America’s Long History of Racializing Epidemics: CRT (Critical Race Theory) Critique and Lesson for Elementary Classrooms 

• In Event: Imagining a Just Future: The Generative Possibilities of Critical Race Theory for Classroom Practice

Abstract

Purposes and Framework
This paper employs a CRT analytic to teach elementary school age children the racialized history of epidemics in the United States. The upsurge of anti-Asian violence in the wake of the covid 19 pandemic reveals that the tendency to blame minoritized groups is still alive and strong. There has been one case after another where people of Asian descent have baselessly been accused of being the cause of the pandemic, being yelled at, spat on, or attacked or suffering bodily harm across the country. Disturbingly, the covid 19 pandemic first time Asian Americans were wrongfully accused and attacked for a public health crisis, and it is certainly not the first time a racially marginalized group was blamed for a disease outbreak (Molina, 2006; Shah, 2001).

Whenever there is a crisis, the white dominant society tends to look for someone to blame, and people of Color that have already been marginalized as “the other” tends to become an easy target (Kraut, 1994). CRT helps to clarify and challenge this history. One of the key CRT principles is that racism is a normal, central, and ordinary feature of U.S. society (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013). So, blaming a racially marginalized group for a public health crisis is not aberrant but normal. Whether it was Irish immigrants being accused of the 1832 cholera epidemic, Mexican Americans for the 2009 H1N1, or Asian Americans for COVID-19 pandemic, the claim has always been that these groups were racially inferior and medically dangerous to the dominant white race by bringing and spreading contagious diseases to the United States.  CRT’s centering of experiential knowledge elevates the experiential and embodied knowledge of People of Color as a “a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the majoritarian stories of racial privilege” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 32). Centering the experiences and perspectives of marginalized communities in the study of racialized epidemics highlights the harms cause by racist policies. The commitment to social justice tenet highlights an activist dimension of CRT and requires understanding social contexts in order “… to change it; it sets out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies, but to transform it for the better” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013, p.3). Teaching and learning about America’s long history of racialized epidemics must be a part of a social justice project to eradicate racism.

Data Sources and Methods
Qualitative data from a study in an upper elementary social studies classroom in the Southeast including participant observation, field notes, document analysis, and interviews.

Results
Elementary students are open-minded and capable of analyzing racist history. Likewise, using primary sources with children can contribute to meaningful ant-racist social studies learning.

Significance
Drawing on a collaboration between a classroom teacher and teacher educator, this paper shares the results of an inquiry in which fifth graders with critical race knowledge - the presence of persistent, prevalent, and structural racism as well as the collective responsibility- engage to disrupt this troublesome history as informed, engaged citizens. 

Word Count: 499

Author

• Sohyun An, Kennesaw State University