Issue 14: Love & Rage
Nouns. An intense feeling of deep affection; A really, intense anger.
Check-In:
At my father’s memorial service, each of us 4 kids said a few words. We each had our own stories to tell about Dad. After the service, one of the attendees came up to me and said how he was moved by how in each of our stories we highlighted how patient our father was, and how he never seemed to lose his temper. He talked about this was something he never personally experienced and how special that must have been. He was right. I never experienced rage from my father. I felt love from him in every interaction. It didn’t mean he never got upset but it was mostly towards the “hoodkies” that he interacted with as part of his construction business.
I have inherited a lot of that demeanor from my father. I’ve often received comments about my level of patience and easygoing demeanor. And for the most part that is true. I don’t allow small things to phase me. I try to protect my peace. But I also remember when I was a principal one staff member was annoyed that I wasn’t more upset when our scheduling system broke down. Then a few years later when I cried in front of the staff, I was told I was too emotional. The efforts to regulate my emotions became part of my leadership experience. If it wasn’t the “angry Black woman” trope it was something else. In today’s book recommendation, Unwrapped: The Pursuit of Justice for Women Educators, authors Kendra Washington-Bass and Kelly Peaks Horner talk about the expectations of women in leadership.
When I coded over 30 interviews from leaders of the global majority, love was a consistent theme in how they led. It is why “practice love and rage” is the 3rd competency I introduce in my book. We hear this in my interview with Dr. Angela Ward. It was confirmed when reading bell hooks, Cornel West, Audre Lorde, and others. Love is one of my core values as well. Despite what folks thought of me or wanted from me, I had to center love.
Now, the rage? That was happening inside of me. I never saw it come through my father’s words or actions but maybe he was suppressing it as a coping mechanism to survive his Jim Crow laws-infused upbringing in Arkansas and the segregated city of Milwaukee, WI when he and my mom migrated North. I don’t know. I never got the opportunity to ask him. But I do know that I suppressed my rage because I thought it was negative. I thought it would get me into trouble. But nope. No more. Audre Lorde taught me that rage is a powerful tool when we use it to move toward liberation. In her 1981 keynote presentation, “The Uses of Anger,” at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference, she said, “It is not the anger of other women that will destroy us but our refusals to stand still, to listen to its rhythms, to learn within it, to move beyond the manner of presentation to the substance, to tap that anger as an important source of empowerment.”
To deny the rage I feel when I hear of injustices happening towards folx that identify as Black, LGBTQIA+, Jewish, immigrant, pregnant, etc. does not help anyone. As a leader of the global majority, I need to harness that rage to not just simmer and become hateful towards others but to use the privilege I have to educate, advocate and play an active role in changing our environment.
What emotions do you need to lean into to find liberation?
#mondaymotivation: “The moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others” -bell hooks
Interview with a Leader of the Global Majority:
Dr. Angela Ward was in various equity-focused positions during her 17 years of service in Austin Independent School District, TX. She is currently the Founder and CEO of 2Ward Equity Consulting. These comments are the personal reflections of Angela and her experiences, they do not reflect the opinions of her former district.
Mary: How do you approach your work?
Angela: In my current role, I consult with, and coach leaders and staff to expand their antiracist lens. I do this work because I value partnerships and co-conspirators focused on disrupting the barriers that prevent Black, Brown, and Indigenous students and families, and staff from engaging in identity-safe schools and workplaces. So I seek out those natural connections.
I seek out those relationships and they often find me because of the way I do my work, with love. People come and find me because they want to be connected to the work because they feel like it's fulfilling for them also.
Mary: How do you handle challenges?
Angela: I do a lot of listening and I don't take it personally. I listen to hear the complaint under the complaint, or the complaint under the assumption, the complaint under the accusation and pay attention to what I know about the system and systemic racism. My goal in the conversation is to hopefully provide some type of understanding that I really am someone in the system who's working to effect change, working to create identity safe space, and that our partnership can assist with that change.
And for me, identity safe means that it doesn't matter if I'm Black, if I'm Indigenous, if I identify as Mexican or Latinx, or identify as Chicano, whoever I am, my gender, my gender expression, my gender identity, my religion… the way I wear my hair, you know, whatever makes me the unique person I am, I want to create space so that everyone is free to be that and free to not be treated differently or mistreated by people who are supposed to greet them at the door or invite them into school spaces. I work to break down those barriers so people can come into a public school space designed for anyone to know and feel that they can come in and get what they need.
You can read more from Angela when “Leading Within Systems of Inequity in Education: A Liberation Guide for Leaders of Color” is published in April 2023. Let me know if you would like to be interviewed and/or recommend someone to be profiled in this section.
What I’m Reading: Unwrapped: The Pursuit of Justice for Women Educators by Kendra Washington-Bass and Kelly Peaks Horner.
About the author(s): Kendra Washington-Bass and Kelly Peaks Horner are educators who have worked in various roles inside and outside of school districts with a focus on supporting women in leadership.
Book Audience: Women in leadership and anyone who works with women in leadership.
Book Overview:
Kendra and Kelly end Unwrapped by stating, “The main objective of this book is to open your eyes to who you are, how you have navigated your personal and professional space, and how the navigation has influenced your decisions as an educational leader” (p.204). I can attest to the fact that they HIT their main objective.
The book begins with us getting to know Kendra and Kelly’s individual stories. Through their storytelling, we get a peek into their childhoods and the experiences that have brought them to write their book. I felt connected to them as they each freely shared their struggles. Once we learn about the authors separately we hear from them interchangeably and sometimes together, sharing who they learned with/from and what resources they leaned on to engage in their own unwrapping process.
The concept of unwrapping is a beautiful one. As they say, “the epitome of womanhood is to lose one’s self completely” (p. 109). Therefore, as women, we have to unwrap ourselves of the conditioning we have endured that tells us what it means to be a “woman.” As Kendra explains, this conditioning gets more complex when you are a Black woman. Intersectionality definitely matters.
One concept that is introduced is the five elements of well-being that are introduced in Gallup but adjusted to apply specifically to women in leadership. They explain that to cultivate a thriving well-being, women must put five elements in the context of their individual lived experience at work, community, and at home. They are:
Purpose well-being
Social well-being
Financial well-being
Physical well-being
Community well- being (pp. 90-91).
The middle chapters end with a set of reflection questions to help push the unwrapping process. Some questions that I particularly enjoyed reflecting on include:
Are you living your life as who you really are? If so, what does it feel like? If not, what do you need to do to live your life fully? (p.125)
Identify a courageous journey you will take for yourself and/or for someone else. Why is this courageous? (p 157)
What can you do tomorrow to be a more daring and less protective leader? How will you know you did what you said you would do? Create accountability for yourself. (p 181)
What do you long for when it comes to your authentic self? What would you look like? Feel like? Smell like? (p. 199)
The book ends with aspirational goals that each author wants to achieve as well as six concrete ways (pp.211-214) women educational leaders can thrive. Kendra and Kelly have put their unwrapped experiences on the page as inspiration and a roadmap for all of us to engage in our own unwrapping.
A final quote that is central to the book’s objective as well as inspiration for me and hopefully you to continue on our journies of unwrapping. “Wrap ourselves in love and self-compassion. Wrap ourselves in our strengths. Wrap ourselves in the opportunities we seek. And wrap ourselves around one another to ‘stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature’ (p157).”
Next Book: Understanding Your Instructional Power: Curriculum and Language Decisions to Support Each Student by Tanji Reed Marshall, PhD. You can find a full list of my book recommendations here. Please note that I am an affiliate with Bookshop.org and receive compensation for your purchase when you use the book links provided.
Resources:
The latest issue of Rethinking Schools includes articles on the impact of anti-CRT laws on teachers and the problem with the learning loss narrative.
These HBCUs are forging pathways to understanding between Black and Jewish communities.
The first issue of Hammer and Hope is out. Co-founders Jennifer Hope and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor explain, “We believe in the hammer of struggle and in the power of hope… This magazine is an attempt to create what we desire to see in the world: a radical and evolving vision we can collectively work toward.”
Reminder:
My book is available for pre-order anywhere books are sold: Amazon , ASCD, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop.
Publishing day is Monday, April 10th. I’m so thankful to have this book out into the world for you all to read. Can’t wait to hear what you all think!
If this is your first time reading, please go back and read my Introductions post.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think. If you like it, please share it with your network!
Thank you for this inspiring post. I have felt such intense love and rage this past week. I am now encouraged to lean into both to serve my community.