The Revolution will not be televised (Nor will it make you a millionaire)?

As I sit down to write this, it is apparent that we are moving away from longform text. Our brains have been rewired to accept bitesize Youtube clips, Instagram reels, and Tik Toks for our informational needs. I salute the progress and increased accessibility provided through these mediums; however, some shit you just need to write so that folx can read and feel something other than temporary dopamine. For me, writing has always been a way to think through complex situations in my life; this short essay is no exception. So if you’ve made it this far, I thank you for keeping the medium alive. I hope that the crux of how I am feeling and dealing with the unrest in my spirit is clear and that the message will resonate with you.?

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History is one of our most underutilized resources. History is how we know that the most prosperous times for Black folx were directly after the civil war, with greatest representation in the senate and the rise of organizations such as the Freedmen's Bureau leading former enslaved people into a society that was still struggling to see them outside of chains. History is how we know that teachers (read Black) are some of our first activists, fighting for integration and better schooling conditions for marginalized communities, only for the system to freeze them out in the quest for educational equity. History is also something that we ignore consistently. History tells us that revolutionaries are not long for this world and are more likely to die penniless than profit from a lucrative book deal and speaking tour. Progress and revolution rarely coexist with capitalism because true progress and revolution know that it is capitalism and White Supremacy Culture that necessitate the existence of the former. How, then, can we, as educators, see ourselves above these historical truths? Serving two masters has never been successful, yet here we are trying to fit square pegs into spaces fit for triangles.?

I know at face value the ideas mentioned above may seem disconnected. Hell, they may not make much sense in isolation. However, for the past year I’ve been trying to make sense of education’s propensity to be ahistorical. This time last year I was called into a meeting and told that my work as an instructional coach, tasked with developing culturally responsive teachers to serve marganilized communities, was no more because, under our master Capitalism,? there was no longer a space for me. This spectre of capitalism, constantly remaining in the peripheral of many nonprofits, had nullified the revolutionary work that my teachers were doing in the classroom. This ghost, that I don’t even believe in, had swooped in and disrupted more than any ant-racist mission written on a website. History was indeed repeating. Just like those who’d come before, revolution had once again been sacrificed for monetary gain. The mistress had usurped the first lady. While I was able to come back from this professionally, here, almost a year later, the sacfrifical alter has been presented again. And, as history tends to do, the lapse in logic repeated itself again.?The cycle of sacrificing true revolutionary work for financial gain seems to be an unfortunate pattern that continues to repeat itself.

This time the casualties were colleagues that I considered family. Teacher educators who were all in for the revolution have found that serving two masters is never sustainable. That when our convictions and values are put to the test, we will bend the knee to meet a bottomline. This is a harsh reality to face. One that chips away and leaves a little less of you in tact every cycle. Whether you are a witness or someone directly impacted, this stains all of us and leaves us with a question that must be answered as we move forward. Who are we? While simple, this question is one; it is also the North Star. We are not the same as we were before the spectre of capitalism forced us to render the humans moving the revolution forward invisble. Seeing them merely as roadblocks to a bottomline. It is crucial for us to reflect on our values and priorities in the face of such dehumanization. As we navigate through this challenging reality, we must strive to uphold our humanity and resist the pressures of a profit-driven society. This is not fair; however, it is not historical. It is this fact that makes these situations even harder to witness since we know who will come first. The same teachers we froze out of the profession during desegregation are the same folx who show up with revolutionary ways of thinking about education, only to be discarded again when the powers that be realize that revolution does not equate to dollars.?

So, again, I ask unironically, Who are we? When we look in the mirror, are we okay with the answer to this question? Better yet, if we looked to history, not only would we have our answer, but we would also have answers on how to not move forward. Because the truth is, we cannot keep bringing Black and Brown teachers, coaches, and teacher educators into a space where their revolutionary identities are exhumed when master decides it's time to come home. So to those who were thrown away to appease master, know that I am sorry. And know that the fight for a better tomorrow is far from over.