What is "homeplace"
"where black folx are able to recover their wholeness"
In the last four months, I’ve had to let go of a lot. As an educator, I have always prided myself that my “9-5” didn’t involve sitting at a desk or a computer all day. As an extrovert, I thrive off the energy of being able to be around the people I love at a moment’s notice. As a hugger, I relish my role as “auntie” to all my friends’ children and being able to grab them and smother them with kisses and hugs until they squeal with laughter.
It’s been four months without my students, the physical presence of friends, and no hugs or squeals. It’s been four months of sitting at a homemade desk, staring at a computer. All.Day.Long.
Not only that, in the last four months our country has experienced a reckoning as it relates to the horrendous race relations that currently exist within our country, and has existed for centuries. The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others led to protests, demonstrations, and numerous conversations, arguments, and disagreements. As a Black woman, I have had to struggle with the conflicting feelings of seeing hope in a new movement and doubt given that I have seen this all before.
All while remaining in the confines of my one-bedroom, one-bath apartment I share with my partner, who is 6’3 and has a penchant for long showers.
To keep my sanity, I turned to my first love: books. But not just any books. In the midst of all this turmoil, I found myself longing to develop a deeper understanding of the issues that were plaguing our news outlets and social media. I wanted to know why these shows of resistance and charge for change kept happening to no avail. In my study I eventually found myself in Bettina Love’s book, We Want to Do More than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. With it, I had hoped to find words that would help me understand a little more about how this reckoning would and should impact my work with my students and my school. Instead, I found an anchor strong enough to steady me during this turbulent time.
Love borrows the idea of “homeplace” from Black, feminist author, bell hooks, and describes it as “space where black folx truly matter to each other, where souls are nurtured, comforted and fed’ (63). Upon further study, I found that hooks continues to describe homeplace as where Black folx are able to “recover our wholeness” and “where we can be affirmed in our minds and hearts...where we could restore ourselves the dignity denied us on the outside in the public world” (hooks, 384)
Immediately I was there. I knew exactly the spaces of homeplace that existed for me: my home with my family in Maryland, long talks with my sister-friends, in bed with my partner, and most notably my very own classroom. Wherever I am free to be my authentic self is my homeplace, and it is where I can always turn to when I need to remind myself of my power, my strength, and that which exists in all Black people. My people.
However, I also realized that, in the last four months, many ideas and beliefs that I’ve held, especially as it relates to my identity, and my active role in expressing and celebrating my Blackness are being questioned, with me as the main inquisitor.
Am I truly an anti-racist?
Do my classroom practices lead my students on a path of liberation or assimilation?
Wait, so Black people CAN be racist?
Quickly the waves began to turn again, but not for long. I knew there was something I could do to get grounded again.
So I decided to create my own “homeplace” here. Here I am creating a space where, through deep study and reflection I will learn, honor my Blackness, and share my journey in “recovering my wholeness.” As an educator of BIPOC children, every day I teach as if my own liberation is dependent on the liberation of every student I encounter because, in a way, it is. Given this charge, it is my responsibility to do this self-reflective work so that I can truly ensure I am effectively making a homeplace for them.
In this work, I have realized that many of my peers, especially Black millennials, have started to have their own personal reckonings, and I hope my reflections and learning will lead others to do that work and find answers for themselves as we all embrace this journey toward our truth. (Let’s start the dialogue now! Leave a comment below!)
Thank you, for taking this ride with me. It’s a little less scary knowing that I am not on this journey alone.
Thank you for sharing your story and creating this space. As a black female educator, I, too, am asking myself those same questions. I am excited to know that “homeplace” will be full of reflecting, learning, and growing, all of which are needed for a truly antiracist world. Glad to be on this journey with you.
So excited for this first post! The idea that black people, and other minorities, can or cannot be racist is an interesting discussion. I remember having a classroom debate on the topic in undergrad where many of my black classmates had been told growing up that they could not be racist. I understand the reasoning on both fronts, but as a Latinx person I’ve seen how my community can treat other minorities and its specific and often deliberate mistreatment of indigenous peoples. It may not fit the definition per say, but the malicious intent is there, which to me feels very much like racism.