This article examines the issue of racial silencing in mainstream education by analysing four autoethnographic vignettes based on the authors’ teaching experiences. The methodology draws attention to the underlying racial assumptions that underpin the everyday of teachers’ working lives, thus demonstrating how silencing serves to perpetuate the interests of Pākehā culture. We argue that mainstream pedagogical approaches to culture and ethnicity also contribute to the phenomenon of silencing, and assert that racialised students will continue to be disenfranchised in mainstream schools unless researchers, teachers and administrators are prepared to “see” how issues of race inform the day-to-day experiences of a teacher’s working life.