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The Sigma of Being a Black Childless Educator: My Story

The Sigma of Being a Black Childless Educator: My Story
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Author(s): Karis L. Clarke (Touro University California, USA)
Copyright: 2025
Pages: 18
Source title: Experiences of Child-Free PK-16 Educators: Bias, Perspectives, and Assumptions
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Catherine Zeisner (Heritage University, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/979-8-3693-2790-6.ch004

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Abstract

Being a Black Educator carries a great deal of responsibility. We are integral to reducing PreK-12 racial disparities in the United States. Also, Black educators are often positioned as “superheroes” who will turn the tides of structurally disparate academic and discipline outcomes for students of historically marginalized racial groups. There lies a (perhaps unintentional) public perpetuation of a problematic “magical negro” trope, one that “is designed to erase blacks' complex humanity and assigns weighty expectations to racialized individuals. This magical negro trope implies that simply being Black endows Black educators with “natural” pedagogical abilities, detached from multitudes of other personal characteristics, strengths, and lived experiences that shape how Black people-as individuals embedded in complex social systems-come to see, understand, and behave. This unrealistic view of Black educators may lead to more of them choosing to not have children.

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