we don't have it, right? So there's this like big part of us that we just can't access, and that matters, right? We need to be able to have those conversations and to talk about what is the impact? Why is that true, right? Why is that true?

Sheldon Eakins:

Well, I'll touch on that because I know that my family is from Mississippi. At some point I know that's where we came from, but yeah, you're kind of right. Like great grandfather is about as far as I know. Someone sent me a message because the guy had... His last name was Eakins, and he's like, "Is this kin to you?" And I said like, "I don't know. I have no idea. I have no clue. I have absolutely no clue." And that was something I thought was like, "How come I don't know that?" I know what tribe I'm from, but as far as when we got to the United States and the lineage there, I don't know that. I don't know how I would get that census information or if that's even available. I have no clue.

               So man we have totally... Our conversation was all racial identity and you and I have totally shared it. I love that we're doing this. I don't write questions down with folks, I just say let's just talk for a few moments and see where things take us. So I appreciate you on that. Did you have anything else that you wanted to bring into this conversation regarding racial identity development?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yeah, I think one of the people who I am most... Not only inspired by, but also, I guess guided by to a certain extent is Beverly Daniel Tatum's work. And I really appreciate what the way like... I got to see her speak a couple of times and read why all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria, which had really hurt like it was so relevant to me because I remember something specifically happening to me while like... I was actually reflecting on this recently where I had gone to a camp in Minnesota three weeks overnight camp and I remember being gathered together in a gym with other black kids and being told like the white kids at the camp are feeling uncomfortable when y'all sit together.

Sheldon Eakins:

Oh my gosh.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

We need y'all to split up in the dining hall. And I'm like, "Yo. They're sitting together too. I don't see y'all gathering them [inaudible 00:20:49]."

Sheldon Eakins:

We're uncomfortable. They're sitting together so we sat over here.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

That's exactly right. When I even saw the title of that book, I was like, "Yes, this is something I'm really craving to really lean into this." And then getting to see the addition she made to it when she had the, I think it was like the 20th anniversary release of it. One of the things I appreciate about her is that part of the reason that... There's many reasons. Well, one of the core reasons why I think we struggle to have these conversations about races because it's just like we just keep passing that discomfort on and we never address it.

               So she talked about for example like when her son came home and he said one of his friends told him that he was dark because he drank chocolate milk. He asked it. He was like, "Mommy is that true?" And she was like, "No. That's not true." And then she explained it to him. She was just like we have in our body something called melanin and she began to explain to him where skin tone comes from. So I started thinking about them just like if we did that more, then we would have... I mean, not to say it makes it easy because there are very challenging conversations that we have now and will continue to have about race, but I'm like if we don't shy away from those things, then we actually give students the language to be able to navigate through conversations about differences. It's not something that's so uncomfortable. And the bottom line for kids though is like when they're little... That's one of the things that she was sharing like when they're little, they just ask, right?

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Maybe we stop asking as we get older, because we get conditioned like, "Oh, it might make somebody upset or this is uncomfortable, whatever." I can relate to that because myself like I told you, my son's 18, but when he was little, he was famous for that. We'd be in the supermarket. He would notice someone different and just loud. Loud with the questions so that immediately like it's an ego thing for me as a mom. I'm like I would try to hush him up. But I didn't always come back to him to answer his question, which are very legit questions.

               So that's the other piece too that I think that we need to get better is that we educate ourselves about difference and about the history in this country and we're honest about it. Then we can actually move forward. But because we're constantly hushing kids up and not educating ourselves and not coming back to kids to actually explain the answers to their questions and not doing it accurately or truthfully, then we just keep seeing this challenge that we have having these conversations exacerbated, so that we have things happen now too where you can have white folks to be like, "Oh, you got a black history month? Why don't we have a white history month?"

               I'm like that seems really plain to me. But you clearly haven't had this conversation before. So just even that like in educating ourselves so that we can give our children something better, so they can have these conversations effectively instead of not knowing how to talk about it.

Sheldon Eakins:

Okay, okay. So my next question then is age. When do we introduce the racial identity work? Is early childhood too early or do we wait until middle school or later in elementary? What are your thoughts on when do we initiate these conversations?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

I think as early as possible because if you look at the data around when children start to notice difference, they're babies, right? They're babies when they start noticing difference. So I think, we have to start them as early as possible. And there's so many ways that we can do it. When we think about the type of literature that we're sharing with them in the children's books. We got to be aware of the fact that like... I don't know if you've seen those infographics that show how so many children's books are, they feature mostly white kids, I think it's 2012.

               It was as high as 93% of all children's books featured white characters. And it has been getting progressive. And then in 2015, it got a bit better. It's like okay, it went down to like 73%. But when you look at the data, it didn't go from white kids over to black and brown kids, it went more into like cars and trucks and animals, and inanimate objects. I'm like okay. Then that continued when you look at the 2018 data, you see the same thing. Now, it's like 50% of the children's books are representing white characters, but now it's like 27% are about like cars and trucks and animals, and then you still see not as much about black and brown kids.

               So I think it starts with the literature, what they were reading to kids when they're little and that they're seeing different people, not just themselves. It looks like the toys that they're playing. If your kids are into dolls, but they don't need to always have a doll that looks just like them. Give them different dolls, right? They look like lots of different people. When we're showing them like what the types of entertainment that we show them. We need to be really intentional about showing them lots of different people.

               So then when they get older, they're not in shock like, "Oh, who are these folks?" It's like, "I grew up in this all-white environment. I've never seen folks before. Or I've only been exposed to deficit narratives about people because I've seen that the depictions of folks on the news or in certain movies that's really not even accurately reflecting who people really are." So I think as early as we possibly can, I know I have friends who are white friends who are raising young kids right now and they're being very intentional around what they're choosing for their play and their learning, and making sure that it's not monocultural just really only focusing on other white people.

Sheldon Eakins:

Thank you for saying that. Now, I'm going to stick on the race conversation, because I mean we can get into as far as children's books and representation of the LGBTQ community, our abilities, blind, deaf, hard of hearing, those things aren't as represented as well, but we'll stick to race for just a moment here. The other thought that that came to mind and that I've kind of seen across some of the questionable, okay, we're making some progress when it comes to the representation of our books, but we don't have a lot of representation on mixed families or students or children, darker skin, or brown.

               We'll see a brown person or a black person, but it's very... I don't know what the color is, but it's not a lot of darker skinned or there's more lighter skin folks. And then a good friend of mine, Dr. LaWanda Wesley out in California, she brought up the... Because we were doing some training with our early childhood folks out there and one of the things she mentioned was what are the... Are all the black people in these books, do they live in apartments? What type of jobs do their parents have? Are they doctors? Are they lawyers? Are they dentists? Are they construction workers or people that doesn't necessarily require college education?

               So it's one thing to say, "Okay, well we got a whole bunch of books added to our library that have representation as far as race goes, but then again, what type of occupations are represented? What type of living situations are represented?" So we can go a lot further than just saying we have diverse books.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Absolutely. That's the thing. I mean, especially as someone I've been grappling with my title for a while, but I'm just like I think that that's what gets tricky about when we think about diversity because it can seem like a checklist. It's just like, "Okay, yes, we have this." This is like yeah, but like you're saying it's like, but what messages are sending though, right? If we have representation, but the representation is not... It's like monolithic, right? It's like talking about like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk about the danger of a single story, right?

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

So that piece of it too is like we really have to analyze the stories that they are seeing. And then the other piece too as I saw like when I was talking about that infographic about children's books, there was... I don't remember who did this. So I'm like I could cite it more specifically later on, but they took the 2018 infographic and went deeper to say even amongst the books that have been written about children of color, how many of those books were actually written by people who are from those groups or are they books written by white people about kids of color, which is not necessarily coming from a perspective from that group of people, right? So I think that's the piece too, because I remember there's like a hashtag, it's called like Own Voices.

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah, Own Voices.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yeah, Own Voices, right? So I think that that's really important too is like who is telling the story? Even if there's diverse representation who told the story and is it coming from a place... Because somebody could tell a jacked up story like [inaudible 00:28:49] But that story was not cool. It was not okay. Absolutely.

Sheldon Eakins:

Well, that was always one of my challenges as a history teacher and teaching out of a textbook was when they had those special lessons or sections about Native Americans, I'm like, "Well, who wrote this section about the Native American tribes represented in this area?" Sacagawea story is told... Who wrote that story? Was it part of her tribe? Was it an indigenous person that shared that story or was it a white person that's telling their version of the story? We talk about for example the Lewis and Clark Expedition and we glorify it, but we don't think about how that was a reconnaissance mission. They were trying to take land and they got Sacagawea to come in and show them and introduce them to the tribes and interact so that they can take their land.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Right.

Sheldon Eakins:

We don't talk about that. We just make, "Oh, America expanded and we grew." How do you purchase someone else's land that's not for sale.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Right?

Sheldon Eakins:

We glorify all of that. And again, I think it goes back to your point about who is writing these stories about people of color? Who's sharing that narrative? I joke around all the time and I say, "You know what, I've never had a child." I've never gone nine months carrying a baby inside of me and then going through labor that whole process. If my latest book was how to survive pregnancy in nine months, a women's guide, who's buying that book?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Right. It'll be like Sheldon's baby rights. It's so true. That's how we end up getting textbooks to say things like volunteers came from Africa.

Sheldon Eakins:

Oh my god.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Workers came like... Yeah, that's a bit of a... I was going to say a stretch, but that's not even calling it exactly what it means.

Sheldon Eakins:

What do they call it, involuntary servitude?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yes. And I'm just like, "Hmm." Then I will tell you like I don't know if you've gone through this too, but even for me in the work that I've had the opportunity to engage with especially over the last several years is like even getting to know the stories of other marginalized folks because that's also missing, and I think we've talked a little bit about it today. But even for me now, I'm starting to really think about for a long time my parents were very instrumental in the foundation of me understanding black history because it wasn't coming from school.

               My parents were like they're borderline Black Panthers. They were like, "You about to know, Afrika Afeni, you're about to know me." And at the same time... So I remember learning, and even coming from Brooklyn I'm just like, "Oh, you have Spike Lee, 40 Acres and a Mule. I'm going to learn about that history too." But then recently I was just like, "Wait." It didn't work out obviously, first. So that didn't happen. But then I'm like, but 40 acres of whose land? Say it even actually did happen, whose land is this? Whose land? So I think that piece too is like even having that deeper conversation about not only the oppression that has happened to those who ended up being enslaved in this country, but even beyond that what does that mean to receive land? What do we think about reparations? What does that mean for everyone? Not just like one group of people necessarily, but for everyone is the impact of that. I've been thinking about that more.

Sheldon Eakins:

I've never thought about that.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yeah.

Sheldon Eakins:

And I work on a reservation. I never thought about that.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Right?

Sheldon Eakins:

40 acres from where?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

From who. Right, right. Is it yours to give? I definitely believe something should have been given, but what is that something?

Sheldon Eakins:

Wow.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

What is that something?

Sheldon Eakins:

You just blew my mind on that one. I've been preaching it was reparations, 40 acres and I'm like, "Well, who's 40 acres are we..." Yeah, that's... Wow.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

It's not yours to give. It's not yours to give, so it has to be something else, right? It has to be something else.

Sheldon Eakins:

The thing I like about doing equity work and the thing I say all the time is I'm personally on a journey as well. I don't think that I have arrived and I'm constantly learning like you mentioned earlier. In order to be as efficient as possible and be able to support other educators, it's important that you're constantly educating yourself as well. I remember I was teaching a class. I was in the Virgin Islands and they had me teaching Virgin Islands history and I'm like, "I've never..." I don't know anything about... I'm from the states. How you got me out here teaching USVI history? But one of the person said, "Just try to stay one chapter ahead of everybody. Just be a chapter ahead."

               That's how I look at the equity work is I just try to be at least one chapter ahead of everybody so that I can teach them what I've learned because I am still on a journey myself when it comes to learning this work.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

It always will be. I mean, I've been thinking about that too because even like this past... Was it this past week or maybe the week before I was like, "All right. So now I've been really thinking about intersectionality." Thank you to the work of Kimberly Crenshaw, right?

Sheldon Eakins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Afrika Afeni Mills:

So thinking about that. But because I'm like yes, there's a lot... I have my marginalized parts of my identity and then there's the advantage parts of my identity as well where I'm just like I'm really starting to become more aware of like able-bodied privilege, right? So even when I'm presenting, I'm like, "Oh, we started the session, but I forgot to turn on the captions." So I'm just like so if someone would need to be able to read the captions to be able to access the content, that's a blind spot for me, right? That's not something I automatically think about. I'm more mindful of it than I used to be, but I'm still feeling like... I don't know if you're like a Star Wars fan or not, but I'm like I describe myself as a Padawan all the time because there's still so much that's new for me that I have not thought about that I haven't had to think about that I want to be mindful of, right?

Sheldon Eakins:

Let me add to the captions conversation because this is something I learned. I remember the first time I did a virtual summit a couple years back and the community was like, "Is this going to be closed captions?" And I was like, "Oh, I guess I didn't think about that. Okay, yeah. We'll get the captions going." So I've always do captions whenever I do any type of video. Then I had a conversation with someone who was... I just learned there's only like 12 PhDs that are deaf and hard of hearing. People of color in general like not black people, just people in color, there's barely any, right?

               So I was speaking to one of them and she mentioned... I was like, "Well..." She was asking me about some support for interpretation as opposed to closed captioning and I said, "Well, I just do closed captioning. What's wrong with just doing that?" And she explained to me that we have a lot of our black and brown literacy, our students, and then when it comes to literacy and reading the captions and understanding it from like you got to read it fast. You got to [crosstalk 00:35:55]. And she's like interpretation is more accessible because they're used to seeing the signing and that is a better way to be accessible when it comes to your videos as opposed to just putting up your closed captioning. I said, "I didn't know that."

Afrika Afeni Mills:

It even surprised me.

Sheldon Eakins:

 I never thought about that. So now I'm like okay is closed captioning going to be enough especially if my audience is consistent of people of color who are trying to learn better, who are trying to do this work and be able to articulate it through sign? Do I need to get an interpreter, which will be more accessible to them as opposed to just a closed captioning?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

I think that's so important for us to think about because that's the piece too where I'm like... We talked a bit earlier too about not wanting to see something that's like, "Oh, I'm checking that off and I'm done." You hear people saying all the time like, "Oh, we got to be so politically correct and we got to keep changing our language." I'm like, "Yes, we do because we are really always learning and how to be actually... How to engender belonging everywhere that we are and how to do that in the best way possible."

               I had another friend who this past week sent me like... It was like a TikTok video and they had me dying laughing, but it was one of those... It's supposed to be funny, but it's also like so much truth to it where they actually did have someone who was an interpreter on what was to be a Zoom call, but what was being interpreted was the teacher being like, "Oh, this interpreter is here because student X is deaf and cannot hear." But the interpreter actually said, "I am here in the interpretation because the participants in your class are not able to sign. And that's why I'm here." And I'm just like, "You know what, just that shift." Right? We're not thinking about someone from a deficit perspective, we're thinking about like, yeah, that's like me going to another country and being like, "Oh, they don't speak English." It's like, "No, they don't."

               Well, one, that's probably not fully true, so there's that. And then even if that's not the dominant language, it shouldn't be. It doesn't have to be. So you shouldn't go someplace else expecting for it to be about you, you should be like, okay, I need to learn the language. I am not yet able to having a growth mindset. I'm not yet able to speak this language and I'm learning. So you're not thinking about what someone else doesn't have. You're thinking about like what you still need to learn, right?  It's a different mindset.

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah. Again, I do not claim to be... I don't even like utilizing the term equity expert when people say that to me and I say, "No, no, no, I'm learning."

Afrika Afeni Mills:

[inaudible 00:38:26]

Sheldon Eakins:

I'm learning. I'm not-

Afrika Afeni Mills:

I'm a committed learner. I can definitely say that's true. But I'm like no, I don't consider myself an expert because I'm just like I don't know all the things, right?

Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

I don't know all the things.

Sheldon Eakins:

I have enjoyed talking to you.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Me too. This has been a great conversation.

Sheldon Eakins:

This is fun. I consider you providing a voice in leading equity. Could you provide our listeners with one final thought?

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Yeah. I think for me it's just that the work that we have before us, it can feel really daunting especially like we're in the middle of a pandemic, there's so much that's already hard and then thinking about like learning about all the things, all our own blind spots, all the ways that we need to transform our thinking and our mindsets. It can feel overwhelming. There's this quote that I heard a while ago. I need to put it up somewhere on a poster in my office that says like the ocean is so big and my boat is so small, right? I think a lot of times we can allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by all the things that we realize that we need to do better or that we should do better.

               I think that what I want to say is a bit of encouragement though is that there are so many of us who are in that space like you and I are talking about like just we're committed learners. We haven't arrived. We're not experts, but we are committed to this lifelong journey of transformation to make sure that our schools are what we say they should be. With our mission and vision statements say we want those things to be true. For every child, we want them to be true. For every family, we want to be true, for the communities that we're in. And that we really just need to work together in solidarity with one another to keep that journey going.

               Yes, sometimes it's scary. When I think about the things that I have areas of privilege that I have and ways that I need to... My biggest thing now, recently I've been shifting my language around like the pronouns that I'm using and being considerate of that. That shifting is hard especially as we get older, but it's possible where we have to really keep thinking about what's possible in supporting one another and finding the spaces where we can continue to journey alongside one another and keep going, because the supports are there and the resources are there, and we just have to commit to not allowing ourselves to be daunted to the point where we are immobilized. We have to like freedom dream. Bettina Love talks about that. We need to reimagine what education should look like and we need to work together to build that thing, because it's possible if we keep going.

Sheldon Eakins:

If we keep going.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Keep going, yeah.

Sheldon Eakins:

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

Afrika Afeni Mills:

Oh, awesome. So my twitter handle is Afeni Mills. So you can follow me on Twitter. And then if you're on Facebook, I have... I mean, you can do a search for Afrika Afeni Mills. There's a page that I've made. It's Afrika Afeni Mills Equity Guardian. So I try to keep a lot of the work that I've done there. I'm also on LinkedIn as well and try to keep that space updated with the things that I'm working on, the things I'm thinking about. So those spaces will be a really great way to keep in touch with me.

Sheldon Eakins:

Okay. Well, it has truly been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

Afrika Afeni Mills:

You're so welcome. And thank you again for the opportunity. I greatly, greatly appreciate it.

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