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

“America's legacy of oppression and dispossession of dark people is in large part met with the ethos of We Shall Overcome, Si Se Puede, and We Gon' Be Alright.”

This quote is about the grit and rebellious spirit of people of color. Through acts of rebellion, people of color have forged a collective identity, built schools, educated children, developed churches as places of worship and community, passed laws to gain basic human rights, and boycotted companies and institutions that demean them. Black people have also produced literature, photography, art, and cinema to explain and process their suffering, created distinctive cuisines, and found other ways to be joyful. People of color stand defiant in the face of persistent efforts to kill and commodify them.

“To want freedom is to welcome struggle.”

People of color have long struggled against racial oppression. Activism today relates to past efforts to create a more equitable world, such as the 19th-century abolitionist movement and the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. The project of freedom remains incomplete because not everyone is free. Struggle is necessary to change society.

“Education is an industry that is driven and financially backed by the realities that dark children and their families just survive.”

This quote is about the educational survival complex, a key concept in Love’s book. Schools do not teach children of color to thrive; they only teach them to survive. Testing and textbook companies, as well as charter schools and law enforcement organizations, profit when children of color fail to thrive by lobbying the government for more testing.

“Pedagogy, regardless of its name, is useless without teachers dedicated to challenging systemic oppression with intersectional social justice.”

Abolitionist education demands civic engagement. Teachers should not focus exclusively on the curriculum; they should also focus on current events and issues that impact students’ lives, such as racism, poverty, unemployment, and gun violence. White teachers must confront their whiteness before they can stand in solidarity with communities of color. Teachers must love all students and commit to practicing intersectional justice.

“Education from the outset was built on White supremacy, anti-Blackness, and sexism.”

America’s earliest schools exclusively served white men, excluding women and people of color. Indigenous Americans were funneled into special schools for cultural and linguistic assimilation. Under segregation, Black children were sent to all-Black schools that were grossly under-resourced. People of color and women lobbied for admission to white male schools during the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.

“Many White teachers are by-products of White flight and White rage.”

This quote addresses whiteness in schools. Over 80% of America’s teaching force is white. Teachers have biases, like everyone else. white teachers must interrogate their whiteness, including white supremacy, white rage, white privilege, white fragility, and white emotionality to participate in abolitionist pedagogy.

“After the election of 2016, Mother Jones published an article titled ‘Bullying in Schools Is Out of Control Since Election Day.’”

Racism has always existed in America’s schools. The 2016 election of President Trump, however, emboldened racists and white nationalists, writes Love. Acts of bullying rose sharply, including anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic incidents. Female students were also targeted, as were members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“Don’t be an educated fool.”

Love’s mother spoke these words when she learned of her daughter’s plans to pursue a PhD in education. Love’s mother valued common sense. A degree, no matter how advanced, was meaningless if Love forgot where she came from and how to relate to those who protected her.

“Too often we think the work of fighting oppression is just intellectual. The real work is personal, emotional, spiritual, and communal.”

This passage is about loving Blackness, a key part of fighting oppression. Loving Blackness entails developing feelings of pride, confidence, and worth, both in individuals and communities. This is why Love insists that pedagogy alone cannot ensure racial equality.

“Dark children cannot thrive without a community.”

Love stresses the importance of community throughout her book. She describes her childhood protectors, among whom were teachers, coaches, employers, and recreational center mentors. Love’s parents worked long hours, and therefore they relied on the community to protect and nurture their children.

“Dark youth are still more likely than White youth to be committed to a juvenile facility. 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.”

Love supports her arguments with data. This quote addresses inequality in the juvenile justice system. Studies show that children of color are more likely to be incarcerated than white children, often for longer periods.

“Understanding the gutting of dark communities’ homeplaces is critical to a teacher’s analysis of the community in which he or she teaches.”

Homeplace is central to Love’s re-envisioning of the American education system. Love benefited from many homeplaces in her formative years, including her parents’ home, school, the FIST program, and local recreational centers. Homeplaces tend to the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of people of color, providing respite from the systemic racism of the outside world. Teachers must understand their communities’ problems to practice abolitionist pedagogy.

“Participatory democracy uplifts voices that have been deliberately placed in the margins and seeks to organize, strategize, and mobilize through consensus building.”

This passage underscores the idea of community. The problems people of color face cannot be solved by solitary leaders. Only communities can bring about change by centering the voices of traditionally marginalized groups.

“It is not that dark children do not have grit and zest, but they need educators and their communities to protect it, not measure it.”

This quote addresses the survival educational complex. Love is critical of standardized testing and character education. Abolitionist teaching stresses loving and protecting all children, not measuring their grit.

“Abolitionist teaching is not a teaching approach: It is a way of life, a way of seeing the world, and a way of taking action against injustice.”

This passage defines abolitionist teaching. It is not a pedagogical approach in the traditional sense. Abolitionist teaching does not have a prescribed curriculum, nor does it focus on teaching methods. Rather, it asks teachers to know and love the communities in which they teach, be civically engaged, and commit to fighting for social justice in whatever capacity they choose.

“Too often, though not always, our allies are eager White folx who have not questioned their Whiteness, White supremacy, White emotions of guilt and shame, the craving for admiration, or the structures that maintain White power.”

This passage describes allyship, a term that has fallen out of favor in many social justice circles. Allyship does not demand confronting whiteness, Love writes. Allies, in her view, do not necessarily have to love Blackness or take personal risks to end social injustice. The term ally is increasingly being replaced with “coconspirator.” 

“The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.”

Many Black people have internalized negative societal views of Blackness. It is imperative for abolitionists to love Blackness. White teachers must recognize the humanity of children of color, and children of color must demand dignity. Only then can Black children develop feelings of pride, confidence, and self-worth.

“If we, teacher educators, are going to ask teachers to be culturally relevant and culturally competent—which I wholeheartedly believe are fundamental to challenging inequities and develop critical perspectives—then teachers should be required to study culture.”

This passage relates to the teacher education gap. Most of America’s teachers are white. To combat inequality, white teachers must understand and love the children they teach, including children of color. Education programs typically include one course on diversity. Bridging the teacher education gap, however, demands far more work than a single course.

“Theory does not solve issues—only action and solidarity can do that—but theory gives you language to fight, knowledge to stand on, and a humbling reality of what intersectional social justice is up against.”

Love stresses the importance of theory as a tool to understand and confront social inequalities. CRT is particularly important because of its emphasis on intersectionality. Unlike Queer theory and feminism, which according to Love focus on white middle- and upper-class gay men and white women, respectively, CRT uses a wide array of social markers, such as race, gender, sexuality, and class, as analytic tools to explain overlapping, interdependent forms of discrimination and disadvantage.

“White folx cannot be coconspirators until they deal with the emotionality of being White.”

This quote is about the theory of white emotionality. White people often become emotional when confronted with even small amounts of racial stress. These emotions go beyond those associated with white fragility—anger, shame, fear—and include denial, sadness, and disconcert. According to Love, white people must confront and understand whiteness before they can stand in solidarity with people of color and become coconspirators.

“To be a Black mother is to be America’s punching bag, as you morph into a shield and take every blow for your family, especially your Black children, that will be thrown by America’s White rage.”

This passage relates to the toxic stress Black women experience in their daily lives. Regardless of their socio-economic circumstances, racism, sexism, and other inequalities impact Black women and their health. Black women are encouraged to be strong for their families, but this comes at a cost. For Love, toxic stress led to panic attacks that she mistook for a heart condition.

“Dark folx heal in ways that are unrecognizable to White folx because Whiteness is why we are in trauma in the first place.”

People of color must address intergenerational trauma in order to heal. This entails addressing the trauma and sacrifices of their ancestors, as well as their own trauma and sacrifices. According to Love, the healing practices of people of color differ from those of white people because their trauma is fundamentally different: Black trauma is racial and goes back generations.

“Abolitionist teaching means putting something on the line in the name of justice.”

Abolitionists must be willing to lose something to advance social justice. They must be ready to leverage their whiteness and privilege to further the cause. Understanding whiteness allows white people to take risks that people of color cannot take in the struggle for equality. Courage is necessary. Not all risks are equal. The risks people take on should depend on their position, identities, and particular circumstances.