More Than an Ally

Book excerpt: The Caring Solidarity framework is both descriptive and aspirational. It is an attempt to empower White teachers to do the work of interrogating their racial privilege and join in Caring Solidarity with their African American students. The framework can be used to describe teachers who are working in Caring Solidarity with their students and to develop teachers with intention toward Caring Solidarity. We are in a unique historical moment that demands White teachers become more effective in their schools, classrooms, and communities and for researchers to find ways to describe those teachers who build relationships of solidarity with students. Considering today’s tenor of the conversation around race, picking up this book and considering its contents is an act of defiance of the current climate, and/or one of devotion to the art and craft of teaching children. Caring Solidarity is not a replacement for current frameworks such as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy or Abolitionist Pedagogy but is a map for White teachers to journey toward those pedagogies. Everyone starts from somewhere. The path is winding and long but the goal, to create an equitable and humane classroom, is worth the trip. The purpose of this theory is to point the way.