Racial Trauma, Language Use and Biases : A Reflection on Harmful Practices in Education

Abstract

There is an African proverb that says if a child is not embraced by its community, it will burn it down to feel its warmth. The lives of people of color are often depicted based on racial and linguistic stereotypes creating biases and beliefs that are often brought into classrooms by teachers who are White. Although they may have good intentions, these biases are infused into their instruction, affirm their low expectations and as a result, create an unhealthy learning environment for students of color that supports racism within the classroom. So in essence, what they, students of color, experience outside of the classroom in terms of explicit racism based on color, language and citizenship plays out in the classroom more implicitly. In this article, I draw on both my personal and professional experience of racial trauma in the USA.