Lisa Delpit - Multiplication Is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People S Children

MULTIPLICATION IS FOR WHITE PEOPLE

Also by Lisa Delpit
Other Peoples Children

Edited by Lisa Delpit
The Real Ebonics Debate (with Theresa Perry)
The Skin That We Speak (with Joanne Kilgour Dowdy)

RAISING EXPECTATIONS FOR
OTHER PEOPLES CHILDREN

Lisa Delpit

The publisher has made every effort to contact all rights holders of reprinted material in Multiplication Is for White People. If notified, the publisher of the book will be pleased to rectify any omission in future editions.

2012 by Lisa Delpit
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the
publisher.

Requests for permission to reproduce selections from this book should be mailed to:
Permissions Department, The New Press, 38 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013.

Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2012
Distributed by Perseus Distribution

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Delpit, Lisa D.

Multiplication is for white people: raising expectations for other peoples children / Lisa Delpit.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-59558-046-7 (hc)

1. Educational equalization--United States. 2. Academic achievement--United States.
3. African American students. 4. Minorities--Education--United States. 5. Students with
social disabilities--Education--United States. 6. United States--Race relations. I. Title.

LC213.2.D45 2011

379.260973--dc23

2011042727

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Composition by The Influx House
This book was set in Garamond Premiere Pro

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This book is dedicated to my mother, Edmae Butler, a ninety-six-year-old educator who is still teaching me patience, unconditional love, and the value of finding something to laugh at every day;

To my daughter, Maya Delpit, whoas she constantly reminds metaught me everything I know about teaching other peoples children;

To my Southern University students who continue their commitment to education in the face of challenges that would leave lesser people hiding under their covers;

And to the brilliant and talented students of Southern University Laboratory School, their teachers, principal, and families.

This book has been a long time coming and would not have seen the printers press were it not for Diane Wachtell, my editor, publisher, and friend. In addition to her unflagging encouragement during my most frustrating times, she also refusedon multiple occasionsto take back the book advance! Many thanks as well to Tara Grove and Cinqu Hicks, who nurtured the process to completion.

That I was able to keep working on a manuscript during difficult work and personal times is due in large part to the young and not-so-young teachers who consistently nourished my soul with their commitment to social justice and to African American children. Patricia Lesesne, Makeesha Coleman, Anrea Williams, Tiffany Pogue, Shayne Evans, and so many other young African American educators I have been honored to encounter, your tireless efforts to give our children brighter futures is exhausting to watch, but so inspires me to continue the struggle. Hannah Sadtler, Derek Roguski, and Dave Stieber, you, along with many others I have had the privilege to meet, prove the ability to transcend racial identities, eschew racial privilege, and work for the good of all humanity.

I would like to thank Rodrick Jenkins for sharing with me his voluminous research findings on the effects of desegregation on black educators. Rodrick, you will make an excellent professor!

I must also thank my family for their support, especially my goddaughter and niece Loren Brown, my sister-in-law Precious Delpit, and my nephew Joseph Delpit Jr., who selflessly devoted time to help me during a very difficult transition. My cousin Wanda Shakesnider allows everyone in the family to focus on what needs to be done because she keeps my mother smiling.

I would also like to thank all of my friends who have helped me during the often tedious writing process. Joan Wynne sent innumerable emails to keep me on track. Harry Amana provided a dedicated writing getaway space and kept me entertained when I needed a break. To all of my wonderful, talented, supportive friends, you are a constant and appreciated blessing.

Finally, I would like to express great appreciation to Ragdale, which provided a residency that allowed me to focus solely on writing in the company of a group of creative and exciting colleagues.

MULTIPLICATION IS FOR WHITE PEOPLE

R ecently I was invited by education activist Dr. Raynard Sanders to New Orleans for an educational summit. The speaker, the renowned and controversial Diane Ravitch, had told Dr. Sanders that she wanted to meet me. Dr. Ravitch, currently a professor at New York University, has made headlines with her about-face on many issues related to public education. Ravitch was the assistant secretary of education in the George H.W. Bush administration, where she made her conservative intellectual and political reputation with her staunch support of standardized testing, charter schools, the No Child Left Behind Act, and free market competition for schools. She has now repudiated many of her earlier positions, stated both in public presentations and in her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. This courageous scholar has resigned from influential conservative policy groups and has incited many powerful enemies. As a result, in contrast to her former life as a popular conservative commentator, she has now found herself barred from expressing her new views in many popular venues.

Before the speech began, I joined Diane, Raynard, and a few invited guests in an adjoining room. Diane and I talked about the devastation of public schools in post-Katrina New Orleans and how politicians and educational entrepreneurs hawking privatization are claiming the travesty of New Orleans education to be a national model.

Diane asked me why I hadnt spoken out nationally against what was happening. I told her about my work in New Orleans and my modestly successful attempts to engage other African American scholars in the struggle against what was happening there. I added that the sense of futility in the battle for rational education policy for African American children had gone on for so long and that I had come to feel so tired, that I now needed to focus on those areas where I felt I could actually make a difference: working with teachers and children in an African American school. I was so angry from the sensation of butting my head against a brick wall, I told her, that I needed to give my anger muscles a rest. Diane looked at me squarely and said, You dont