ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies learning as foundational to the human experience. Understanding how to learn is a precious skill, and one that is not cultivated to its fullest extent. People of different races and ethnicities interact with knowledge and learn differently, but those differences are ignored or punished in education in the United States.
How we know and how we relate are built into systems of organized education, replicating cycles of harm through educational trauma. Culturally imbalanced education combined with Dominator-style relationships reinforce Euro-white supremacy in learning and a “power over” mentality in teaching. This toxic combination is a primary factor in the school-to-prison pipeline, as BIPOC, poor, and disabled children are punished for not conforming to unspoken cultural and epistemological demands.
