This dissertation is a multi-method study that investigates the concepts of culturally responsive teaching and culturally relevant pedagogy in theory, policy, and practice. It examines the roots of culturally responsive and relevant education as originally conceptualized by educational scholars Gevena Gay and Gloria Ladson-Billings. Through autoethnography, critical discourse analysis, and interviews with student teachers, this study brings to light some of the tensions in teaching with cultural responsiveness when these theories come into contact with Whiteness and are expressed through individuals, policy, and in schools. Chapter 2 exemplifies Black excellence in Washington, DC through autoethnography that decenters and replaces Whiteness with Blackness. Chapter 3 shows opportunity for race-conscious policy through a discourse analysis of states’ professional teaching standards’ that shows that states are not explicit enough in directly addressing educational inequality. Chapter 4 describes some of the challenges and opportunities that student teachers in one university-based teacher preparation program experienced learning about culturally responsive teaching. This dissertation is one contribution to the work of other critically-minded scholars concerned about educating all students living in the U.S. and the future of our democratic society.