Trauma Related to CRP

I was not familiar with the "Jeffersonian Dismissal" until engaging with chapter three of Kay's book Not Light, But Fire, but when I read about it this week, I immediately thought back to Gay's "Still Processing" excerpt from last week. Kay informs readers the "Jeffersonian Dismissal" is from Jefferson's Notes of the State of Virginia, specifically the quote, "Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry - among the Blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no Poetry," (147). After presenting this quote, Kay states "Jefferson renders [blacks] flat characters, defined entirely by their struggles," in his attempt to deem blacks inferior (78). It was the latter part of that claim that stuck out to me and joined the resounding chorus of Gay's claim that the media consistently attempts "to conflate blackness and suffering. Suffering and blackness. Blackness and Suffering," (220). I've had Gay's words on my mind since reading them last week, and now I feel compelled to draw a connection between his claim and Jefferson's much older thought that "among the Blacks is misery enough." Could Jefferson have been the founding father of this ideology that black people are intrinsically connected to pain? It seems an only logical conclusion to draw that he had a hand in this idea being thoroughly woven into American society - after all, he was the principal author of "The Declaration of Independence," a document still highly regarded in American society today. Drawing a connection between Jefferson's quote and Gay's insistence that the trope of black suffering invades modern media has given me a new perspective on just how damaging the racist foundations of America still are today.
So how does this affect me as a teacher? As a white teacher in a racially diverse school? It demands me to be deeply aware of how racism infiltrates the education system every day. This has been weighing heavily on my mind lately as I have been thinking about the fine line of implementing conversations about race in the classroom and forcing students of color to relive trauma through these conversations. It is essential to facilitate a culturally relevant classroom, but should this come at the cost of student comfort? Since culturally relevant pedagogy is intended "to acknowledge the lives and minds of students who have been ignored and underserved in America's classrooms," it seems avoiding triggering conversations for kids of colors would not be culturally relevant (Winn and Johnson, 10). Why do I, a white teacher in front of a class or black and brown children, get to choose when we talk about race? As Kay puts it, my students "did not choose to come to [my] class; they did not choose to participate in this activity," (90). Where is the line between holding space for conversations on race and forcing them into your curriculum? As I previously stated, this has been weighing heavily on me lately as I gear up for another unit centered on race, this time the experience of Cuban-Americans. I want to talk about race in my classroom. I want to acknowledge the tension of being white and teaching kids of color about racism. But I don't want to dredge up trauma for my students. Kay proposes that talking about minority cultures should not always be "discussed in relation to white oppression," and I agree (77). Yet it feels impossible to avoid when I carry white oppression with me at all times, whether I mean to or not.
One way to avoid my students reliving trauma in the classroom could be to experiment with the creating a shared image with my students, as proposed by Gray and Stockman in chapter 6. What if when talking about race, the students "played a far more significant role in creating" the space for the conversation (103)? I wonder what this would look like in a middle school classroom, and how I could frame it to students. I intend to explore these thoughts more in my next unit and hopefully find some answers.