Resisting Marginalization Within the Community

• In Event: They Not Like Us: They Want Criticality But Not Too Much

Abstract

Audre Lorde (1984) described the weight of shouldering oppressed, marginalized communities’ responsibility to teach one’s oppressors about themselves. What happens when we refuse to extend this olive branch and instead talk back to the very systems that diminish our existences? This concept resonated with us as Black queer and queer-adjacent teacher educators engaging with pre-service early childhood educators in a discipline that centers white, heterosexual, able-bodied ways of being and knowing. In this symposium, we answer Reid’s (2023) call to “shift from thinking of LGBTQ+ communities of color as only victims to thinking about them as social actors who actively resist marginalization to reimagine liberatory ways of knowing and living outside the constraints of queer of color marginalization” (p. 17).

Author

• Meghan L. Green, Erikson Institute