Photograph of Frederick Douglass (ca. 1879)

Editor's Note: The intensity of these past six months has left me very nearly speechless. But since May 25th my heart has felt buoyed and filled with exuberance to witness the resurgent spirit of democracy being expressed in a new generation's "Civil Rights" movement born out of the necessity of the moment in response to the brutal murder of George Floyd from a knee pushed down upon his throat for nine minutes by a representative of the authority of an oppressive and increasingly racist system.

"Black Lives Matter" is the rallying cry of those whose patience has been tried too often and now one time too many. You can sense the desperation and unsettled thoughts of those who have stood by as silent accomplices in the institutional and systemic racism during the past 75 years which has persisted despite being challenged by laws and court decisions which have supported a popular narrative that equal rights have been achieved and that all lives are judged by "the quality of their character."

My esteemed life-long friend the late Kirk Auston of Great Bend once was interrogated by a local officer of the law while strolling at night around the small lake at Veterans Memorial Park near his folks' home during a visit when we were freshmen or sophomores in Lawrence. "Do you have any identification?," asked the officer, receiving a pert reply: "Do YOU have any identification sir?"

When I saw the news report in July of 2015 about the arrest and subsequent death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland--whose infraction apparently was reminding an officer she had a right to keep smoking her tobacco cigarette in her own car while he wrote out her speeding ticket or whatever--my mind flashed to the memory of Kirk lightheartedly bragging about questioning authority. My friend went on to attend law school and enjoy an undefeated career as a criminal defense attorney; Sandra Bland, a civil rights activist who had been on her way to a new job, had her life trajectory cut short for talking back.

Another friend recently called me to recount what happened to her when an officer unlocked the door to our work location for her and then proceeded to accompany her until they arrived at her office door. "Has that happened to you?," she asked me, and I gave it some thought before suggesting that perhaps the officer considered it a courtesy to accompany her and had not followed her out of a feeling of suspicion as to whether she belonged there.

In a January 2020 interview on KPFA Pacifica radio, Corey Robin (author of the 2019 book "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas"), explained his premise, that the court opinions by Justice Thomas are reflective of a conservative mindset on social justice issues which is logically consistent with "Black nationalist" views that he developed as an undergraduate at College of the Holy Cross, where he was a founding member of the Black Student Union.

Corey Robin based his book on his own interviews of Justice Thomas as well as research on the development of Thomas's thinking and his embrace of Black nationalist philosophy, which Robin suggests remains intact as the key source of written opinions which consistently align with conservative thought on matters of equal rights and social justice. According to Robin, Thomas believes that racist psychology in America runs so deeply that its roots are "unfathomable" and impossible to extract. He believes that black children are schooled to feel inferior, and that no amount of "equal rights" or training in equitable teaching practices can ever enable teachers in integrated schools to prepare black youth to feel any way other than oppressed within a system of white supremacy.

Robin argues that Clarence Thomas believes the only way to properly educate black children is in a segregrated system which will enable them to develop the sense of autonomy and self-worth needed to compete and succeed economically in America. According to Corey Robin, Justice Thomas has always believed that liberal white activists are lying when they say the right words such as "empowerment" and "civil rights." In the interviews for Robin's book, Thomas reportedly told the author that he actually had preferred the more self-evident racism of some of the people he worked with in the Reagan administration, because he considered them more honest than the liberals he encountered. According to Robin, one of Justice Thomas's favorite songs in college--when he protested for "Black power"-- was "Smiling Faces Sometimes" (Whitfield & Strong, 1971) made popular by a singing group called The Undisputed Truth. A recurring lyric in this song is: "Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend; smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within."

The educational scholar Zaretta Hammond would agree that up to now schooling in America has functioned to prevent black children and youth from developing themselves, and her answer, from several brilliant webinars and interviews I have witnessed, is to stop just mouthing the words "culturally responsive"--instead, she has said teachers need to focus on the word "responsive" and that will be enough to achieve the purposes of culturally responsive teaching. She might agree with Justice Thomas that smiling faces and teachers talking about "multicultural education" are not going to cut it. Being a responsive teacher who shows respect and engages every student in cognitively challenging communication is what is needed, based on my understanding of her message.

Going a step further is the philosopher bell hooks (1994) who believes the present educational system in America ignores the impulses of students who are not members of the dominant class, race, and gender; a system that discourages reflection, resistance, and change. She sees social reproduction and social control as the overwhelming purposes of educational practices up to now, and calls for a radically different approach which would empower students to overturn the current system.

I wrote that paragraph about bell hooks in a report for a philosophy of education course about 12 years ago. My paper was mainly a comparison of Booker T. Washington's philosophy (1896) and W.E.B. DuBois's philosophy (1903). I wrote that DuBois "suggested that schooling should enable students to participate freely and fully in a democratic society," whereas Washington argued that "the purpose of school was primarily to equip students for material success."

"Washington's model seems focused on social efficiency and social mobility as two key aims of school-based training, while the vision of DuBois included social mobility, but especially pointed towards good citizenship and participatory democracy as higher-level goals." (2008)

Although these days my new favorite educational philosopher is Zaretta Hammond, my all-time favorite (or at least given equal status with Hammond) is John Dewey, who "wrote the book" (Democracy in Education, 1916). According to Dewey, the purpose of education begins with a learner's impulse in a particular direction, and the learner acting on that purpose. The primary role of a teacher, then, must be to perceive and respond to these learning impulses, and to establish a learning environment that is sensitive and responsive to them. He says the teacher needs to be familiar with the background of experience that each student brings with him or her to school.

I respect U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's deeply held doubt regarding the potential for inclusive policies and laws on equal access to ever achieve full extraction of the "unfathomably deep" roots of systemic racism or white supremacist attitudes perhaps unconsciously clung to by even the most enlightened and sincere among us. But I wholeheartedly challenge his view and I reject the cynicism that would label my more positivist view as naive or unrealistic.

In that paper for my philosophy class (2007), my teacher, the amazing Kay Ann Taylor at Kansas State University, had asked me to consider the nature of knowledge and the nature of truth. Here is what I wrote:

"Perhaps truth is the most vital piece of knowledge to get a hold on, because it is at the core of whether we are able to assess progress towards goals and also evaluate our performance as teachers. What do we know about these phenomena? Can we be sure of what we know? Do we share with other teachers a common understanding of 'truth' which allows us to compare experiences--and learn in the process?"

"There are two concepts of truth that were explored in our philosophy of education course. First, there was Socrates and the Allegory of the Cave. In this story, there is one truth and it exists at a higher plane of reality that is achieved through the experience of breaking the chains of illusion and belief."

"A second version of truth is much more relative, as expressed by Maxine Greene (1995), in her description of an approach to teaching and learning that acknowledges and embraces multiple perspectives and multiple realities."

"I would like to suggest that these two concepts of truth can--and indeed ought to--be blended in a teacher's development over the course of his or her career. Because the process of letting go of long-held beliefs and assumptions is frightening and generates so much temporary confusion, or dissonance (Freire, 1970), there is a psychological need for something concrete at that stage."

"A person on a journey of lifelong learning needs to stop at certain points and throw out a few anchors, locking in his or her latest version of reality for a while. Then it is time to break free again and grow through interaction with colleagues and others who have different ideas and different experiences from us. By moving back and forth over time, from a universal truth position to one that embraces multiple realities, a teacher will be able to assess his or her performance and the experiences of the students with increasing degrees of accuracy."

From this perspective, it seems I was primed to hear and embrace Zaretta Hammond's call, in her recent mid-July presentation sponsored by the Coalition of Schools Educating Mindfully (COSEM), for teachers to use mindfulness to break out of thinking routines that have dampened learning for generations of students. Her parting words on that day have resonated with me deeply.

What do you need to keep doing, because it is having a positive result? What do you need to stop doing, because it is either having no result and siphoning your energy or having a negative result? Then think about what you need to start doing. We are not mindful enough to step back to see what we need to keep doing. We are not mindful enough to see "I actually need to stop doing that." Maybe because it's not only that it's hurting, but we have outgrown it. Mindfulness is about knowing when we are ready to grow. The snake knows when it's time to shed its skin. The hermit crab knows when it's time to get a new shell and that hermit crab for the time it's between one shell and the next is vulnerable, feels like it's falling apart. But that breakdown is a set-up for the breakthrough. That's how we are going to get better. That's how our children are going to get the education they deserve. (Hammond, 2020)