A Bridge Across Our Fears Excerpts from the Annals of Bean
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Abstract
Bean is a composite character who plays a leading role in the counterstories that compose this essay. In the context of his "Annals," Bean, quite inadvertantly, both challenges his white teacher's efforts to cultivate and enact an anti-racist pedagogy and provides opportunities for her to try, fail, learn from failure, and try again. In these excerpts, Bean's teacher learns that she must begin to acknowledge and address her own anger, as well as Bean's, and to discern the difference between fear and discomfort as she engages with Bean's dual performances of whiteliness and (toxic) masculinity.
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References
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