Emery Marc Petchauer

Emery Marc Petchauer

Teaching Through Non-Indictment

The non-indictment of Breonna Taylor’s killers came out a few hours before my evening class was to start. (Note: Brett Hankison was indicted for wanton endangerment unrelated to her death.) This isn’t the first time I’ve taught through a moment of racial violence. I know it won’t be the last. The impulse to address the moment is important, and there usually aren’t easy steps. So I’m sharing mine. Here’s are the pivots I made tonight. As always, I’m open to feedback, for I know I don’t have it all right.

I started class by acknowledged the moment we are in and the most urgent facts that students might or might not know. Breonna Taylor was killed 6 months ago in a botched police raid. Just announced in Louisville, no officers would be indicted for her murder. The “wanton endangerment” indictment is unrelated to murder. I emphasized that, for those of us following this story, we carry this stress and trauma in our bodies to class tonight. The ways we live through this stress depends on our own racial proximity to and experience of racial violence. It’s typically less if you are white. It’s more if you’re Black.

I also called the name of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was killed in a botched police raid in 2010 on the eastside of Detroit — for which there was no kind of justice. I said her name and explained this event so students would know that this particular kind of anti-Black, state-sanctioned violence (the botched raid) is a pattern — even here in Michigan. I told students how even today, organizers in Detroit say her name, paint her in murals, and carry her tiny legacy forward. She is known and remembered. Students needed to know this.

I told white students that no matter how badly they felt, their feelings would subside before folks of color. I told them that this applies to me as well since I am white. I told them they should think about their actions and the grace they should give the folks of color around them. I wish I would have given them specific examples of such actions I’ve taken and should have taken in the past. I told them that it’s not just their peers. It’s their professors too — especially Black women professors they may have. They are reliving trauma and fears. I told students they needed to know this.

I told students that the constant news cycle can be overwhelming and unhealthy. It can make the entire problem seem beyond their control. I suggested they think about what is in their locus of control. And one thing that is (aside from voting!) is recommitting yourself to studying to understand the roots and shapeshifting nature of white supremacy and racial violence. I said it’s not enough to know that something is wrong. You need to know how and why. You know when you’re sick. You to go the doctor to understand why so it can be fixed. Understand the nature of the problem so you can be of service where you are. I had planned to tell them to read Kimberlé  Crenshaw’s original article on intersectionality. (Dig into the classics!) To read Angela Y. Davis’s book Are Prisons Obsolete? if they were just now hearing about this idea of abolition. To read Brittney Cooper’s Eloquent Rage. I wanted to give them specific things to read even though it’s outside of the course focus. I didn’t though. I don’t know why. So I need to follow up. It’s not enough to tell them to study without giving specific steps.

I told them that I fear it may be superficial, but as the organizer and leader of the class, I’m making the decision that the time we spend together in class tonight will be to honor the life of Breonna Taylor. What I didn’t tell them is that this idea comes from the Eucharist — that in some Anglican parishes, the rector may dedicate the Eucharist to someone who died recently. This is where the idea came from and why – at least in my private thoughts – it’s not an empty gesture. I told them the time we spend together and the focus you offer toward your education in this class period will be to honor her life. I told them people miss her profoundly right now. They miss what she sounded like. They miss what her neck smelled like because they hugged her in the kind of way that your face is in the other person’s neck. They miss all these things about her. We don’t and we can’t. But we’ll speak her name and offer our time to her life – as superficial as it may sound.

I then gave students a 5 minute break. Because somebody has to set up the zoom breakout rooms.