"Covenant Keeper": Derrick Bell’s Enduring Education Legacy

Description

Although he spent his career as a lawyer and law school professor, Derrick Bell had a profound impact on the field of education in the area of educational equity. Among many accomplishments, Bell was the first African American to earn tenure at the Harvard Law School; he also established a new course in civil rights law and produced what has become a famous casebook: Race, Racism, and American Law. The man who could rightly be called, «The Father of Critical Race Theory,» Bell was an innovator who did things with the law that others had not thought possible. This volume highlights Bell’s influence on a number of prominent education and legal scholars by identifying some of his specific work and how they have used it to inform their own thinking and practice. What is contained here is an assemblage of contributors with deep commitments to the path-breaking work of Derrick Bell – a scholar, a teacher, an activist, a mentor, and a covenant keeper. Cover Contents Foreword: Critical What What? Notes Introduction Note References Section One: Derrick Bell Teaching and Schooling Chapter One: Continuing to Sacrifice Black Children My Bell Selection What I Did with the Chronicle What the Chronicle Can Mean in the 21st Century The Continuing Sacrifice School Segregation Post-Secondary Outcomes School Suspensions School Expulsions Privatization of Public Schools Coda References Chapter Two: “Gifted With a Second-Sight”: Professor Derrick Bell the Teacher Introduction: A Teacher First and Foremost My First Job Out of Law School “The Constitution Is Like Roach Powder” “It Just Means Telling the Truth” “Don’t Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good” “Humanizing the Law School Experience” Conclusion: A Teacher until the Very End Acknowledgments Notes References Chapter Three: A Critical Race Examination of McLaurin v. Oklahoma: How Derrick Bell Helped Me Understand George McLaurin’s Seat Introduction How I Came to Know McLaurin v. Oklahoma Critical Race Theory and the Working Definitions of Race, Racism, Racial Microaggressions, Institutional Racism, and White Supremacy McLaurin v. Oklahoma Legal History Using the Tools of Racial Microaggressions, Institutional Racism, and White Supremacy to Analyze the McLaurin Photo Conclusion Notes References Chapter Four: The Utility of “The Space Traders” and Its Variations as CRT Teachable Moments Introduction by Laurence Parker The Centrality of Race and Racism The Challenge to Dominant Ideology A Commitment to Social Justice and Praxis A Centrality of Experiential Knowledge A Historical Context and Interdisciplinary Perspective The Space Traders Return: The Story of Southeast Asian Americans by Kathryn K. Coquemont An Examination of Black Female Physician Faculty Using a Critical Race Theory Lens by Rosie Connor Space Traders in the Wealthy Rockies by Laura Todd Space Traders in the U.S. on TV in Brazil by Ana Carolina Antunes The Space Traders Come to Take a “Problem” off a School’s Hands by Allison Martin Poetic Counterstories: Spoken-Word Poetry as a Form of Talking Back by Kehaulani Folau My Counterstory References Section Two: Derrick Bell and Principles of Critical Race Theory Chapter Five: Derrick Bell, Brown, and the Continuing Significance of the Interest-Convergence Principle Derrick Bell and the Interest-Convergence Principle Chapter Outline The Genesis of the Interest-Convergence Thesis The Problem With Brown Parents v. Seattle School District No. 1 The Continuing Significance of Interest-Convergence Theory Note References Chapter Six: The Rules of Racial Standing: Critical Race Theory for Analysis, Activism, and Pedagogy Introduction: Racism Lives Analysis and Critique: “The Rules” in Action Black Voices and White Racism The Politics of Authenticity and Somersaulting Conservatives The Cowardice of Racism: From “Spineless” to “Courageous” in a Single Political Leap Double Standards, “Decent” People, and White Martyrdom Activism, Prophecy, and Conspiracy: Using “The Rules” Critical Race Pedagogy: Teaching and Re/writing “The Rules” Towards a Conclusion Epilogue: Are You White? Notes References Chapter Seven: Letter to My Unborn Daughter: My Career in the Academy—Reasons for My Mental Breakdown Critical Story-Telling for Activists Setting the Context Letter to My Unborn Daughter Promotion White Female Faculty The Risks of Speaking Out Racial Gesture Politics Postscript: A Note from the Author Notes References Section Three: Derrick Bell on Theory Chapter Eight: Derrick Bell’s Feminism: Profeminism, Intersection, and the Multiple Jeopardy of Race and Gender Black Feminism within CRT Derrick Bell’s Protests Derrick Bell’s Feminism The Chronicle of the 27-year Syndrome Conclusion References Chapter Nine: In Pursuit of Critical Racial Literacy: An (Auto)ethnographic Exploration of Derrick Bell’s Three Is Introduction and Goal of the Chapter An (Auto)Ethnographic Narrative of Race Derrick Bell on Acquiring a Critical Racial Literacy Toward a Critical Racial Literacy: Putting this Work into Research and Teaching Practice References Chapter Ten: Derrick Bell on Race and Memory: From Abolition to Obama Introduction Derrick Bell’s Theoretical Tenets of Historical Revision Black Revisionist Histories in the Black Intellectual Tradition Racial Revisionist American History—Bell’s Historical Pessimism White Interests and Black Freedom: Abolition and Slavery The Post-Civil-War Amendments: Rethinking Radical Reconstruction Brown v. Board of Education: Interest-Convergence and History Obama: On Elections and Freedom Bell’s Historical Fiction and the Method of Racial Chronicles Conclusion: Bell and Re-thinking of Black History References Afterword: The Ethics of Derrick Bell: Oh, How He Loved Military Service to Country Ethics, Religion, and the War on Racial Injustice Family Man Words of Derrick Bell References Contributors Index