Dear Kalief Browder.
Dear Kalief,
It has been 5 years since the injustice wrought upon your soul pushed you, finding no other recourse for peace, to take your own life. In fact the first time I had ever heard of you or your story was when I was doing my usual leisure scan of news stories on social media and the New Yorker popped up. The headline read: “Kalief Browder 1993-2015.” That was enough for me to take notice and dive deeper but what I will always remember was how the picture of you struck my soul.
It was a black and white photo and you were dressed casually. At first glance the picture itself seemed ordinary. Until one takes a deeper look upon your face. Your eyes were closed and, at first glance, you seemed to be at peace. It’s not until someone reads your story that they realize what one was seeing in you was quite the opposite. Your eyes weren’t closed because you were at peace but because you were desperately searching for peace. In a tragic sense one could feel it was a peace stolen from you that would never be returned, no matter how hard you looked. To this day your picture has both haunted and inspired me. It haunts me because it exposes just how emotionally vulnerable we are to the injustices we experience. It inspires me because it made me far more committed to dedicating my life to the advancement of our people and the advocacy of our narratives. I also realized right there that I had a responsibility to use my platform as an educator to do just that.
To teach the African American Experience you must commit to teaching it, in all its uncomfortable truth.
You, your story and picture served as the inspiration for me to push for the creation of the African American Experience course at my high school. Your plight is what is written into the DNA of the curriculum that I created. It was a course taught with the same uncomfortable and unapologetic honesty that exists at the core of your story. Though I have since moved beyond the classroom I dedicated this open letter to you as I, simultaneously, write to every teacher and school district that wishes to teach the African American Experience. To teach the African American Experience you must commit to teaching it, in all its uncomfortable truth. This is a realization that every educator must come to as it did for me the day I taught about your story to my students.
It was the first year I was teaching the course and, due to the level of interest, -over 55 students in the class- I had to teach the course in our second auditorium. It actually worked out perfect since it made the class feel as if it was a college level lecture hall. My high school is one of the most diverse in the state of New Jersey and, with the exception of 3 students, the majority of my class was made up of students of African descent (African American, West Indian, Nigerian, etc). It was the first marking period and we were in the middle of covering institutions of oppression. Because I teach thematically rather than chronologically, the lesson moved from 18th century enslavement to 21st century mass incarceration. On this day I decided to show parts of the Netflix documentary “TIME: The Kalief Browder Story.” that was done on your life as well as the Huffington Post interview with Dr. Marc LaMont Hill. With over 50 students my class, at times, could be a little talkative but on this day you could hear a pin drop. As I scanned the class, a quick read of their faces displayed expressions that ranged from bewilderment, to anger, to a helpless sadness and despair. It was the most serious I had seen them and yet it would be what would happen in the last moments of class that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
At the very end of the lesson I played a clip of a reporter that had broken the news of your suicide. In that moment, they put your picture up. It was the same picture from the New Yorker and I paused the the video right there. The lights were off in the auditorium so there was nothing but a deep haunting darkness and the only light was your picture. I was in the front and my class was behind me. Though I could not see them I could feel them. Without saying one word you could hear the screams of pain, anger and sorrow in them and myself. It took me a moment before I could turn around. My emotions had gotten the best of me and what seconds felt like an eternity in trying to gather myself. I feared, if I turned around too soon, the compounding effect of their sadness and mine would be too much to hold in. That moment taught me just how real when you teach about our experience, the African American Experience, it can get.
Taking a deep breath and catching myself again after recalling that moment…
You became my symbol, good Brother, of the Black experience. Your innocence taken. Your right taken. Body and soul brutalized. Justice, blatantly denied. Then, ultimately, the tragic burden of having to live with the violation of your humanity. Like our ancestors, whose Black bodies were brought here against their will, to George Floyd, Jacob Blake, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and far too many to name, but all honored, you became the next example that shattered America’s image of “For Liberty and Justice For All.”
There is a burden that we who dare teach the African American Experience, in all of its beautiful and brutal authenticity, must shoulder.
There is a burden that we who dare teach the African American Experience, in all of its beautiful and brutal authenticity, must shoulder. The courage to teach the brutal truth even when it contradicts the image America wishes to portray about its history and present. The strength to answer the challenging questions of “why?” and “how?” that will come from our students in explaining why humanity has been consistently and systemically denied to a people. It is a burden that tests the resolve, of the Black and white teacher, when historical truth is equated to being politically incorrect or even downright offensive, to those that wish nothing more than to sugarcoat history.
Now I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned with how white teachers, or those not of African descent, would teach our history. The reality is only 12 percent of the teaching population is African American and, of that, only 2% are Black men. Therefore, in all intents and purposes, the expansion of the African American Experience being taught in classrooms means that it will be taught by those that do not look like you and I but that is alright. In fact we are seeing a movement grow across the country about mandating Black history in the classroom. I really think this is a good thing, as long as they understand what it means to teach about Our Experience. For some it will mean coming to grips with not being told the truth about the Black Experience. For others it will mean having the courage to answer even the most uncomfortable of questions from their students. What will they say when the Black student asks why the regular history text books do not cover the history? What will they say to the white student who may believe the history is a lie? Will they have the courage to dive into the deep waters that may shake them emotionally? But for all, I would surmise, it means being ready to confront their own biases, prejudices, racial micro-aggression, fragility and guilt. To be honest I have seen a lot of professional development that covers content, but I have yet to see any that’s really designed to prepare them on how to teach this emotionally. I mean how can they be ready when even myself as a Black man and educator struggled emotionally?
As a Black male educator, when I teach the story of you and our ancestors, I am also teaching the story of me. There is not one lesson that I have ever taught that I felt personally or emotionally detached from. Every story, event, tragedy or triumph in the African American Experience I have seen and felt. There is a sense of exuberance but also trauma that comes with it. It is because no story is academic, it is all personal and many times deeply emotional. This is what we as Black educators, who teach the African American Experience, have to navigate every time we step in front of the class. How deep down the emotional rabbit hole, that is our experience, will we have to go? What simple question posed, from our students, will peel back another layer from the infinite onion whose layers know no end? that What lessons shall we explore in depth? Which are inspirational? Which do we ask forgiveness from the ancestors in not telling? Which are traumatic and how much is too much trauma for both Black student and Black teacher to bear?
That is why, my Brother, I hope and pray that any teacher or school that chooses to teach the African American Experience respects it for what it represents in its totality. Not just enslavement or Civil Rights. Not just the Harlem Renaissance or any easy to digest, feel good, triumphant story void of controversy or confrontation. Not just the known historical figures we learned about since Kindergarten. But as a confrontation of the uncomfortable truth that our history books and society overall have hidden from America and our students for far too long. One where we tell not only who was hurt from systems of oppression, but who benefited. One that not just celebrates those who overcame racism but unflinchingly indites those responsible. One where racial massacres and human atrocities are no longer presented in emotionally neutral academic tones in our history books but told with the righteous indignation that reflects the horrors of the act. Besides it is what you deserve too. For your story, like all who comprise the African American Experience, to be told in its most authentic, uncompromising and unapologetic truth. Its only when we go through that hurt that we can heal and get better. The healing you deserved and never received.
Sigh….I could go on forever but that is all for now. Honestly I’m at a loss for words on how to close off this letter. So I will just say that I hope and pray you have found the peace in the next world that you sought, for so long, to find in
this one.
Rest Well My Brother.
L
Mr. Viney will be teaching a virtual course on the African American Experience beginning in Fall of 2020. For information on enrollment and other updates please subscribe to the newsletter.