When Clip Art Isn’t Just Clip Art: Teaching In the Time of Racial Tensions

It’s a Friday night as I’m writing this. I left work a few hours ago, but I can’t turn off my brain. I’m a school teacher. More specifically I work with children who have significant challenges in different areas; special education. I’m a woman. I’m Black. Most of my students are Black or of color. You need to know this. You need to know that this is why I’m afraid that I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I was planning and getting materials together for the upcoming week. I found a social story (a story with a specific way of writing that helps to teach social skills) on talking out of turn or blurting out. It’s one thing to be so excited that you just can’t hold your answer or opinion in anymore and it’s another thing to constantly talk over people. We all know that person, they show up at game nights. You’re all around the table playing “Catch Phrase” and they blurt out the answer whether it’s their team guessing or not. It’s not the most inappropriate thing, but it gets to be annoying and rude after the third game night and no one wants to be on that team. Well, I was coloring the clip art characters of the social story and I noticed something. The main character, the kid that was blurting out, looked Black. I mean, these are Black and White clip art kids, but this little girl looked Black to me. It was the hair, I think. Her hair was drawn with those semi circles that give off the idea of natural Black curly hair. So this kid, this kid that looks Black to me, is standing t…