The Struggle Within: Resisting White Supremacy

• In Event: Our Stories, Our Spaces: Black Women and Girls' Experiences as Students and Teachers

Abstract

This paper explores my work to carry my mother’s legacy forward using Sankofa as a verb. It unpacks how I work through daily terrors of wanting to improve experiences for Black children.
I perform a self-study on the intersection of trauma, radical self-love, and perseverance. Black feminist theory underpins my core research questions: (1) Why do I keep doing this work even though it hurts? (2) How do I practice radical self-love through harmful experiences? I utilize journey mapping and archeology of self to reflect on the sites of trauma and healing to explore why I do this work. I find that the legacy of my mother as an othermother, impacts my legacy as an agent for change in schools.

Author

• Jacobē Bell, Teachers College, Columbia University