Stand Up and Speak Out Against Racism

 

Stand Up and Speak Out Against Racism

Author: Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Illustrator: Aleesha Nandhra

Genre: Nonfiction

Grade Level: 4th - 8th

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Summary

    With the aim of teaching kids about racism and how to combat it, Yassmin Abdel-Magied toured schools around the UK, polling students for their thoughts and opinions on race and racism. Breaking the book up into three parts, How Did Racism Start?, Racism Today, and How To Stand Up And Speak Out, Abdel-Magied tackles the complicated history and creation of racism, its presence and place in current society, and how kids between the ages of 9 - 14 can begin their own anti-racist journey. This book is also studded with self care, reminding kids that these topics can be daunting and hard to deal with; despite their importance, the wellbeing of the reader who will engage in these works is considered and highlighted. Abdel-Magied talks about struggling in solidary and intersectional issues; teaching kids that all oppression is linked and none of us are free until all of us are free. 

Element Six: Social Action

    I believe that several Elements are present in this book. However, Part 3: How To Stand Up And Speak Out, embodies Element Six because it addresses 'social action' questions, like "How do you undo stereotypes?", "Where do I start?", and "What can I do to fight racism?" The section "What about institutional racism?" details several things that a child reading this book might try to combat the institutional racism they come across in their life. For example, checking for diversity in their reading material at school, and joining forces with other students to push for books that represent the students learning, or pushing for Black History to be celebrated at school longer than just a month. The book says, "Think about the rules that are around you and ask for them to be made fair for everyone, not just white people from the dominant culture."

Activity

    I would use this book to inspire my students to closely examine their school and home environments with the intent to change them for the anti-racist better. Like it says in "What about institutional racism?", my students and I could make a list of all the rules within their school that they feel like uphold institutional racism. After identifying them, the list would become a checklist, where we would work through each item and collectively try to come up with an action or change to challenge these rules and make them inclusive for everyone. (This would also teach children the power of collaborative dreaming and how that can and does affect your reality.) With our plans of inclusion complete, we could then make a petition and have all the students in the building sign it to deliver to admin, and/or write letters detailing the issues with these rules and our new suggestions. This activity can and should spread wider than the individual school; we can implement this on the district and schoolboard level as well. 

An additional activity geared towards identifying diversity within the book; this would help us keep in mind who we are modifying these institutionally racist rules for.