Episode 32: An Interview with John Bracey

Welcome to a special episode of MythTake! Rather than bring you our usual format of myth analysis, we're doing something a little different. We're giving this episode over to talk about race in classics.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been gaining renewed momentum, and hashtags like #shutdownacademia and #blackintheivory are highlighting the experiences of Black people in academia. Classics itself is a predominately white whose area of research gets co-opted for white supremacist causes. To push back against this, and to help elevate Black voices in Classics, we put out a Twitter call for Black classicists to use our platform to share their stories. Today, we're pleased to bring you this interview with John Bracey.

John Bracey, aka @magisterbracey on Twitter, is a Latin teacher in Massachusetts teaching Latin using the Comprehensible Input technique.. He has an MA in Classics from Boston College and in 2016 he was named Latin Teacher of the Year by the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association. He leads workshops for teachers around the US on language teaching.

He has written in Eidolon about his experience trying to get hired as a Black Latin teacher and why students of color don’t take Latin.

Find John online at https://magisterbracey.com.

This episode is kindly sponsored by Our Voices in Classics, a not-for-profit organization that proactively seeks to amplify and uplift the voices of students and scholars at all levels whom the field of Classics has traditionally marginalized, ignored, or silenced.

 

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Links

Find our growing collection of links to resources on talking about race and on race and racism in academia on Wakelet.

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This week’s theme music: “Super Hero” by King Louie’s Missing Monuments from the album “Live at WFMU” (2011). Used under Creative Commons license and available from Free Music Archive.