So I'm sitting in Starbucks getting a couple of hours to myself (thank you Morris!) and I can overhear a disturbing conversation. There is a group of three folks sitting across from me. One African American man is an established character at this Starbucks. He is here every time I come in and almost always presides over a group of locals in intense conversations.
This time they are talking about schools and theorizing about who should have access to what. I sit here while they run down the ubiquitous list of deficit model ideologies: "poor children are not ready to learn", "urban parents don't care about their kids or school", "they shouldn't be allowed to disturb the classroom", "they aren't interested in learning". Ironically, I was reading Hilary Janks's new book Literacy and Power as I listened. Had to put the book down and open my email or something. I have tried to talk with this man and his group before but it didn't seem to do much good. I suppose I could interrupt now but I'm too pissed to make much sense.
How on earth do we work to change the deficit ideology when it is such an everyday, ubiquitous cultural narrative? These folks appear to be professional, "artsy", politically aware people yet they ventriliquate such oppressive and marginalizing narratives. Each time I start a new session of Literacy Learning as Social Practice or Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in American Education, I have to start from scratch in uncovering and transforming these same deficit ideologies. Seems like I'm just spinning my wheels and nothing is happening except that my tires are getting bald.
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