We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

Give them Hell

Chapter 3 begins with an anecdote about Love’s mother, who advised her to “give them hell” (43) every morning before school. The combative phrase reinforced her mother’s politics of refusal, a key component of activism and abolitionist teaching. Love’s mother taught her to guard her dignity. She also stressed the importance of common sense and authenticity, instilling confidence and pride in her daughter.

Irrelevancy

Love describes her experiences as a student at a Rochester Catholic school. The teachers were kind and held the predominantly Black students to high academic standards. However, the curriculum was far removed from Love’s history and community. No one explained why guns and drugs were becoming increasingly prevalent in Rochester, nor did they address important issues, such as the high unemployment rate and economic instability. The 1965 Moynihan Report blamed Black families for not assimilating into mainstream American culture, referring to urban Black culture as “a subculture of violence” (46). By the 1980s, large swaths of the Black population had been criminalized by President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs. In many corners of political discourse and popular culture, Black Americans were depicted as unruly, lazy, and promiscuous. Rochester’s racial divide grew. The confidence and power Love’s family instilled in her conflicted with how the outside world viewed her. She left Catholic school after the third grade, entering public school for the first time. There, she encountered her first Black teacher, a woman who understood that teaching was about more than the curriculum. Love learned that she mattered and began to acquire the skills she needed to survive systemic oppression.

FIST

Love grew political after enrolling in FIST (Fighting Ignorance and Spreading Truth), a youth empowerment and activism program. The program taught students that Black is beautiful, emphasized the power of resistance, and promoted grassroots organizing and cooperative economics. FIST also taught Love about mattering, helped her find meaning as a Black child, and encouraged her to occupy physical, intellectual, and political spaces she once thought were off-limits. In short, FIST reinforced her mother’s mantra: Give them hell.

Loving Blackness

Teachers must love Black children and teach them to love themselves. Love’s white teachers in Catholic school set low expectations for students and were judgmental of Black families. Many were racist, despite espousing Liberal politics. Fighting racial oppression is not just intellectual; it is also emotional and spiritual. It requires personal and communal work. Educators must recognize the humanity of Black children, while Black children must demand dignity. Love learned to love her Blackness, to understand the needs of her community, and to fight for change at FIST. School taught her to survive. FIST taught her to thrive. Abolitionist education combines the two, aiming to remedy racial injustice and structural inequality.

Community

Rochester holds an important place in history. It is the burial place of the women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, as well as one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad. Festivals celebrating the African diaspora are held in Rochester every summer. Despite the city’s connections to activism and abolition, however, racial tensions remain high. Love grew up in Rochester’s Nineteenth Ward, a tight-knit working-class community dotted with recreational centers that organized activities for local youths. She worked as a youth counselor at a neighborhood recreational center where coworkers looked out for each other. Love and her cohort needed outside support because their parents worked. Things changed in Rochester when companies closed toward the end of the 20th century, leading to massive layoffs.

The Loss of Childhood

In the 1940s, Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, and Xerox accounted for 60% of the workforce in Rochester. That number plummeted to 6% by 2012 (59). The War on Drugs that began in the 1980s dealt Black communities another blow by imprisoning drug offenders and cutting funding to addiction treatment programs. These policies, combined with the privatization of prisons, led to the mass incarceration of Black men. The 1994 Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act further pressured Black communities by requiring federal prisoners to serve at least 85% of their sentences before being eligible for parole (60). The “three strikes” rule also harmed Black Americans by automatically imprisoning repeat offenders for 25 years. Love refers to these policies as the “War on Dark People.” The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, but the imprisonment and forced labor of Black Americans for profit is slavery in a different form, according to Love. The fact that Black Americans are incarcerated at far higher rates than white Americans makes this modern form of slavery racial in nature, writes Love.

Children fare equally badly in the justice system. According to the Sentencing Project, youth incarceration declined from 2006 to 2016. However, racial disparities increased in the juvenile justice system. The study found that children of color are far more likely to be incarcerated in a juvenile facility than white children: “Hispanic youth are 61 percent more likely than white youth to be committed, Black youth are four times more likely, and Native Americans are three times more likely” (62). Love uses the example of Kalief Browder to put a face to the problem of racism. Sixteen-year-old Kalief was jailed at Rikers Island, New York for three years after allegedly stealing a backpack, spending two of those years in solitary confinement. Kalief could not afford an attorney or his $3000 bail. He refused plea deals to secure his freedom and instead professed his innocence. He was beaten by guards and inmates, including gang members. He also attempted death by suicide several times before prosecutors dropped the charges. Unable to put the ordeal behind him, Kalief died by suicide in his parents’ home in 2015, two years after his release. As Love observes, the case is “one of the most cruel and inhumane examples of our violent and racially discriminatory justice system” (62). Kalief hanged himself, but “his spirit was murdered in the solitude of his innocence” (62).

Home

The economic collapse of Rochester led to its social collapse, writes Love. It went from a homeplace where Black Americans mattered to themselves and each other to a place of poverty and crime. Many cities in the US followed this trajectory. Urban centers became synonymous with Black crime, drugs, high unemployment, and low-performing schools. According to Love, white rage destroyed Black communities nationwide with Jim Crow laws, the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, police brutality, school rezoning, redlining, and gentrification. Globalization and the resulting loss of manufacturing jobs exacerbated the problem. Despite these obstacles, Black communities survive. Homeplaces that honor their struggles are critical because they affirm the humanity of Black communities. For Love, this homeplace was her public school, the community at FIST, and the home where her mother empowered her.

Thrive

For people of color to thrive, their communities must invest in uplifting their members. They must also fight for workers’ rights, racial equity, affordable housing, healthcare, and environmental justice. For communities to do so successfully, Love says they should adopt cooperative economic policies and work to eradicate the heteropatriarchy and discrimination of all kinds. Grassroots organizations are critical to creating and maintaining healthy communities. Oppressed people do not need strong leaders; rather, they must decentralize leadership to give the oppressed and marginalized a voice. Healthy communities need robust educational systems and employment opportunities. Political engagement is key. Participatory democracy that rejects hierarchical, male-centric leadership can uplift those on the margins. Fostering community fuels self-worth and personal and collective empowerment.