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Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls

By: Omobolade Delano-Oriaran, Marguerite W. Penick, Shemariah J. Arki, Ali Michael, Orinthia Swindell, Eddie Moore Jr.

Written to incite necessary transformation, this edited volume provides a framework to understand, respect the identities of, and authentically connect with Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781544376998
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2021
Page Count: 584
Publication date: April 12, 2021

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Review copies may be requested by individuals planning to purchase 10 or more copies for a team or considering a book for adoption in a higher ed course. To request a review copy, contact sales@corwin.com.

Description

Be a part of the radical transformation to honor and respect Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls!

This book is a collective call to action for educational justice and fairness for all Black Girls – Beautiful, Brilliant. This edited volume focuses on transforming how Black Girls are understood, respected, and taught. Editors and authors intentionally present the harrowing experiences Black Girls endure and provide readers with an understanding of Black Girls’ beauty, talents, and brilliance.

This book calls willing and knowledgeable educators to disrupt and transform their learning spaces by presenting:

Detailed chapters rooted in scholarship, lived experiences, and practice
Activities, recommendations, shorter personal narratives, and poetry honoring Black Girls
Resources centering Black female protagonists
Companion videos illustrating first-hand experiences of Black Girls and women
Tools in authentically connecting with Black Girls so they can do more than survive – they can thrive.

Author(s)

Omobolade Delano-Oriaran

Dr. Delano-Oriaran continues to dedicate her life to advocating for racial and all forms (social, economic, political, educational) of justice for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Her mission is to authentically engage with schools, communities, organizations, and businesses to achieve critical transformation with the goal of eliminating manifestations of racism—individual, institutional, systemic, and structural—and intersecting forms of oppression. As a teacher educator, she challenges educators to adopt inclusive, diverse, equitable, and liberatory approaches that are culturally responsible, relevant, and sustaining.

Dr. Delano-Oriaran is an associate professor in the Teacher-Education Department at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, where she serves as director of the Global Student-Teaching Program and Bridge Pre-College Program. She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees in public administration at the historically Black Savannah State University in Georgia, and her PhD in comparative and international education with a minor in women and development from Pennsylvania State University.

An avid researcher and writer, Dr. Delano-Oriaran has published papers in journals and books and is the lead editor of two volumes on service-learning. She has founded or cofounded several award-winning programs, including African Heritage, Inc., the Umoja Program for transracial families, and the African Heritage Emerging Student Leaders Institute. She is the recipient of numerous awards for diversity issues and community change, including the 2020 Ethics in Action Award, the Sister Joel Read Civic Engagement Practitioners Award, the City of Appleton’s Toward Community Unity in Diversity Award, the Wisconsin State Human Relations Association’s Outstanding Human Relations Educator, and St. Norbert College’s Scholarship, and Bishop Morneau Community Service Awards.

Marguerite W. Penick

Marguerite W. Penick received her PhD from the University of Iowa in curriculum and instruction. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked as a high school teacher in an urban school in Kansas City, Kansas. Dr. Penick is a professor of leadership, literacy and social foundations in the College of Education and Human Services at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Her work centers on issues of power, privilege, and oppression in relationship to issues of curriculum, with a special emphasis on the incorporation of quality literature in K–12 classrooms. Dr. Penick currently serves as a lead editor for the online journal, Understanding and Dismantling Privilege. She appears in the movie “Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible” by the World Trust Organization. Her work includes a joint article on creating safe spaces for discussing white privilege with preservice teachers, and she is a coeditor of Everyday White People Confronting Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories (Stylus Publishing, 2015), The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys (Corwin, 2017), and The Diversity Consultant Cookbook (Stylus Publishing, 2019).

Shemariah J. Arki

Shemariah J. Arki identifies as an educator, an activist, and an organizer. Currently serving as a professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies and as the interim director of the Center for Pan-African Culture, both at Kent State University, she is an intersectional feminist scholar with expert knowledge and skills to develop, implement, facilitate, and evaluate curricula that promote institutional equity, communication, and access for traditionally marginalized students and families. Dr. Arki received a graduate certificate from the Penn Equity Institute for Doctoral Students from the Center for The Study of Race & Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She has also been a certified federal equal employment opportunity investigator since 2017.

Serving as the founder and program director of the Ellipsis Institute for Womxn of Color in the Academy and as an auto/ethnographic researcher and creative nonfiction writer, her work centers cultural epistemologies and the construction of a #BlackCommaFeminist pedagogy.

She has authored several academic and creative publications that center the lived experiences of womxn of color in education. As a public intellectual, she consistently ensures that education should be free and compulsory to all through her participation, organizing, and mobilizing of diverse constituents.

A proud Clevelander and mom of Solomon Tafari and Malcom Saadiq, Shemariah enjoys traveling, yoga, and making memories with family and friends.

Ali Michael

As the Director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators, Ali Michael, Ph.D. works with schools and organizations across the country to help make research on race, Whiteness, and education more accessible and relevant to educators. Ali is the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry and Education, winner of the 2017 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award. As a member of a multiracial editorial team, she has co-edited The Guide for White Women who Teach Black Boys, Teaching Beautiful and Brilliant Black Girls, and Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories. With her colleague Toni Graves Williamson, Ali adapted Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility for a Young Adult audience. Ali sits on the editorial board of the journal Whiteness and Education. Her article, What do White Children Need to Know About Race?, co-authored with Dr. Eleonora Bartoli in Independent Schools Magazine, won the Association and Media Publishing Gold Award for Best Feature Article in 2014. When she is not writing, speaking, or training, Ali is striving to be an anti-racist co-parent to two amazing kids. Her writing and speeches are available at alimichael.org.

Orinthia Swindell

Orinthia Swindell has centered the voices and experiences of youth and families as the focal point of her work as an educator for the past 28 years. She credits her mother for instilling in her the importance and value of education and of being connected to their community. As the youngest of six children growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Ms. Swindell developed a passion for learning and teaching others about social justice, equity, and inclusion work. Much of her work over the years has centered around young children’s awareness of race and identity and adult skill development around this as well. As a consultant, Orinthia has facilitated numerous workshops and presentations. She has also presented at national conferences and has been a guest speaker at teacher preparation programs. Most recently Ms. Swindell has shifted her attention towards continuing to develop programming for girls in addition to growing her practice as an herbalist. One of her most esteemed accomplishments is being the mother of two amazing young men.

Eddie Moore Jr.

Eddie Moore, Jr., has pursued and achieved success in academia, business, diversity, leadership and community service. In 1996, he started America & MOORE, LLC (http://www.eddiemoorejr.com) to provide comprehensive diversity, privilege, and leadership training/workshops. Dr. Moore is recognized as one of the nation’s top speakers/consultants, and he’s featured in the film “I’m not Racist….Am I?” Dr. Moore is the founder of and program director for the White Privilege Conference (WPC: http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com). In 2014 Dr. Moore founded The Privilege Institute (TPI), which engages people in research, education, action, and leadership through workshops, conferences, publications, and strategic partnerships and relationships. He is cofounder of the online journal Understanding and Dismantling Privilege, and coeditor of Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories (Stylus Publishing, 2016), The Guide for White Women who Teach Black Boys (Corwin, 2018), and The Diversity Consultant Cookbook: Preparing for the Challenge (Stylus Publishing, 2019). Dr. Moore received his PhD from the University of Iowa in education leadership. His PhD research is on Black football players at Division III schools in the Midwest. Twitter: @eddieknowsmoore | Instagram: @eddiemoorejr | In: www.linkedin.com/in/eddiemoorejr

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

About the Editors

About the Contributors

Libation

Introduction. Black Girls are Beautiful and Brilliant

UNDERSTANDING

I. “Black people I love you, I love us, Our Lives Matter” - Alicia Garza #BlackLivesMatter

CH1. Black “Girls” are Different not Deficient

Vignette: Black Girl Got Magic

Vignette: It Takes A Village: Black Girl Physician, Black Girl Scientist

CH2. Black, Beautiful, and Brilliant: It Takes A Village, Counter Safe Spaces for Black Super Girls

Vignette: Ode to the Black Woman High School Student

CH3. A Systemic Response to Creating a School Where Black Girls Can Thrive

Book Review: Hey, Black Child

II. “Nah” - Harriet Tubman: Stereotypes and Tropes

Vignette: Where Does the Sapphire Caricature Come From?

CH4. My Eloquent, Angry, Black Rage

CH5. The Right Kind of Black Girl

CH6. Colorism in the Classroom

Vignette: The Token Tax

III. “Spirit Murdering” - Bettina Love

CH7. Visible Black Girls... Powerful Beyond Measure

Vignette: You Murdered my Rhythm and Blues: Black Girls Still Got Magic

CH8. Why Does My Darkness Blind You? Abandoning Racist Teaching Practices

Book Review: Genesis Begins Again

CH9. Finding My Armor of Self-Love

Vignette: Black Student, White Teacher

IV. “Reclaiming My Time” - Maxine Waters

CH10. Girls in the School to Prison Pipeline: Implications of History, Policy, and Race

CH11. How Dare you Be Brilliant: Precarious Situation for Black Girls

CH12. Girl Trafficking Misunderstood: Understanding The Commercially Sexually Exploited African American Girl

Vignette: Black Girls Trapped in Our Foster Care System

Vignette: My Transracial Adoption Experience: Being Seen and Not Seen At All

Vignette: Know Your Body, Sis

CH13. Little Black Girls with Curves

Vignette: Fat, Black, and Female

V. “Your Silence is a Knee on My Neck” - Natasha Cloud

CH14. Whiteness Competency: How Not to Be BBQ Becky

Vignette: Keisha Resists Karen

CH15. Can I do this if I’m White?: How White Educators can be the Teachers their Black Girl Students Deserve

CH16. Not Knowing and Not Controlling: Learning Alongside Black Girl Students

Vignette: Confessions of a White Teacher: Seven Ways I Failed Beautiful and Brilliant Black Girls

Vignette: Humbling Feedback

Vignette: Is This the Solidarity I Seek?

CH17. Not in Our Name: Fierce Allyship for White Women

Vignette: The Culture Walk

CH18. White Teachers, Black Girls, and White Fragility

VI. “Give light and people will find the way.” – Ella Baker

Vignette: Dear, Dear, Dear!

CH19. A Reimagined Pedagogy of Affirmation and Artistic Practices

Vignette: Infinitely Crowned

RESPECTING

I. “I’ll be Bossy and Damn Proud” - Rosa Clemente

CH20. Who are Black Girls: An Intersectional Herstory of Feminism

Book Review: Crossing Ebenezer Creek

Vignette: This Is What a (Pan)African Feminist Looks Like

CH21. Navigating Multiple Identities: The Black Immigrant Girl Experience

Vignette: It should have been all of us, together, against the system: Latinidad, Blackness, and Queer Identity

CH22. Yes! Black girls are genderqueerand transgender, too!

CH23. Prismatic Black Girls Reflecting African Spiritualities in Learning Environments

Book Review: Pet

II. “I am desperate for change - now - not in 8 years or 12 years, but right now” - Michelle Obama

CH24. Black Girl in the Playground

Vignette: Who’s Going to Sing A Black Girl’s Song

Vignette: My Black, My Beautiful, My Brilliant

CH25. Black Girls Voices Matter: Empowering the Voices of Black Girls against Co-opting and Colonization

III. “Don’t Touch My Hair” - Solange

CH26. She Wears a Crown: Centering Black Girlhood in Schools

CH27. I am Not My Hair

Vignette: Covered Girls

Book Review: I’m Enough

IV. “We want to turn victims into survivors - and survivors into thrivers” - Tarana Burke

Vignette: Mirror, Mirror

CH28. Voice Activation and Volume Control in the Workplace

Vignette: Black Girls Say #MeToo

V. “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” - Angela Davis

CH29. When She is the Only One: High Achieving Black Girls in Suburban Schools

CH30. Liminal and Limitless: Black Girls in Independent Schools

Vignette: A Black Woman Who Attended a Predominantly White School Returns to Teach Black Girls in Predominantly White Schools

Book Review: A Good Kind of Trouble

VI. “Dreamkeepers” - Gloria Ladson Billings

CH31. Mrs. Ruby Middleton Forsythe (Miss Ruby): The Power of Sankofa

Vignette: • A Black Woman's Reflections on the Road I Made While Walking:Remarks from My Retirement Ceremony

Book Review: Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement

CONNECTING

I. “Such As I Am, A Precious Gift” - Zora Neale Hurston

CH32. Black Girls Got it Goin’ On

Vignette: Black Girls Are Precious Gifts: Educators Don't Be Kryptonite

Vignette: Dear Mr. Guillen

Vignette: So you Wanted to See the Wizard

CH33. Learning to Listen to Her: Psychological Verve with Black Girls

Vignette: Creating Safe Spaces for Black Queer Girls

Vignette: Being a Trans Black Girl

II. #1000BlackGirlBooks - Marley Dias

CH34. Selecting and Using BACE (Blackcentric, Authentic, and Culturally Engaging) Books: She Looks Like Me

CH35. Hair Representation Matters: Selecting Children’s Books for Black Girls

Book Review: The Night Is Yours

CH36. Teaching Reading to Beautiful and Brilliant and Black Girls: Building a Strong Culture of Engagement

Book Review: Children of Blood and Bones

III. “I am deliberate and afraid of nothing” - Audre Lorde

CH37. Black Girl Sisterhood as Resilience And Resistance

CH38. Respect Black Girls: Prioritize, Embrace and Value

CH39. Understanding the Intersecting Identities of Black Girls

Vignette: Just Educational Ecosystems for Black Girls: Educators, here are 8 ways you can support Black Muslim Girls during the School year

Vignette: The Skin I’m in

CH40. #StudentAsSignMaker: Curating Classrooms For Identity Development

Vignette: Beautiful, Brilliant, Black and Deaf

CH41. Black Men Teaching Beautiful and Brilliant Black Girls: Resisting Patriarchal and Sexist Socializations

Vignette: Paragon Project: The Transformative Power of HipHop Education To Save Lives

Vignette: I Wish You Believed in Magic

CH42. Black Girl Magic: Beauty, Brilliance, and Coming to Voice in the Classroom

IV. “Perseverance is my motto” -Madam C. J. Walker

CH43. Listen to Her!: Black Girls Constructing Activist Identities in a School-Based Leadership Program

Vignette: Black Girls as Leaders

CH44. When You Imagine a Scientist, Technologist, Engineer, Artist or Mathematician, Imagine A Black Girl

Book Review: Slay

Vignette: Did I Even Matter?

CH45. Developing an Ethics of Engaging Black Girls in Digital Spaces

CH46. A Matter of Media: Cultural Appropriation and Expectations of Black Girls

CH47. "Catch This Magic”: How Schools Get in the Way of Gifted Black Girls

V. “Be thankful that you've been given that gift because [Black] girls are amazing” - Kobe Bryant

Vignette: Black Girls Own Their Future

Book Review: Juneteenth - For Mazie

Vignette:Love Letter to My Dazzling, Darling Daughters

Vignette: Love letter

Vignette: Lioness to Bee: A Love Letter to the Pride!

Vignette: Anyia

VI. “We Will Fight Till the Last of Us Falls in the Battlefield” - Nana Yaa Asanatewaa, Queenmother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire, Ghana

Vignette: A Mother of the Movement Speaks Out

CH48. Motherwork as Pedagogy

Vignette: Jenga: The Game Single Mothers Play in the World of Academia

Vignette: Black Girl Fears Motherhood

Vignette: Dear Bayje

Vignette: A Love Letter to My Daughter Alyse

Vignette: Diamonds: Black, Beautiful, Brilliant

Reviews

"Grounded in both research and practice and brought to life by personal narratives of students, teachers, and parents, Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls is an important pedagogical resource for all educators who want to empower rather than impede the holistic development of the Black girls in their classrooms. If you’re asking yourself, 'Do I need this book?' the answer is, 'Yes, you do.'"

Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, President Emerita
Spelman College, author of "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations About Race"

"Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls is a timely and insightful volume that addresses the amazing diversity and complexity of Black girls and their triumphs and challenges. The editorial team led by Dr. Bola has assembled a stellar group of authors that bring us the essence of Black Girl Joy. This is a must-read and should be in the library of anybody who cares about doing right by Black girls."

Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Professor of Urban Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Our Black girls deserve better! This wide-ranging anthology fills a big hole in the literature and joins those volumes emphasizing Black boys. Should be required reading for all teachers and administrators. Kudos to the distinguished editors."

Adrien K. Wing, Associate Dean, Bessie Dutton Murray Professor of Law
University of Iowa College of Law

Other Titles in: Teaching Strategies for Diverse Students | Cultural Competence | Teaching At-Risk Students

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Related Resources

Access to companion resources is available with the purchase of this book.
Bettina Love on "Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls" [Book Excerpt]
Educators and Students Reflect on Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls [Video]