[This month at ARP, we are featuring a series of posts on race and education/school.]
written by Anti-Racist Parent contributor Jennifer; originally posted at Mixed Race America
It’s that time of year — you can see it in the panic stricken eyes of children trying to squeeze the last moments of pleasure in the waning days of summer. You can see it in the frenzied back-to-schoool shopping ads and the parents hunting down the best bargains. You can see it in the sprightly steps of teachers and school administrators gearing up for a shiny-brand-new school year.
So of course my own thoughts turn to the classroom, a place I know well since I’ve been teaching constantly and consistently since 1996. Of course, it’s the college classroom I know best and college students.
I think that when we think of teaching issues of race and racism, we often think about getting to kids while they are young and impressionable–and the challenges of talking about race and racism in a way that will be explicable and honest but not too overwhelming or even scary/anxiety producing for kids.
But an education on race and racism is really a never ending lesson. And I really mean that–because I feel that even though I’m technically on the other side of the podium now, I’m still in many ways a student–trying to educate myself about the ways in which our understanding about the dynamics of race and racism continue to mutate and change, and the ways in which I try to see race from a variety of perspectives, not just from my position as an Asian American woman.
One of the struggles I do have as an anti-racist educator of college students is trying to teach rather than to preach. Because all college students are wary of the “hidden” agenda and don’t want to be told what or how to think. And like it or not, the classes I teach, which either have explicitly or implicitly an attention to ethnic American literature (sometimes this is announced in the course title, like a class on Asian American women’s writing–but sometimes in a 20th C. American lit class, the “ethnic” content seems obscured until you get to the syllabus and realize that we’ll be reading a variety of multiethnic literature and talking about issues or race in all of the works on the syllabus), are often labeled “ideological” or “political”–since somehow we think that a course on Asian American literature does not have the same objective weight as a course on Jane Austen.
So I’m careful as I can, in the classroom, not to get into preaching mode. And to that end, I have a few guidelines that I try to use (and to be transparent about with my students) when starting the semester:
*I tell my students we aren’t going to call one another racists. We’re not going to use the dreaded “R” word. And I explain, as I have on this blog, that when you call someone a racist, it immediately shuts down conversation–because the person you have called a racist now feels so affronted and offended on being called the “R” word that whatever issue you were trying to discuss gets hijacked by the invocation of that word.
This isn’t to say that you don’t talk about racism. And I am clear with my students that I believe the U.S. was founded on institutional racism–and I use 2 examples, the transatlantic slave trade and displacement of American Indian tribes as a clear example of U.S. imperialism’s use of racism in expanding its powers. I also try to make clear that this type of racism is NOT a thing of the past–the Civil Rights movement did NOT create an instant even-playing field. That’s a harder thing for them to see, but we have the entire semester to work through these issues.
*I tell my students I’m not interested in either blame or guilt. When talking about issues of race and racism, I don’t want people to feel bad–to feel like I am singling them out if they are white and telling them they are bad people or if they are a person of color that they are exempt from racism or have an automatic higher authority. We are ALL implicated in racism–affected and impacted by it. And so we are all capable of being allies in the struggle against racism.
At this point I do talk about white privilege, but again in a way not to make white students feel guilty but to show that there are differences that are a consequence of racism between people of color/racial minorities and white people. You may not have asked for white privilege but none-the-less if you look white in this society you are more often treated as white and accrue those benefits, even if they seem to be minor–like not being asked what language you speak or where you are from. This is something most white students never have to worry about or deal with and that many Asian American and Latino students are constantly grappling with.
*I tell my students that we are going to create a safe and comfortable atmosphere to talk honestly and openly about race and racism. That part of the problem is that we often treat discussions of race and racism like we do cancer–something to talk about in hushed terms behind closed doors–that somehow it’s not OK to talk about race and somehow it shows bad manners or is shameful or to have questions about race and racism isn’t OK. And one key thing I try to do each semester is to allow students to have a space to have conversations about race–which is hard.
Really hard.
Because people are on different pages when it comes to race and racism–and this comes from a variety of factors–their own racial identity, their experiences, their families and friends, the things they’ve read, their classes, their trust in and relationship with me, their trust in and relationship with their fellow classmates. Conversations can get pretty heated, and my job is to act more as a moderator than as a teacher in these moments.
And that’s the part that is often the hardest for me and where I sometimes fail. Because I want them to work it out and talk it out amongst themselves–to have the dialogue and the conversation and not just be talked to about race by an authority figure (me). Yet there are moments when I’ve thought I need to intervene–to push them to think about the language they are using. For example, in one discussion students talked about an author being biased because he was Latino and therefore he was already pre-disposed to champion a Latino cause. And I asked them what would happen if they changed the word “bias,” which they agreed had a negative connotation, to the word “advocacy,” which has a more positive feeling to it. And what would happen if we talked about this author being an advocate of Latinos because he was Latino?
I realize that a college classroom is an artificial place in many ways. We meet for an hour a day for 3 days a week, and there is an authority figure (me) to act as moderator and to handle things when the conversation gets a bit heated. Talking to your neighbor or co-worker is trickier because there is no moderator and you aren’t sure it’s a safe space. But I think in a lot of ways the guidelines I establish in my classroom are ones that could be modified in our day-to-day interactions for those of us who want to be anti-racist educators outside of the classroom. Namely:
1) Don’t call someone a racist.
2) Don’t try to blame or guilt someone into your point-of-view
3) Do believe that a positive or at least productive conversation is possible and to speak your mind, speak truth to power, but in a way where the other person will hear you rather than get wrapped up in his/her defenses.
It’s not easy–like I said, an education in race and racism is on-going. But I think we’re all capable of being both students and teachers when it comes to anti-racist education. And I certainly think we ALL need to be students and teachers and allies when it comes to recognizing white privilege and fighting against racism. The really amazing thing is, we really can do this work–it’s hard, but I’m convinced we can do it.
I was convinced we could have done it, until I started teaching adults.
It is hard, and I think that it’s just too difficult sometimes.
I never thought this when I taught kids, but now that I teach adults…
Perhaps it would be better for a white person to talk to a white person about racism. As a woman of colour, I find this talk with a white person too difficult.
I feel like all the classes I’ve taken that discuss any area where one social group is privileged over others (whether it involves race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or any other category) have attempted to take this no-blaming approach. And I think this approach is important, because if someone feels like they’re being blamed for everything, they’re going to have a hard time being able to talk candidly and openly in class. My personal philosophy is that responsibility is much more important than blame – we are all responsible for our personal contributions to discrimination in any form, even if we aren’t to *blame* per se, since we meant no harm.
I wonder about the terms we use in these fields, though. As a feminist, I find I cannot mention anything about gender without the nonfeminists around me assuming I’m trying to blame men for something. For that reason, I shy away from terms like “male privilege” and “oppression,” even though male privilege is a very real thing. So, my question is, how do terms that are accurate but also loaded, like “white privilege” or “bourgeois privilege,” function in these types of discussions?
And, are the privileges themselves bad, or merely the fact that only one some groups have those privileges. To rephrase that, is it the thing itself that a group has that’s the problem, or is it the unequal distribution of the thing?
“White privilege” and “oppression” are definitely loaded terms. I don’t disagree with the concepts behind them, but I do think they’d probably shut down many a classroom discussion, at least with a lot of people I know. I think you can talk about the concepts in other ways.
I also think you can’t go into a discussion like this with the idea that your job is to to “educate” the ignorant in a class. If you want others to listen, you need to be prepared to listen as well and not to automatically assume you are the only one who is right. There are going to be multiple points of view.
I just dropped one such class in an online graduate program, mainly because I couldn’t handle the coursework for two classes and work full time, but also because I wasn’t sure I had the emotional energy to deal with the teacher and the coursework and what was sure to be discussion that I’d have to think pretty carefully about before responding. From what I remember from my undergrad education lo these many years ago, this sort of class discussion is usually a minefield. At some point I’ll take the class but it will be at a later time when I have the time to devote to it.
One more comment about the essay and language. “Advocate” is a more positive term than “bias,” but it’s positive nature can depend a lot on the position the person holds. If he’s an advocate for Latino causes and is working for an organization that benefits Latinos, that’s a great thing. It could be seen as a bias, a negative thing, if he’s in a position of authority and is making the decision to favor a person from one group over another and that isn’t part of his job description. I think you’ve got to look at context in dicussions about choice of language as well.
Typo. I meant “its positive nature.”
About the use of terms like ‘white privilege’
We do use it at Colgate in Educational Studies where I teach. However, I always question the term itself. In other words, is the ‘privilege’ to get unearned respect, goods, etc such a privilege in the longrun. In many ways of looking at the world, ‘privileges’ get in the way of learning how to be a human being. Being preoccupied with maintaining privileges is precisely where the world is stuck right now re: climate change and how to respond to it. We need to figure out what life is for. The 2 to 3% growth associated with a ‘healthy’ economy, as a leader at my school pointed out in a convocation address just a week ago, is unsustainable, irrational.
What does that do to the idea of privilege? Once you start meditating and/or getting serious about yoga and its psychology, privilege becomes an obstacle to the challenge of feeling at one with everybody else and everything else, at recognize that we all have this very damaged universe to share and we better figure out a way to end our heavy carbon footprint.
That heavy carbon footprint, in one way of thinking, is the product of privilege and its desperate maintenance.
Another tack: If happiness comes from the renunciation of specialness, people with a feeling of specialness have a much harder road to hoe.
I find that this helps in these conversations, especially with students who are ready to question why they are always so stressed out, why they are always under so much pressure to get the next reward.
I want to emphasize that I only take this approach when I have a long time to work with students and when we have books like Alan’s Power, Privilege, and Difference to work with that do not avoid issues of oppression and do implicate capitalism in the problem.
What a great post. I love all of your guidelines. I took many a class in grad school that could have been improved by following these ethics.
It may be a tad “loaded,” but I find “white privilege” to be a very effective phrase. I like “white-normative,” too.
I find it very effective as a filter for my own thinking – “How would that have played out if I didn’t have white priviledge?” “Did I just react that way because of my privilege?”
I also find “white privilege” and “white-normative” effective phrases for conversation. I don’t find it to be an obstacle to constructive conversation. For me, it’s a happy medium between that allows me to name attitudes, behaviours, and situations without euphemising excessively or using more “accusatory” words like racist/racism, oppressive/oppression, or white supremacy.
In many situations, “white priviledge” really is a euphemism for something racist but I can live with that some of the time. And, yes, white privilege makes it easy for me to say.
Interestingly though, I haven’t really tried “male-privilege,” except when talking to men I believe to be anti-sexist allies. I assume that some men don’t want to hear about “male-privilege” from a woman.
@scp: It’s all hard. I don’t know if it’s “better” for a white person talk to white people. I think both are important. I know I’ve learned a lot about racism from both POC and white people. White people need to hear the truth and to accept and discuss their responsibility to and how to change their attitudes and behaviours. Sorry for that hideous sentence.
When we talk about “educating” others about racism what does this mean? Also, after determining what “educating” means can someone introduce the word “liberate” from racism.
According to Webster educate means to school, develop mentally or to condition or persuade. I do not want anyone to educate me on racism, because the very condition of racism is created based on an illusion that it’s creators hoped everyone would believe and we did. Now we are stuck in a matrix “educating” an issue that has only the value that we give it and only exist in our minds.
The bottom line to racism is money and survival of the genetics of the creators; however the only way racism can live is if we give it life through spirit and participation. I do not thing anyone needs to be educated, but all need to communicate. Communicate means to make known, impart, and transmit.
Now, the only way this can be done is through honest testimony of experiences and open reception of those experiences. For example, there are people who have played negative and positive roles in my life. Naturally those who have played positive roles will hear a positive testimony and those who have played negative roles with hear a negative testimony.
Racism was designed to take effect over many, many generations. Therefore, those who benefit from racism down the centuries through economics and privilege, must bare the burden of perceived blame and those who are victims of racism through exclusion of resources and privilege must bare the burden of having to play the unnecessary game of reaching the perceived elusive goal of equality.
Now here is the trick to ending racism. Read carefully! Those who are benefitting from the system of racism through power, money and privilege MUST give it up in exchange for total justice and those who have less or no power, money and privilege MUST continue on until those with the power replace the system with justice.
Look at it like a family:
If you were a part of a family where the mother and father made you the favorite child where you got all the allowance, food, clothes, education and other privileges of life while your other brothers and sisters were suffering the burden of poverty and lack of education the responsibility would then rest on you to inspire your parents to make some changes. You would do this by sharing with your less fortunate brothers and sisters and by also going a step further and not accepting any of these privileges until they are equally given to the rest of your siblings.
Obviously your parents have character flaws that allowed them to set up this system, so the other children can whine or they can run away and strike out on their own and some will make it.
However, as long as you allow your parents to continue their behavior you, your children and your children’s children are actually perpetuating your parent’s ideals by continuing to benefit from their unjust system of parenting and allocating resources.
It is not until the powerful join with the powerless on and economic level and the powerless share their forgiving spirit with the powerful that everyone becomes inside and outside this imaginary system of racism that we have all bought into, made money off of and shed blood for.
So let’s
1. Communicate
2. Receive
3. Accept
4. Stop participating in racism
5. Stop benefiting from racism
6. Sacrifice money, power, position and privileges that have been born out of racism
7. Powerful unite with the powerless and create a more just system outside of this present one.
Until then we will keep going in circles, mixing up words and never ending this mental and spiritual sickness.
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I think some people do look at racism differently. When people of different ethnicities talk about racism, sometimes they feel like you’re attacking them. That’s why there is a certain way you have to articulate what you’re saying.
I think that’s why some people see Obama as the perfect first black president. He’s not directly connected to the blood line of slavery, like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton which is a form of institutional racism.
I think that’s one reason why some white people felt more comfortable voting for Obama. Anything or anybody that’s connected to this country dirty, shamefull past of racism,will cause some people to shy away from that element that brings it to the light.