ABSTRACT
Discussions of racial achievement gaps are fairly common in school reform conversations, but they are rarely interrogated as symptom of white supremacy. School systems are not innocent bystanders in the reproduction of racism. But education-whether in a classroom, community center, or at the kitchen table-can seed social change. Racial justice, radical healing, educational equity are synergistic, harmonious instruments in orchestra of this fight to decolonize schooling. For African American students Umoja is not new philosophy, but another part of their educational path that emphasizes racial pride and upliftment. In the struggle to improve the entire ecosystem, sought to contextualize and bring empirical evidence to bear on the pedagogies and educational philosophies of people at all tiers of the system who are striving for institutional transformation. In the case of the African American Male Achievement, the fallacies of underachievement and internalized racism dissipate as students in Oakland discover that prison.
