Examples of White Supremacy Culture in Mr. Connor’s Comments
| Characteristic | Examples from this Study |
|---|---|
| Fear | “It’s a great way to keep these kids in line, literally and figuratively. If I didn’t enforce this, they’d have their hands everywhere—destroying student work, annoying and hitting each other. So I just nip all that in the bud with a little preemptive law and order.” (Scene 2) |
| One Right Way | “You go into some homes and education is not at the forefront because maybe they had parents who had a bad experience with education. So now their kids can have the same issues that they had. I’ve had that happen before where I’ve had to try to change the perception.” (Scene 1) |
| Mr. Connor was looming over the child’s desk with hands on hips, raising his voice about “School rules”-this and “you know better”-that. (Scene 3) | |
| Either/Or Thinking and The Binary | “Even though the parents know the buses will get their kids to school late almost every day. They just don’t care, you know?” (Scene 1) |
| “The kids live in places like that… and the parents don’t want to work to try to get a better place because they want to be on welfare. It’s like what I was talking about with my kids last year. We were talking about jobs. And they’re saying things like, ‘Why do I have to get a job?’ ‘I’m going to get the government to take care of me.’ Already in third grade, we’re having these conversations with your kids and that’s not just one or two. It’s the majority of my classroom. Something has to give. We have, again, these cultures at home. It’s what’s taking place at home and then coming into the classroom.” (Scene 1) | |
| Denial and Defensiveness | “…you don’t put a label on any single child at all. They are all individuals. They are human beings. There is no color to them. Like I said, I don’t care who walks through that door. You are a human being and your life matters to me. I care about each and every one of you and I will do my very best to teach each and every one of you every single day and there will be no preconceived notions. If you’re Black, I’m not going to look down on you any differently because you’re all smart. You are all capable learners.” (Scene 1) |
| They think because they are Black, they are going to get shot by the police. Complete craziness,” Mr. Connor says with a chuckle. “I mean, it happens once in a while, but they can’t keep walking around with this constant fear that they might be the next one. (Scene 2) | |
| I had this discussion with my students after the Trayvon Martin shooting. When they looked back at the bodycam footage, many were individuals who were not following directions. And this is what I told my students, because we watched it. Are there unfortunately some crooked cops? Of course. Crooked white cops, Black cops, Muslims cops. There’s crooked everything. To be honest, these kids should just assume that it’s not going to happen to them because it won’t. (Scene 2) | |
| There is no such thing as privilege. A lot of my friends are Black. My really good friends are Black, and we have these discussions too. I bounce these ideas off of them and I brought up that Waking Up White book and the whole privilege thing. And I don’t know, putting myself in somebody else’s shoes is not the same thing as looking at somebody and understanding that we all go through trials. We all have our ups and our downs. Some people’s ups are a lot more than others. Some people’s downs are a lot more severe than others. But we all go through it. Regardless of what race you are.” (Scene 3) | |
| Right to Comfort, Fear of Conflict, and Power Hoarding | And I told them point blank, “your parents shouldn’t be telling you that either.” Because that’s who’s putting that garbage in their heads. Why should a kid be thinking about that, especially at school? I don’t really want to get into that with students; it’s going to become a huge thing, a fight, you know. (Scene 2) |
| She doesn’t do the suspensions. I feel that she should. I feel that the parents need to see that side of her. What the parents see is the, ‘Yep, yep. Oh, I’m compassionate. I’m understanding. I’m this and I’m that.’ But they don’t see the, ‘I’ve had enough of this. We’ve worked with you. We’ve tried this. We’ve tried that. You’re not accepting responsibility here. You’re not trying to work with us anymore.’” (Scene 3) | |
| Individualism | As far as the whole Black Lives Matter thing, I am a firm believer that all lives matter because in life it’s not about race. It all boils down to how you as an individual are trying to make society better through whatever job or profession you have. I worked hard to get here, too. That’s why I teach. For me, all my students’ lives matter. That’s my philosophy and I’m proud that my teaching practice reflects that.” (Scene 2) |
| To all of a sudden make people think that they are privileged in some way because of the color of their skin or where they grew up is not right. I don’t think that’s the way to go about it. I think we need to look at it as each individual human being deserves an education here at school, regardless of what color they are or where they’ve come from.” (Scene 3) | |
| Progress in More | “We don’t have time for any of that when these kids are failing tests already.” (Scene 2) |
| Worship of the Written Word | To say that one gets privilege more than the other, I don’t know. I’m a history major. I have all sorts of history. I have the African American history, I have the Japanese history, the Chinese history, the Muslim history, the Native American history, the Jewish history. I mean, we’re talking about magnitudes of history and oppression (Scene 3) |
| Urgency | “We don’t have time for any of that when these kids are failing tests already.” (Scene 2) |
| Fear | “It’s a great way to keep these kids in line, literally and figuratively. If I didn’t enforce this, they’d have their hands everywhere—destroying student work, annoying and hitting each other. So I just nip all that in the bud with a little preemptive law and order.” (Scene 2) |
| One Right Way | “You go into some homes and education is not at the forefront because maybe they had parents who had a bad experience with education. So now their kids can have the same issues that they had. I’ve had that happen before where I’ve had to try to change the perception.” (Scene 1) |
| Mr. Connor was looming over the child’s desk with hands on hips, raising his voice about “School rules”-this and “you know better”-that. (Scene 3) | |
| Either/Or Thinking and The Binary | “Even though the parents know the buses will get their kids to school late almost every day. They just don’t care, you know?” (Scene 1) |
| “The kids live in places like that… and the parents don’t want to work to try to get a better place because they want to be on welfare. It’s like what I was talking about with my kids last year. We were talking about jobs. And they’re saying things like, ‘Why do I have to get a job?’ ‘I’m going to get the government to take care of me.’ Already in third grade, we’re having these conversations with your kids and that’s not just one or two. It’s the majority of my classroom. Something has to give. We have, again, these cultures at home. It’s what’s taking place at home and then coming into the classroom.” (Scene 1) | |
| Denial and Defensiveness | “…you don’t put a label on any single child at all. They are all individuals. They are human beings. There is no color to them. Like I said, I don’t care who walks through that door. You are a human being and your life matters to me. I care about each and every one of you and I will do my very best to teach each and every one of you every single day and there will be no preconceived notions. If you’re Black, I’m not going to look down on you any differently because you’re all smart. You are all capable learners.” (Scene 1) |
| They think because they are Black, they are going to get shot by the police. Complete craziness,” Mr. Connor says with a chuckle. “I mean, it happens once in a while, but they can’t keep walking around with this constant fear that they might be the next one. (Scene 2) | |
| I had this discussion with my students after the Trayvon Martin shooting. When they looked back at the bodycam footage, many were individuals who were not following directions. And this is what I told my students, because we watched it. Are there unfortunately some crooked cops? Of course. Crooked white cops, Black cops, Muslims cops. There’s crooked everything. To be honest, these kids should just assume that it’s not going to happen to them because it won’t. (Scene 2) | |
| There is no such thing as privilege. A lot of my friends are Black. My really good friends are Black, and we have these discussions too. I bounce these ideas off of them and I brought up that Waking Up White book and the whole privilege thing. And I don’t know, putting myself in somebody else’s shoes is not the same thing as looking at somebody and understanding that we all go through trials. We all have our ups and our downs. Some people’s ups are a lot more than others. Some people’s downs are a lot more severe than others. But we all go through it. Regardless of what race you are.” (Scene 3) | |
| Right to Comfort, Fear of Conflict, and Power Hoarding | And I told them point blank, “your parents shouldn’t be telling you that either.” Because that’s who’s putting that garbage in their heads. Why should a kid be thinking about that, especially at school? I don’t really want to get into that with students; it’s going to become a huge thing, a fight, you know. (Scene 2) |
| She doesn’t do the suspensions. I feel that she should. I feel that the parents need to see that side of her. What the parents see is the, ‘Yep, yep. Oh, I’m compassionate. I’m understanding. I’m this and I’m that.’ But they don’t see the, ‘I’ve had enough of this. We’ve worked with you. We’ve tried this. We’ve tried that. You’re not accepting responsibility here. You’re not trying to work with us anymore.’” (Scene 3) | |
| Individualism | As far as the whole Black Lives Matter thing, I am a firm believer that all lives matter because in life it’s not about race. It all boils down to how you as an individual are trying to make society better through whatever job or profession you have. I worked hard to get here, too. That’s why I teach. For me, all my students’ lives matter. That’s my philosophy and I’m proud that my teaching practice reflects that.” (Scene 2) |
| To all of a sudden make people think that they are privileged in some way because of the color of their skin or where they grew up is not right. I don’t think that’s the way to go about it. I think we need to look at it as each individual human being deserves an education here at school, regardless of what color they are or where they’ve come from.” (Scene 3) | |
| Progress in More | “We don’t have time for any of that when these kids are failing tests already.” (Scene 2) |
| Worship of the Written Word | To say that one gets privilege more than the other, I don’t know. I’m a history major. I have all sorts of history. I have the African American history, I have the Japanese history, the Chinese history, the Muslim history, the Native American history, the Jewish history. I mean, we’re talking about magnitudes of history and oppression (Scene 3) |
| Urgency | “We don’t have time for any of that when these kids are failing tests already.” (Scene 2) |
Sharing content requires targeting cookies to be enabled. Please update your cookie preferences to use this feature.