Recently, I was made aware of a flaw in my thinking about moving toward equality and supporting BIPOC people. That flaw was deficit thinking, something that comes so easily when we position BIPOC folks (particularly Black folks) as disadvantaged, poor, and marginalized. I wasn't even aware of how much it was influencing how I talked or interacted with folks until I was made aware of the concept of white saviorism and started seeing how I perpetrated those attitudes.
I'm still learning and working through that as I learn to be antiracist (lifelong work, I now know). But one antidote has been following successful, prosperous BIPOC folks on social media and reading books about and by prosperous, successful BIPOC folks. These aren't stories of individuals who were saved from the inner city through education and a nice white teacher; these are stories of people who are successful and educated and live in nice homes. They don't need anyone rescuing them or framing them in deficit ways or pitying them for their impoverished existence. Instead, they are humans doing human things, and though they may encounter racism and sexism and other biases, they are in the world living full, rich lives. Stories have power, and if I only read the stories that align with stereotypes, then I'm missing out on the full range of powerful stories that convey a diversity of experience and worldview and understanding.
I guess what I'm trying to say is as someone who came from a very impoverished background, I would be frustrated if my life's story was reduced to that, and what I'm trying to do is read a range of stories from all kinds of folks to continue learning and undoing and relearning and using that to inform how I think and engage and teach.
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