A Stirring Call to Action, Then and Now

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD
Basic Books, September 1, 2017

‍

Writing as a psychologist, Beverly Daniel Tatum set out in 1997 to answer a question usually posed to her by white teachers: “Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” The book, extensively revised and updated for this 20th-anniversary edition, notes that the question is still commonly asked because so many teachers do not have a basic understanding of racial-ethnic-cultural identity (REC identity). To improve our racial literacy as educators, Tatum walks readers through the developmental arc of REC identity from early childhood through adulthood and across racial groups. Tatum shows how stages of REC identity development are fairly predictable, and for students of color in white-majority schools, often include a stage of strong same-group identity in adolescence. There are chapters on the development of white identity and multiracial identity as well as an emphasis on intersectionality. The final chapter is an urgent call to cross-racial dialogue, especially in schools, and the author asks all anti-racist educators to engage in this work deeply and personally. Tatum’s work was groundbreaking in the 90s, and this revised edition is a stirring call to action that should be required reading for us all.