Leaving the Education Plantation

I’ve been letting the oppressors in my life win, lately. That’s a hard thing for me to admit. I’ve never been one to cower in the face of a fight, but that’s exactly what I feel has happened over the past few years. With all of the varying ways in which white supremacy culture and white privilege has impacted my life, all at the same time, it’s a wonder that I have any fight left in me. I know that each of the entities currently enacting their version of white privilege and racism in action (currently there are 4) thought they had done what was necessary to weaken my resolve. And I’ll admit, they almost succeeded. But as Brandy’s old school song reminds us — almost doesn’t count!

The present-day oppressor that I am addressing today, is the education system to which I dedicated sixteen years of my professional career, before finally reaching the point where the traumatizing experience became too much.

In February of 2022, I made the difficult decision to walk away from the profession. It became a matter of self-preservation. Even more, it became a matter of taking back the control of my life and an open defiance of the silencing and manipulation that this particular oppressor uses as general practice.

I am not the last Black educator who will be tested in this manner. I am not the last who will find themselves at this exact crossroads in their professional life. In case it is needed, I offer this as a blueprint for drafting your notice of leaving the education plantation.

BLUEPRINT FOR A BLACK TEACHER
QUITTING OUT LOUD -SO THERE’S NO ROOM FOR GASLIGHTING

©2022, TRUDI L. PERKINS

Dear (name of educational org),

You have been the bully on the campus. You have been the monster in my dreams. You have taken what started as a noble quest for engaging in the practice of helping students build knowledge and turned it into a weapon trained against me, and those who look like me.

You have been the worst and most dangerous of interactions I have ever consciously engaged in. You have been a consummate liar, with the privilege to manipulate your way through any situation so that it fills your needs and coffers.

You deem yourself different from the brutal task masters of the past, who skulked into the slave quarters to use Black women to the fullest and when they could extract no more use, would leave her crumpled in an emotional heap, and then cavalierly walk away casting one final backward glance of disdain — at she and her Black man. Then return without remorse to the open arms of your first and most obedient prey and silent accomplice.

Your blows were not the TKO’s you’d imagined, but there are scars from our nearly two decades of pretending to work for the same goals. And they will remain as constant as the structures and systems that slap black teachers and students in the face with racism within your halls.

You thought you had beaten me down to the point of silence. But you didn’t know it was the potent silence I’d extracted from the stoic picture of my great grandmother, Frances, that hung for years in my great-aunt’s home.

You thought that when my speech became softer, that I had lost the fires of self-protection that would guide me through the dangers, harm, mistrust, lies and abuse that you strategically placed in my path. But you didn’t know that I had watched my grandmother’s quiet fierceness. Evelyn. A woman I never heard speak much louder than a whisper, but who walked the darkened back roads of 1930’s and 40’s Louisiana, coming from evening church services, with her five children and a shotgun in tow.

You thought that my intellect was a threat to your way of being. It is, and you have a right to be concerned. Black intellect has long been the target of you and your extensive group of comrades. Make the excellence she sees within herself begin to feel like a lie. Oh, but you didn’t know I have my Mommy’s genes! Evelyn. 14 years old, walking the halls of Dillard University. Teacher, extraordinaire. A force to be reckoned with. She didn’t get to stay with me long, but she made sure to implant the legacy gifts. Those wings give me the power and understanding of grace to know that I can do anything.

You thought my defiant nature was something you could quell. My aunts were FCB and NRC, by marriage added some SVB- backed up by their cousins RAJ and QES. And those women didn’t play. I’ve always known I am a real strong learner, so, only you were surprised when your paper whips and procedural chains did not work to subdue me in ways that your historical recollections would suggest. So, you turned to your playbook for the rules for denial of responsibility, lies and vicious rumors that don’t pass the smell test. You thought you knew how to play me, but you thought wrong. My students called me “O.G. Perk”, MoFo’s and my educator’s game is still strong!

What you felt by my presence was an existential threat to your continued facade of pretending to give a damn. Fake provisions of equitable educational support to black learners or educators. Your vision, so clouded by all the auto-strewn confetti floating around cheering your efforts. I’ve overstayed my time at your plantation. I’m my own Lincoln and I’ll manifest my own freedom without the need for clandestine efforts behind my actions, ’cause no one can stand for my freedom more fiercely than me.

A new day dawns, with new and better opportunities in life awaiting me. So, I’m gonna grab all of that joy my students have left with me over the years and press on. Make no mistake, I am leaving with all of my passion and love for education fully intact — heightened, even. Though you won’t even notice. But that makes no difference, because this journey of mine was never about you to begin with.

Dr. O.G. Perk — Out!