For many Black people in America, the past year of virtual working and schooling has meant a reprieve from some of the daily traumas that racism visits upon Black life in our country. As a Black woman, my reentry into “regular” life means a return to in-person workplace and personal microaggressions. For Black children, the return to in-person schooling can mean reentering classrooms that are antagonistic to their very identities.

In the wake of a global pandemic and last year’s racial uprisings, schools and districts have implemented school- or district-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion training and begun planning additional mental health supports to help students navigate the residual effects of a year of loss. But these measures are simply not enough.

If our public education system does not urgently and directly address the culture that Black students experience in classrooms, it will continue to fail them. In the absence of remote learning, Black students will be exposed to the tangible differences they uniquely feel when they cross the threshold into their classrooms.

Before COVID, Black students were suspended or removed from class at higher rates than non-Black students, they faced racial aggressions around their hairstyles or cultural dress and endured systematic disenfranchisement that barred them from advanced classes attended by their peers. During COVID, Black students’ lack of access to technology was characterized as disengagement, overpolicing continued even in the virtual space and, in many districts, learning loss was most acute for Black students. After COVID, the education sector has a choice: return to the status quo or finally address the anti-Blackness that undergirds these discriminatory outcomes for Black students.

Read the full article about dismantling anti-Blackness for student well-being by Alicia Montgomery at The 74.