Home “Mines in the Classroom”: Black student’s safety with general and special educators
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

“Mines in the Classroom”: Black student’s safety with general and special educators

  • R. Kweku Akyierfi Smith EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 26, 2022
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

How Black learners are made to feel in the classroom by their general and special education professionals affect how they learn and navigate their world. An historical account of American education for the Black mind can be viewed as dull, dangerous, and deadly. It is imperative that each child feels physical and psychological safety in every educational environment. This is the premise of this article.


Corresponding author: R. Kweku Akyierfi Smith, Milwaukee, USA, E-mail:

References

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.Search in Google Scholar

Anderson, C. (1994). Black labor White wealth: The search for power and economic justice. Powernomics Corporation of America.Search in Google Scholar

Anderson, C. (2017). A Black history reader: 101 questions you never thought to ask. Powernomics Corporation of America.Search in Google Scholar

Bacher-Hicks, A., Billings, S. B., & Deming, D. J. (2019). The school to prison pipeline: Long-run impacts of school suspensions on adult crime. National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER Working Paper Series. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26257.10.3386/w26257Search in Google Scholar

Baradaran, M. (2017). The color of money: Black banks and the racial wealth gap. Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674982284Search in Google Scholar

Barbara, R., & Corriher, B. (2018). Honoring reconstruction’s legacy: The freedom to vote. Facing South. https://www.facingsouth.org/2018/09/honoring-reconstructions-legacy-freedom-vote.Search in Google Scholar

Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well. The permanence of racism. Basic Books.Search in Google Scholar

Bennett, R. (2016). The light in heart: Inspirational thoughts for living your best life. Roy Bennett Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Blackmon, D. A. (2008). Slavery by another name: The re-enlistment of Black Americans from the civil war to world war II. Anchor Books.Search in Google Scholar

Chamberlain, C. (2007). How former slaves established schools and educated their population after the civil war. University of Illinois New Bureau. https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/198842.Search in Google Scholar

Clark, T. R. (2020). The 4 stages of psychological safety: Defining the path to inclusion and innovation. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.Search in Google Scholar

Crenshaw, K., Harris, L. K., & Lipsitz, G. (2022). The race track: How the myth of equal opportunity defeats racial justice. The New Press.Search in Google Scholar

Cress-Welsing, F. (1991). The Isis papers: The keys to color. C.W. Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

DeGruy, J. (2005). Post traumatic slave syndrome: America’s legacy of enduring injury and healing. Uptone Press.Search in Google Scholar

Delpit, L. (1995). Other’s people children: Cultural conflicts in the classroom. New Press.10.2307/358724Search in Google Scholar

Di Angelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why its so hard to for White people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.Search in Google Scholar

Douglas, K. I., Bell, C. C., & Williamson, J. L. (2014). Race and trauma in African American children. In K. C. Vaughans & Spielberg (Eds.), The psychology of Black boys and adolescents. Vol. 2 (pp. 297–312). Praeger.10.5040/9798216002635.ch-016Search in Google Scholar

Edmonson, A. E. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons.Search in Google Scholar

Feliti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The adverse childhood experiences (ACE) study. American Journal of Prevention Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.10.1016/j.amepre.2019.04.001Search in Google Scholar

Grant, C. A. (2021). James Baldwin and the American school house. Routledge.10.4324/9781003148746Search in Google Scholar

Hardy, B. L., Logan, T. D., & Parman, J. (2018). The historical role of race and policy for regional inequality. The Hamilton Project Framing Paper.Search in Google Scholar

Haydon, J. B. (2021). I was wrong but we can make it right: Achieving racial equality. Ten 16 Press.Search in Google Scholar

Herrnstein, R. J., & Murray, C. (1994). The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. The Free Press.Search in Google Scholar

Im, M. H., Hughes, J. H., Cao, Q., & Kwok, O. (2018). Effects of extra-curricular participation during middle school on academic motivation and achievement at grade 9. American Educational Research Journal, 53(5), 1343–1375.10.3102/0002831216667479Search in Google Scholar

Jenkins, W. C., Schoenbach, V. J., Rowley, D. L., & Ford, C. L. (2019). Overcoming the impact of racism on the health of communities: What have we learned and what have we not learned. In C. L. Ford, D. M. Griffith, M. A. Bruce & K. L. Gilbert (Eds.), Racism: Science & tools for the public health professional (pp. 15–72). APHA Press.10.2105/9780875533049ch02Search in Google Scholar

Johnson, U. (2013). Psycho-Academic holocaust: The special education and ADHD wars against Black boys. Prince of Pan-Africanism Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Kantor, H., & Brenzel, B. (1994). Urban education and the truly disadvantaged: The historical roots of the contemporary crisis, 1945–1990. In M. B. Katz (Ed.), The ‘underclass’ debate: Views from history (pp. 366–402). Princeton University Press.10.2307/j.ctv301fg8.15Search in Google Scholar

Kelley, R. D. G. (1994). The Black poor and the politics of opposition in a new south city, 1929–1970. In M. B. Katz (Ed.), The ‘underclass’ debate: Views from history (pp. 293–333). Princeton University Press.10.2307/j.ctv301fg8.13Search in Google Scholar

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an anti-racist. One World.Search in Google Scholar

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in American schools. Crown.Search in Google Scholar

Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). Critical race theory in education: A scholar’s journey. Teachers College Press.10.4324/9781003340362-16Search in Google Scholar

Muhammad, E. (1965). Message to Blackman. MUHAMMAD’S Temple No. 2.Search in Google Scholar

Porter, M. (1997). Kill them before they grow: Misdiagnosis of African-American boys in American classrooms. Third Printing.Search in Google Scholar

Reynolds, D. S. (2006). John Brown abolitionist: The man who killed slavery, sparked the civil war, and seeded civil rights. Vintage Books.Search in Google Scholar

Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright.Search in Google Scholar

Schildkraut, J., & Grogan, K. (2019). Are metal detectors effective at making schools safe? WestEd. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED595716.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

Simon, C. (2021). How covid taught America about inequity in education. Un/equal a series on race and inequality in America. The Harvard Gavette.Search in Google Scholar

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2008). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.Search in Google Scholar

Tucker, C. M. (1999). African American children: A self-empowerment approach to modifying behavior problems and preventing academic failure. Allyn & Bacon.Search in Google Scholar

Washington, H. A. (2006). Medical apartheid: The dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to present. Anchor Books.Search in Google Scholar

Welsh, R. O. (2021). Why, really, why are so many Black kids suspended? Article for Education Week in the series: Weighing the research: What works, what doesn’t. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-why-really-are-so-many-black-kids-suspended/2021/08.Search in Google Scholar

West, C. (1993). Race matters. Vintage Books.Search in Google Scholar

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The origins of our discontents. Random House.Search in Google Scholar

Wilson, A. N. (1978). The developmental psychology of the Black child. Afrikan World Infosystems.Search in Google Scholar

Wilson, A. N. (1998). Blueprint for Blackpower: A moral and economic imperative for the twenty-first century. Afrikan World Infosystems.Search in Google Scholar

Wilson, A. N. (2013). The falsification of Afrikan consciousness: Eurocentric history, psychiatry and the politics of White supremacy. Afrikan World Infosystems.Search in Google Scholar

Wilson, A. N. (2019). The psychology of self-hatred and self-defeat: Towards a reclamation of the Afrikan mind. Afrikan World Infosystems.Search in Google Scholar

Woodson, C. G. (1933). The mis-education of the negro. Dover Publications.Search in Google Scholar

Wright, B.E. (1984). Black suicide: Lynching by any other name is still lynching. Third World Press.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2022-08-17
Accepted: 2022-08-30
Published Online: 2022-09-26

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 28.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/mlt-2022-0018/html
Scroll to top button