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Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls
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April 2021 | 584 pages | Corwin
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.
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
CH2. Black, Beautiful, and Brilliant: It Takes A Village, Counter Safe Spaces for Black Super Girls
CH3. A Systemic Response to Creating a School Where Black Girls Can Thrive
II. “Nah” - Harriet Tubman: Stereotypes and Tropes
CH4. My Eloquent, Angry, Black Rage
CH5. The Right Kind of Black Girl
CH6. Colorism in the Classroom
III. “Spirit Murdering” - Bettina Love
CH7. Visible Black Girls... Powerful Beyond Measure
CH8. Why Does My Darkness Blind You? Abandoning Racist Teaching Practices
CH9. Finding My Armor of Self-Love
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
CH13. Little Black Girls with Curves
V. “Your Silence is a Knee on My Neck” - Natasha Cloud
CH14. Whiteness Competency: How Not to Be BBQ Becky
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
CH17. Not in Our Name: Fierce Allyship for White Women
CH18. White Teachers, Black Girls, and White Fragility
VI. “Give light and people will find the way.” – Ella Baker
CH19. A Reimagined Pedagogy of Affirmation and Artistic Practices
RESPECTING
I. “I’ll be Bossy and Damn Proud” - Rosa Clemente
CH20. Who are Black Girls: An Intersectional Herstory of Feminism
CH21. Navigating Multiple Identities: The Black Immigrant Girl Experience
CH22. Yes! Black girls are genderqueerand transgender, too!
CH23. Prismatic Black Girls Reflecting African Spiritualities in Learning Environments
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
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
IV. “We want to turn victims into survivors - and survivors into thrivers” - Tarana Burke
CH28. Voice Activation and Volume Control in the Workplace
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
VI. “Dreamkeepers” - Gloria Ladson Billings
CH31. Mrs. Ruby Middleton Forsythe (Miss Ruby): The Power of Sankofa
CONNECTING
I. “Such As I Am, A Precious Gift” - Zora Neale Hurston
CH32. Black Girls Got it Goin’ On
CH33. Learning to Listen to Her: Psychological Verve with Black Girls
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
CH36. Teaching Reading to Beautiful and Brilliant and Black Girls: Building a Strong Culture of Engagement
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
CH40. #StudentAsSignMaker: Curating Classrooms For Identity Development
CH41. Black Men Teaching Beautiful and Brilliant Black Girls: Resisting Patriarchal and Sexist Socializations
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
CH44. When You Imagine a Scientist, Technologist, Engineer, Artist or Mathematician, Imagine A Black Girl
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
VI. “We Will Fight Till the Last of Us Falls in the Battlefield” - Nana Yaa Asanatewaa, Queenmother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire, Ghana
CH48. Motherwork as Pedagogy
Supplements
"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.'"
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."
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."
University of Iowa College of Law