SYSTEMIC RACISM IN EDUCATION
Racial justice and equity are the impetus behind Dr . Jerome Cranston ’ s research and teaching . As part of an interdisciplinary , international “ community of inquiry ,”
Dr . Jerome Cranston Cranston studies topics that , in his words , “ explore formal and non-formal teacher preparation and the ethical dimensions of school leadership with a particular focus on how capacity building in the education system can transform a set of seemingly random acts … into a just enterprise .”
Cranston ’ s family history explains this focus in part : His maternal grandparents who originated from tribal communities in what are now Nepal and Burma / Myanmar were " anglicized and evangelized as part of the colonial contagion ," says Cranston . His paternal grandfather , a travelling bookkeeper with the East Indian Rail Company , was killed in 1941 during a Japanese bombing of a railway station . His widowed grandmother , a mother of five , died the following year of malnutrition , an outcome of the British-manufactured famine in West Bengal . Singularly and collectively his family ' s experiences shaped his earliest experiences of systemic racism .
Cranston says , “ I accept a distant yet unvarying connection to the trauma that echoes through the colonized histories of my ancestors .” Yet , says Cranston , it is “ impossible to talk about systemic racism without recognizing that it is not only a history , or a memory , but very much a current lived reality for Indigenous , Black , and People of Colour .”
“ In the work that I do , race comes first ," continues Cranston . " It foreshadows the work I do and commit to do . From childhood , I ’ ve known myself to be consummately brown . When I looked in a mirror , I saw a brown face looking back . I endure in a society that doesn ’ t really want to make a space for me or to create a space for me to belong as I am . In my work , I ’ ve tried to work towards finding solutions through working with and alongside colleagues , to find ways that will bring greater racial justice .”
In defining systemic racism , Cranston says , “ it is important to separate systemic racism from racists . There are individuals who are part of the structure who themselves may not be , in an overt sense , racist . Systemic racism is a pervasive power relation that is reinforced every day through lack of knowledge or ignorance — sometimes ' willful ignorance ,' ( Mills , 2007 )— and through policies and practices that may appear to be neutral but have the effect of sustaining and fortifying a system .”
Attempting to dispel the common solution of the need to fix a broken system , Cranston says , “ All of us are living in a system that has been imbued , fortified , and strengthened by white domination , white privilege , to the detriment of Indigenous , Black , and People of Colour . The system is doing exactly what it is meant to do . The system is not broken . Rather , the system is designed to do exactly what it was set up to do by the original colonial architects to privilege whiteness over everything else .”
As a critical race theorist and researcher , Cranston says he “ uses race-conscious approaches to understand educational inequalities and systemic racism , and to find solutions that lead to greater racial justice for those denied it .” His transdisciplinary work interrogates policies and practices to highlight the overt , and uncover the covert , ways that colonial racial ideologies , structures , and institutions create and maintain racial inequality and injustice in the education system and beyond .
Cranston says , “ With the release of the video showing the murder of George Floyd this past summer , it was impossible to ignore the extent of systemic racism in all of our social organizations , not just in policing , but in social services , health , justice and education .”
“ The academy is not exempt from systemic racism ,” says Cranston . In the academy , there are politics over who is cited , white-architected research methodologies , and salary and progression .
For those who don ’ t believe that systemic racism exists , Cranston points to three markers : “ First , numerical data indicates that racialized people may not get hired into organizations , or may not be able to move into positions of leadership ;
Second , policies and decision-making processes determine the rules we use to govern ourselves : how we decide that decisions can be made and by who , may be designed to protect a Eurocentric white way of being and conducting business . Third , organizational culture — everything from communication style , to dress code , to the way we socialize — will favour white society : a privileged racial way of being that disadvantages Indigenous , Black , and People of Colour .”
“ White supremacy is a fundamental structure , way of being , way of making sense of the social world . Most often associated with whiteness is the aspired version of beauty , intelligence and worth ,” says Cranston . Other effects of systemic racism include racialized poverty levels and the effects of poverty on health and social determinants of health as well as education and learning .
Cranston says that what is needed is “ the elimination of policies and practices that protect white supremacy and white privilege ; the need to commit to enacting equity measures that dismantle the barriers that deny racialized students , staff and faculty opportunities to flourish ; to change human resources policies and practices to create opportunities for racialized individuals to access and hold senior administrative roles ; and to assemble a faculty and staff that more closely reflects both the diverse makeup of students we educate and a national pool of candidates .”
Because schools are a key site for the normalization of whiteness and white privilege ( Cross , 2005 ), Cranston says it is important that those responsible for teacher preparation , preservice and in-service education , confront and reconsider how education from kindergarten through post-secondary has worked to buttress systemic racism . “ I join with colleagues in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina in committing that all learners gain a deeper understanding of our shared histories , the contemporary relationships , and the important work that needs to be done if we are ever to achieve reconciliation ,” says Cranston .
Dr . Jerome Cranston holds a Ph . D ., M . Ed ., B . Ed . After-Degree , and B . Sc . Prior to becoming an academic , Cranston worked for 16 years in the K-12 education system in multiple roles — teacher , principal , and superintendent — in a career that spanned Canada ’ s “ prairie ” provinces . During his 10 years as a professor at the University of Manitoba , Cranston worked for an Advisory committee for the Centre of Human Rights Research for 6 years .
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