The Washington Post report about Norman, Oklahoma teacher James Coursey is currently the paper's second mostly widely read story. The Post's Cleve Wootson reports that Coursey was caught up in a controversy when teaching about "implicit bias -- the belief that we all have unconscious opinions about race, gender and ethnicity that subtly affect our actions." He further explains, "The incident illustrates the tightrope teachers walk between engaging students in the important issues of the day and staying neutral in a room filled with impressionable youths."
An unidentified student further explains:
What has been reported in the news doesn't accurately portray what happened in our philosophy class, nor does it reflect what we believe in at our school. ... The information was taken out of context and we believe it is important to have serious and thoughtful discussions about institutional racism in order to change history and promote inclusivity.
Paul Ketchum, a University of Oklahoma professor with extensive experience in teaching about race in this state and who taught in the Los Angeles inner city, supports Coursey and explains, "This teacher's going to face a lot of blowback, because most of the students at Norman North are white and come from white families. That's why they might view this as an attack on them."
I know from firsthand experience that Ketchum has excellent judgment in terms of addressing sensitive racial issues. While teaching in Watts, he would have had seen the same brutal legacies of personal and institutional racism as Coursey encountered when teaching in the inner city of the Oklahoma City Public School System. But I don't know if I agree with Ketchum that Jim could have made a "rookie error in teaching about race," by making the mistake where, "You go for the big term when a less loaded term would be better to make it a teachable moment." (emphasis mine)
I say this because Coursey isn't just a great, veteran teacher. He's an incredible teacher. Jim taught next door to me when our often blood-soaked high school dropped to the bottom of the state. Jim excelled when facing challenges that many teachers - even many inner city teachers - would find overwhelming.
The Washington Post's account of the controversy tells me that the dispute shows how much more complicated racial issues have become. It reports, "In the recording, the teacher shows a YouTube clip about imperialism. A man in the video uses white-out on a globe to illustrate how European influence spread across the world."
Of course, the video is correct. As I used to teach in World History, cultural imperialism was an essential component of imperialism. And, the Oklahoma Standards of Instruction required me to teach about imperialism, and that is not possible without explaining white racism. (The video I used to introduce the subject was Denzel Washington, in the role of Steve Biko, explaining colonialism in Cry Freedom.)
The Post then reports, "In the recording, the teacher asks: 'Am I racist? And I say yeah. I don't want to be. It's not like I choose to be racist, but do I do things because of the way I was raised. ... 'To be white is to be racist, period.'"
At that point, a teacher could say that the same implicit bias applies to persons of all races. I believe that is the case. But, making such a statement would open a teacher up to another set of attacks. Some argue that races that have been oppressed can't be called racist. I disagree, but a teacher must watch his words or face a possible backlash from persons who believe that racism should be used to describe people with implicit bias who are privileged, but not people who have been disempowered.
Of course, the safe approach would be simply to lecture about the hegemonic structures inherent in imperialism!
I'm joking, of course. To teach complex issues and prompt discussions in public school, teachers must use terms that risk being heard as simplistic. They must do so in classes where any student may record the lesson on a cellphone, and where any parts of the give and take can be taken out of context.
Teachers must also translate nuanced and controversial subjects using terms that entire classes of students will understand. If out-of-context words are repeated outside of class, then the teacher can face calls for his termination. Teachers must navigate these dilemmas at a time when tenure, i.e our due process rights, is under attack by corporate school reformers as well as the rightwing.
I suspect that Jim Coursey will come out just fine. Norman is a great school system in a college town which has responded very well to a 2015 video documenting racism in a fraternity. Its Superintendent Joe Siano, who was cited in the Post, is excellent. Students have rallied in support of Coursey. I've seen Jim's grace under pressure when wrestling with crises that many or most white people would find incomprehensible. (Oops! Were I not retired, should I be fired for writing that?)