“Human Capacity Widely Distributed”

In this tribute to Patricia Carini’s lifework and her influence on our work, we wrestle with a challenging question: How do we understand and hold onto a focus on the individual as a key practice of education as liberation, given the ways that a radical centering of the individual has buoyed systems of racial oppression? We end with the kind of answer we imagine Pat would have lauded—one that refuses a simple answer and holds onto the notion of both/and. We suggest that descriptive work with its focus on individuals is a deeply political act that offers a path to a radical reclamation of each child as a full person deserving of an education that is expansive. However, we argue that this descriptive work is necessary but insufficient to the task of liberatory education, and it must be undertaken with an explicit antiracist and antioppressive framework that finds ways to collectively observe and describe the specific forms that white supremacy (and other forms of oppression) take in the lives of our children, families, and communities.