I am sharing a poem that was gifted to me in celebration of my recent graduation.  The poet is a beautiful spirit known as Erica Kristina Reid.  She is my femtee. Like her poem, she is also a gift to us all, one delivered by the universe, to change the lens through which we each view the world!   In the case of her poem, we are challenged to understand the power of the femtor-femtee relationship in higher education, especially for Black women.  Through poetic verse Erica illustrates why higher education must make good on its claim to recruit more faculty women of color.  If for no other reason because the bonds they share serve to sustain and retain the excellence they represent when the culture and climate of the institution is not enuf. I chose to post the poem Erica gifted to me because I need to share her gifts with the world.  Why?  Because even if the world doesn't know it yet, Ms. Erica Kristina Reid, soon to be Dr. Reid, will one day set the world as we currently experience it on fire! Here are my femtee's words on fire...may they speak life into you in the same way they do so for me...

I saw fire today reaching out and in between
She moved the ground we were standing on
Transformed the form of our being
 
I heard life screaming out to me
Challenging me to change the course of my journey
Leaning and swaying as she spoke her truthful story

While love washed over each seat and every wave
Something whispered deep down in our souls with each sway she made
 
I saw my mother in you,
her soul reaching out from deep waters stretching across the Egyptian sea
 
I felt fire breathing out of you
from the crevices of each part of your inner most being
It moved the way we thought about revolutionizing the spaces we see
 
We cannot change what we do not acknowledge
We need to see beyond our individual knowledges
 
It is in the stories we tell, the lives we speak that bear witness to the history
 
My sister of many mothers from Africa and beyond
Keep breathing life through the stories of the untold and the ones that have gone.

Mother earth from the fire you cast may our lands be transformed
Into the lives we once never had or the ones we once dreamed of. 

Today was an important day.  I wrote this poem not just because of the path you have taken to fulfill a promise to your Big Momma but also for the example you lived to get to that promise. I am sitting at my desk now and allowing myself to reflect on the experience of vicariously watching you for the past almost two years and I want to scream at the top of my lungs-THANK YOU. Not just to you, but to your beautiful mother who birthed you, and to her beautiful mother who birthed her, and to the villages along the way that sustained them and gave you the foundation that you stand on.

There is something about the beauty of the African soul that sits deep within me. Today I saw you becoming the greatness you were born to be as so many of our ancestors have already done. So, in my Caribbean tongue; I say Auntie Tonya- Respect! in the most humble and gracious way. Thank you for showing up and being you always. Thanks also for helping me through my journey of attempting to learn in spaces, and with suitcases that are not always welcoming to change.
 
I wish you many more spaces where you continue to set the world on fire.
 
With love
Erica Kristina Reid- Your Femtee

I recently attended a community meeting for the local chapter of President Obama’s initiative ‘My Brother’s Keeper’.  I was the only female in the room.  As far as I could tell, these monthly meetings provide local education and service organizations with a forum to share resources in support of Black and Latino male students at-risk of being pushed out of PK-12 schools and into the school-to-prison pipeline.  The school-to-prison pipeline is the name used to describe the very real phenomena of students of color, primarily Black and Latino students, being targeted for excessive disciplinary actions and subsequently suspended and/or expelled from schools.  These suspensions and expulsions make them disproportionately at risk for dropping-out of school, and entering the prison industrial complex as a result.  Currently, black girls were suspended six times more than white girls, while black boys were suspended three times as often as white boys, making the relative risk for disciplinary action higher for Black girls when compared to White girls than it is for Black boys when compared to white boys.  Now while I applaud the brotha's for stepping up to take care of our baby boys, and absolutely understand the need for such a forum for Black boys at-risk of being pushed out,  I can't help but lament the gendered approach we as an educational community have taken to the school push out and school-to-prison pipeline phenomena.  As  I sat in that 'My Brother's Keeper' meeting, the only female in the room, I was also reminded of national scholar Kimberle Crenshaw's  urgent call to action for Black Girls.  Crenshaw reminds,  “As public concern mounts for the needs of men and boys of color through initiatives like the White House’s My Brother’s Keeper, we must challenge the assumption that the lives of girls and women - who are often left out of the national conversation – are not also at risk.”  I agree with Kimberle, and it's why I decided to post this week's poem, written after a classroom visit in which a Black male teacher, who taught in a school run by a Black male principal and a Black female assistant principal, in a Black community, just couldn't see the #BlackGirlMagic ways of expressing herself that a beautifully bouncy little girl named Anaya chose to express her Black Girl  'magichood'!  I left the room that day asking myself what happens when we no longer recognize our own ways of expressing ourselves.  Do we then too become the perpetrators of the PUSH OUT?  As I often do, I went home and poured my thoughts into my journal.  This poem, though simple, are those thoughts.  I wrote this poem for Anaya, in her voice, and for all of the other little Black girl Anaya's out there, who are fighting for their rightful space, and place, and time to just BE who they are, in all of their beautiful Black Girl 'Magichood'!  This is for you little Black Girls!  We are fighting so that one day you, like us, can express yourself authentically, and be seen, and loved, and cared for, and nurtured, and understood, and TAUGHT...without being PUSHED OUT!

Black Teachers!  Why Don’t You See Me Anymore?
A Poetic Counter Narrative from a Black Girl Pushed Out
What happens when my teacher, the dark chocolate man with skin like my own doesn’t see me anymore!
What happens?
What happens when my black female body has been rendered invisible by the one person designed to notice it!
What happens?
What happens when my teacher, the dark chocolate woman with skin like my own doesn’t see me anymore!
What happens?
What happens when my skin, wrapped in the same rich soil as hers becomes unrecognizable! 
What happens?
What happens when my teachers, bodies dipped in the same dark chocolate skin like mine don’t see me anymore!
What happens?
What happens, when my skin becomes the problem in this Black Space, managed by these Black bodies who don’t see me anymore because they have surrendered to Whiteness in search of a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist but that they have found in my body whose skin is wrapped in the rich soils of our African heritage!
What happens?
Does Whiteness force Blackness’ surrender?   Has it convinced my Black male and female teachers and school leaders, with bodies whose skin has been dipped in the same dark chocolate as my own but who don’t see me anymore, that I am no longer worth seeing?
Is that what happens?
Does my Black body, wrapped in a blackness as rich as the soils of my African heritage suddenly become...
Too loud!
Too Boistrous!
Too Unapproachable!
Too Angry!
Too Defiant!
Too Aggressive!
Too Naughty!
Too much of a distraction!
The problem! In need of being surveilled!
Is that what happens?
YES!
That’s what happens!
That is what happens when my teachers, and school leaders,
the dark chocolate men and women, with skin like my own, can no longer see me anymore!
On that day, when my teachers, and school leaders, the dark chocolate men and women, with skin like my own, who no longer
saw me anymore, my beautiful Black female body wrapped in skin as rich as the soils of my African heritage was…
Margenalized!
My Voice Silenced!
That’s what happened! 
It happened at school! 
Slowly at first! 
So slow that nobody but me saw it happen! 
That’s what happened!
It happened in a Black space, managed by Black bodies whose skin was wrapped in a blackness just as Black as my own Blackness, the one as rich as the soils of my African heritage, and adorning the beautiful bold bodies of my Black male teacher, my Black male Principal, and my Black female Assistant principal…all of them, dark chocolate, with skin like my own, but who didn’t see me anymore!
So my Blackness faded!  I gave up!  I tried to tell them that it was happening!  But they couldn’t see me!  Nor could they hear me!  Whiteness had reared its evil head and rendered me invisible
And so too had the people designed to see me…
So now,
I am just
another Black Girl, skin wrapped in a blackness as rich as the soils of my African heritage,
body marginalized, voice silenced…
just another Black girl! Pushed Out!
By my teachers!  And school leaders!
The dark chocolate men and women with skin like my own, and designed to see me, but who don’t see me anymore!
That’s what happens!

There are times when I wonder if we will ever defeat this European experiment called colonialism.  I also wonder if we will ever return to those pre-colonial days when our people were nurtured and their humanity embraced.  I wonder these things for our children, especially as I serve in schools where their humanity is stripped away and their bodies subjected to colonial violence wrapped in the psychological and emotional underpinnings of low expectations, poor instruction, racist pedagogies, and deficit thinking.  During these times of my wondering I ponder education and schooling, and as I ponder, I also imagine education before the colonial experiment.  My spirit yearns for those days, those days I see in my imagination, even as I know that they are not imagined at all.  I write this poem in the midst of such ponderings, from the depth of my spirit, and as an anti-colonial call for restoration back to the days when education nurtured the very spirit of "My People"!  This is for the people, a poem of reflection, in honor of the children:  My People!

My people, OUR PEOPLE,  
wore skin as rich as the soils upon which their feet walked, 
shades of black and brown, imbued with hues of yellow, shaded in tones of red, 
 a richly diverse people,  
speaking a plethora of languages across many diverse lands practicing varied 
religions, traditions, and modes of knowing.  
Diverse! Yet one! 
 
And the children? 
They learned… 
learned what they lived and lived their experience! 
Values and knowledge, shared through tongue,  
tales woven through story,  
characters built, spirits developed, accomplishments honored,  
ways of being reinforced. 
Listening gave way to life, 
life gave birth to the people –the people gave birth to humanity
humanity? – it nurtured, preserved, extended  
UNTIL
 
THEY CAME!
They came dressed in sheep’s skin, speaking in forked tongues
pulling wool over eyes
turning truths into lies
humanity disrupted
tongues silenced
bodies broken
lands stolen
tribes torn apart
stories transformed, the people's ways?  forever changed!
Characters seized, spirits crushed, accomplishments hidden away
ways of being pushed to the margins!  Silenced!  Rendered invisible!
 
And the children?
They learned…
learned what they lived and lived their experience!
white privilege, patriarchy,  and colonial oppression shared through schooling
tales woven through institutions reminding them of their worth
or lack thereof
teachers telling tales, tall on whiteness, short on cultural relativity
spirits crushed, souls destroyed, minds enslaved, life taken away, 
the people no more - emotional and psychological violence!
Violence birthing ethnic genocide
and ethnic genocide birthing 
this thing we call race - RACE
nurtured, preserved, extended, and
the people no more - dehumanized - marginalized – silenced – racialized!
BUT WAIT
the people?  We are here!  We ARE HERE and we fight back!
the people, WE, the people
wearing skin as rich as the soils upon which our feet walk
shades of black and brown, imbued with hues of yellow, shaded in tones of red, 
 a richly diverse people,  
speaking a plethora of languages across many diverse lands practicing varied 
religions and traditions, presenting in diverse sexualities, uniquely abilitied, embracing gendered modes of knowing.  
Diverse, yet one! 
 
And the children? 
They will learn!
Learn from WE the people!  The people are US!  Teachers! 
We the people will teach and our children?  They will learn…
learn what they live and live their experience! 
Values and knowledge, we will share through our tongues,  
tales we will weave through story,  
their characters we'll build, their spirits we will develop, their accomplishments we will honor,  
ways of being we will reinforce. 
drawing on our rich histories we will remember our legacies
invoking the land we will nurture our connection to spirit
by telling our stories we will honor our elders and pay tribute to the ancestors
proudly and together, we will walk to the center, moving across borders 
and refusing to stay on the margins!  Not silenced or rendered invisible
We will stand proud and tall, raising our voices and fists in revolution
we will break the chains of mental slavery, rejecting this thing called race
right here, right now, in this space
we will de-center whiteness and re-center US
fear will not stop us, white shame will not cause us to retreat
we will not allow our efforts to be appropriated or coopted
control, white privilege will not take
colorblindness? we will shade with the same rainbow
 flag that we wave with pride when heteronormativity shows its ugly head
and its sister hegemony? we will stamp out each and every time 
whiteness forgets that it  must, and can only be allies, not saviors!
this will not become their story...no peace corp antics will reside here
here in this space, at this time, on this day, for our children, in our communities
we will take back our schools
we will not stay silent, we will raise our voices loudly
We the people – US
We are teachers kissed by the sun and WE WILL TEACH!
 
and the children?
they will listen.
they will listen and they will learn
learn to listen
Listening will give way to life, 
life will give birth to the people –the people will give birth to humanity
humanity will give birth to a reclamation of us
we will become one people again, 
nurtured, preserved, extended 
for as long as we remember to raise our voice, fight our fight, teach our children, tell our stories 
woven and shared through the lives and experiences
 Of OUR PEOPLE!