The Antiracist Guide: Challenges and Opportunities From Textbook Publishers

• In Event: Visualizing Afro-Dignity: Scrutinizing Puerto Rican Elementary History Textbooks for Racial Justice

Abstract

Objectives
In search for concrete alternatives that can challenge and respond to the damages and traumas caused by the violence of racism perpetuated in textbooks, our team drafted an editorial guide for the design of an anti-racist and restorative education of afro-descendancy. We shared the draft of the anti-racist guide with four main textbook publishers in Puerto Rico. In this presentation, we highlight findings from interviews conducted with these four textbook publishers about the on-ground challenges but also opportunities they identify for implementing recommendations that uphold dignified representations of Afro-descendancy and blackness.

Theoretical assumptions
Our work is guided through the lens of afrodignity, which we define as contents that affirm and highlight the inherent right of people of African descent to be recognized as thinking beings, endowed with freedom and conditions that allow their physical and moral integrity in society. We understand Afro-dignity as a means of individual restoration with the potential to be amplified collectively through actions of social justice. We aim to implement a restorative education approach which seeks to compensate for the silences, omissions, and contempt for Afro-descendants that has characterized Eurocentrism .

Methods
Group interviews were conducted with staff from four publishing houses (content coordinators, editors and graphic designers). Using a deductive analysis, transcriptions were analyzed to identify general themes (e.g., editorial guide, challenges, opportunities and others). Then, using an inductive approach, each interview was coded more specifically. The themes, codes, definition of codes, and citations were organized in a code book generated for each interview. Codebooks were discussed, audited and refined in multiple iterations with the research team in order to reach consensus on code names and theme identification

Results and conclusions
Textbook publishers characterized the anti-racist guide as a resource that promoted their reflection on the production processes and illustration of content related to Afro-descendants. Some challenges mentioned across interviews emphasized : 1) teachers expectations regarding educational content that respond to dominant ideas of mestizaje , highlighting stories about the Tainos and relegating the teaching of Afro-descendants to the period of slavery; 2) a resistance on the part of private schools -a solid and extensive clientele for publishers- to teach topics related to Afro-descendants; 3) the scarcity of valid and accessible information of resources that accurately and dignifiedly represent stories and experiences of Afro-descendants (research, visual illustrations, others) ; 4) time and page limitations in the editorial process of producing a textbook. On the other hand, the publishers pointed out opportunities that favor the implementation of this guide by: 1) showing willingness to correct, reteach and retell the history of our african ancestors ; 2) an openness to receive anti-racist training from an interdisciplinary perspective and; 3) the opportunity to create an image stock with visuals that portray black, and Afro-descendants people in correspondence with Puerto Rican and Caribbean cultural and historical context.

Authors

• María B. Serrano-Abreu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Fabiola Edmar Zayas-Torres, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey