The Paradox: Wonderful Evals in the Face of Teaching Antiracism and Multicultural Education

• In Event: The Hate U Give "F" Us All: "Race" and Racism in Student Evaluation of Teaching

Abstract

This chapter examines the opportunities and risks for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) faculty in teacher education programs (TEPs) who draw on epistemic disobedience to confront white supremacy, resist “Othering,” and support abolitionist teaching (Andreotti, 2016; Love, 2019; Grande 2015). For this discussion, teaching refers to insurgent pedagogical actions that aim to unsettle “commonsense” cultural assumptions and discourses (de Sousa Santos, 2018; Hooks, 2014; Mignolo, 2011). While theorizations vary across approaches and traditions, for this study “commonsense” refers to the accepted or “normal” discourses originating from White students that they have an inalienable right to control BIPOC faculty whose teaching unsettles white authority (Harris, 1993; Ohito, 2016; Zembylas, 2018). Using a Testimonio counter-narrative approach, this paper interrogates liberal claims of social justice and troubles narratives of “racial progress.” By interrogating and disentangling the experiences of one BIPOC faculty member, this chapter highlights how epistemic disobedience, as a means of showing white students the borders that they must cross in order to understand other vantage points threatens whiteness.
Little research exists on the necessity for epistemic disobedience as a mode for BIPOC faculty survival or as a way of sustaining the integrity of non-western epistemologies in TEPs (Dei, 2008). This chapter seeks to address this gap in the existing research, as well as to produce new knowledge about the continued violence against BIPOC faculty who draw on non-western epistemologies in teacher education (Grande, 2015; Wynter, 2003). In addition to examining a range of dimensions of subjugation and resistance experienced by BIPOC faculty, this chapter offers a set of guiding principles for any faculty member interested in disobeying the Euro-centered logics of TEPs, including dominant notions of who can serve as an educator for white college students. As a way of revealing how TEPs protect the “authority” and knowledge of the dominant culture by “Othering” BIPOC faculty, this chapter addresses considerations and concerns using vignettes from classroom discussions as well as related materials. The comment, “I don’t know what I learned” placed in the author’s evaluation of teaching, serves as a launching point for this chapter.
In this chapter, I argue that TEPs reinforce dominant cultural practices in ways that involve more than just erasing “Other” narratives. (Mignolo, 2012). Instead, by promoting the supposed superiority of Euro-centered modes of thinking and living, TEPs actively harm BIPOC faculty by diminishing and suppressing the counter-knowledge that inspire their demands for justice (Dei, 2008) Testimonios constitute one such type of counter-knowledge. In particular, Testimonios draw on decolonial knowledge(s) to disrupt “commonsense” by theorizing and unsettling hierarchies of knowledge and systems of reason (Huber, 2011; Popkewitz, 2020). In this study, I use a testimonio approach to enrich understandings of the everyday, mundane, and normalized way white supremacy and epistemic violence operate in TEPs and impose dominant epistemologies on BIPOC faculty who attempt to disobey through teaching. Ultimately, this chapter shows how the “Othering” of BIPOC faculty impinges on hopes and possibilities for a different world.

Author

• Ramon Vasquez, SUNY - College at New Paltz