Skinfolk Ain’t Always Kinfolk: The Dangers of Assuming and Assigning Inherent Cultural Responsiveness to Teachers of Color

Abstract

This article details the dangers of assuming that teachers of color are either inherently culturally responsive or prepared in teacher training programs to be more culturally responsive than their White peers. This article calls on Black feminist thought, and indigenous studies to describe what I have termed settler teacher syndrome and to argue that, if not afforded a systematic and explicit training in cultural responsiveness and sustainability, teachers of color have the potential to be as dangerous to students of color as their White counterparts. I use personal narrative to detail my work with teacher candidates at a historically Black college to further illustrate what is necessary to prepare teachers of color to be the public intellectuals and change agents our schools so desperately need.