The 31-year-old, who passed away after being tased by cops in Los Angeles, was one of the country’s few Black male educators.
By Ken Makin
Last November, a sobering title appeared on an education website: “Schools can’t afford to lose any more Black male educators.” This story came to mind after hearing about the death of Keenan Anderson, the nephew of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, on Jan. 3, hours after being tasered repeatedly by Los Angeles police reacting to a traffic collision. Aside from the terrible conditions of his death, another, more subtle tragedy has occurred: the loss of another Black male instructor.
On the website of Digital Pioneers Academy, a private school in Washington, D.C., where Anderson taught 10th grade English, there is a moving memorial to Anderson:
Keenan was a profoundly devoted teacher and the parent of a son who was six years old. He had been an instructor and a leader for more than eight years, according to the director Mashea Ashton’s letter. “He developed close bonds with students and employees in less than six months at Digital Pioneers Academy. Everyone adored him.
The statement is also a manifesto, defying the LAPD and being open about his sorrow and rage over Anderson’s murder. “In the coming days and weeks, our school community will inevitably ask some really important questions,” Ashton wrote. “How could the cops have deescalated the situation?” How will we stop loosing black boys and adults to violence? “How do we grieve as a community while also moving forward?”
The solution to that query may be found in Black male mentorship, which is rare and declining in the classroom. The first paragraph’s headline was taken from the Hechinger Report, which recounted the story of Preston Thorne, a former South Carolina Teacher of the Year at Blythewood High School. Less than 3% of South Carolina’s instructors were Black men at the time of his departure in 2017, a figure that hasn’t altered in the years since.
My parents, both South Carolina State University grads, have education degrees, and my mother has taught for over 30 years. She has three biological offspring and hundreds more through her career. My wedding’s best man is a second-generation schoolteacher. His and his late mother’s legacy is as firm in dedication as it is soft in sensitivity for children.
Despite this, only 7% of America’s instructors are Black, and less than 2% are Black males. This worrisome figure was emphasized in an ABC News story last month, which noted the complaints of Black male educators with being perceived as disciplinarians rather than teachers.
According to Travis Bristol, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “the shortage of Black male teachers will end when we as a nation begin to learn how to love Black boys,” he told ABC. “Until we stop suspending and expelling them before they even have the chance to enter the profession, you can’t recruit people or create pathways for people in the profession.”
The educational challenges that Black men experience are part of the larger challenges that Black men confront in America. The “fear of the Black superintendent,” a phenomenon that existed before the dread of critical race theory, afflicted school boards across the nation. In November, the first Black administrator in Berkeley County, South Carolina’s history was fired just days after the school board was given a conservative edge by a trio of anti-CRT members. Another Black man quit as superintendent in Palm Beach County, Florida, in 2021 after experiencing sudden weight loss due to the rigors of the work.
Other fatalities, while not as brutal as Anderson’s, were still devastating. Two Black teachers died suddenly within 30 minutes of my South Carolina home in the last month. Al B. Young, the son of a famous Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver, died at the age of 47. Latimer Blount’s sudden death at the age of 50 brought an end to a 25-year tenure as a teacher.
Math was always my favourite topic as a kid, and my wife still smirks when I solve a math issue quicker than she can type it into a calculator. I’ve grown to appreciate history, particularly how the past can be both innovative and revealing. It’s no accident that historians are among our greatest forecasters.
I recall Keenan Anderson’s terrifying final words: “They’re trying to George Floyd me!” As someone who values history and arithmetic, I see the results confronting Black males in post-Floyd America, after a purported national crisis over race, and some things just don’t add up.
Ken J. Makin is a professional journalist and presenter of the podcast Makin’ A Difference. He’s thinking about his wife and kids both before and after he comments.