Emily Style

Emily Style says teachers need to avoid the "color blind" trap, "There are still American educators who pride themselves on being color-blind, thinking that ignoring accidental differences or race or gender or religion or class creates the best classroom climate. Promoting such partial seeing is highly problematic for the creation of curriculum which will serve all students adequately."

Color Blind or Color Brave

https://www.ted.com/talks/mellody_hobson_color_blind_or_color_brave#t-835579

Mellody Hobson says, it's a "conversational third rail." But, she says, that's exactly why we need to start talking about it. In this engaging, persuasive talk, Hobson makes the case that speaking openly about race —

Reluctance to Talk About Race

Remember "Guess Who?" These  Harvard researchers ran a study using a version of the children’s game and found some fascinating things about people’s willingness to talk about race. At 2:17, we learn something amazing about little kids that should shake up our perspectives on this sometimes uncomfortable subject.

FOR WHITES (LIKE ME): on white kids

FOR WHITES (LIKE ME): on white kids
http://livingformations.com/2013/08/06/for-whites-like-me-on-white-kids/

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT I POST SELECTED PORTIONS OF ARTICLES, PLEASE CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE

Dear parents of white children,
I vote that we strike the following from our parental lexicon:

1. “Everybody is equal.”
2. “We’re all the same underneath our skin.”

Time and again my white students write that “everybody’s equal” is the “most important” thing their parents taught them about race. Time and again a not insignificant number of them then proceed to describe their present trepidation about a) telling their parents they date interracially; b) bringing home a Latino/a or Black classmate; c) Thanksgiving break when everyone will silently tolerate the family member who makes racist comments; or d) something else that reveals how deeply and clearly these students know this “most important teaching” doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to their actual white experience.

I struggled to make sense of these papers for a long time. Then, Nurture Shock (not a book about race) gave me some help. It reports on social scientists’ studies to figure out why so many white kids have such poor facility in engaging racial difference and challenging racism despite their exposure to (liberalish) white culture’s “everybody’s equal” mantras. Turns out our kids, literally, don’t know what “everybody is equal” means. It’s an empty phrase. A numbed out flourish. (Sugar.)

Turns out our kids, literally, don’t know what “everybody is equal” means. It’s an empty phrase. A numbed out flourish. (Sugar.)

Meanwhile, they are daily assailed by a relentless barrage of anti-black imagery, Native American stereotypes, slurs against dark-skinned non-native English speakers and on and on.

I know “everybody’s equal” means “we all deserve to be treated with fairness.” And when we tell kids we’re all the same underneath skin, gender, sexuality, physical abilities and other differences we’re trying to tell them we share human dignity and worth.

Obviously I believe these things.

But, have you ever actually met a “generic” human? Someone without a race or a gender?

Well, guess what? Neither has your child.

And by the age of three our kids are aware of this fact (even though they don’t yet use adult categories to talk about it). If you don’t believe me, pick up The First R. You will be stunned by what preschool children know and do in regard to race.

One more “stat.” I read a study some time ago (I now can’t find it now, sorry!) comparing white and Black families. It found that on average African American parents start talking about race with their African American children by age 3. White parents with white kids? Age 13.

Worse, imagine what happens in my classes when students of color describe their experiences of racism, and their white peers stare at them numbly, repeating: “everybody is equal,” “we’re all the same underneath our skin.” Let’s just say nothing about this exchange inspires robust interracial friendship to develop. Nor does it provide students of color reason to think they’ve found the allies they’ve been hoping for: interested peers prepared to help build a more just racial future.

So, if it’s your four-year-old starting to notice darker skin (which happens when we raise our kids in predominantly white environments), the platitude “we’re all the same underneath” implies they’re noticing something they shouldn’t and insinuates there’s something wrong with darker skin we must need to overlook (meanwhile, your child hears remarks about beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair all the time). How about discussions about and images of the many different beautiful shades of dark skin instead?

We don’t assume pat answers are adequate for enabling our children to learn to navigate relationships, nutrition, sexuality, religion, emotions, or any other challenging reality. Nor do we leave them alone to figure it out.

We equip ourselves, so we can enable them.

Why should race and racism be any different?

Yours in Search of Robust Protein,
A fellow parent with white kids
Jennifer Harvey

Is Justice Colorblind?

I don't think so…

Colorblindness

Colorblindness
Color Blind or Just Plain Blind? http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/racism10.htm
This article discusses how racism has mutated to partially hide itself from view—perhaps not from the view of those who experience its effects—but certainly from the view of those who practice what has come to be called “aversive racism.”

Racism study finds people indifferent to slurs, overt bias
http://forum.revhh.org/index.php?topic=3038.0;wap2
Blatant racism not censured or shunned in study. Despite what they think they would do, people are remarkably blase when actually confronted with blatant racism, a new study shows. Canadian researchers who tested people's reactions to anti-black comments found a surprisingly high tolerance for racial slurs -- including "one of the most offensive words in the English language." Not only did people not get as upset as people predicted they would, the slur didn't influence their willingness to choose a white racist as a partner to solve a word puzzle. In fact, people preferred the white over the black person who was the target of the slur. The findings, published this week in the journal Science, suggest that while people think they would be very upset by a racist act, and take action, "they actually respond with indifference." "People don't really punish people who act in racist ways," says lead author Kerry Kawakami, a psychology professor at York University's faculty of health in Toronto.

Chapter 5: Perceiving Groups (Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination
http://www.usu.edu/psy3510/prejudice.html
Cool outline about groups with data, charts, and examples.

Unraveling the Knot of Privilege, Power, and Difference by Allan G. Johnson http://www.agjohnson.us/
Individuals and systems are connected to each other through a dynamic relationship. If we use it as a model for thinking about the world and ourselves, it’s easier to bring problems like racism, sexism, and ableism out into the open and talk about them. In particular, it’s easier to see the problems in relation to us, and to see ourselves in relation to them.

Here is an example of some of the notes from this professor:
What Impact do Stereotypes Have?
Distort our perceptions: The contrast effect
Once stereotype is activated, these traits easily come to mind
Affect the information we attend to and, therefore, notice and quickly process
We'll attend more to stereotype-consistent information
Stereotype-inconsistent information activates attempts to disconfirm/reject it
Stereotypes obviously affect social judgments we make about other:
They influence how much we like the person
They are reflected in the mood the person "puts" us in (black example)
Our expectations regarding probability of certain behaviors in the person
Snyder's ideas regarding selective perception and behavioral confirmation

Beyond Prejudice
http://www.beyondprejudice.com/under_stand.html
Prejudices will be dealt with here as a single set of dynamics that function to dehumanize people who are identifiably different in some way from the people whose perceptions are limited by the dysfunction we call prejudice. This approach is taken for two reasons. First, it is easily defensible through the understanding of the dynamics of prejudices; and second, the continued separation and classification of prejudices according to the superficial categories of those who are prejudiced is a disservice to those who are the targets of discrimination and a distortion of reality.

We have for too long focused upon the victims of prejudices as we have the victims of rape. It has been "their problem." To continue to write or talk about racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, xenophobia, and the ways disabled people and others are treated is counterproductive. The process of focusing upon the victims serves no purpose in the prevention or reduction of prejudices. That approach looks at the problem in sub-categories based upon those who are the targets of prejudice behavior and distracts from the understanding that all prejudices are fundamentally the same. It also distracts us from the understanding of the various dynamics which together are called prejudices.

Deconstructing Categories: The Exposure of Silent Racism
http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1525/si.2001.24.2.141 by Barbara Trepagnier

Adultism 
http://www.freechild.org/bell.htm

The Multiple Futures of Racism:  Beyond the Myth of Race Through a New Paradigm for Resolution in the Third Millennium
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/caleb/futures_of_racism.html
By Caleb Rosado, Ph.D.*
The persistence of the bio-psycho-social-spiritual phenomenon of racism can best be understood by unpacking these four aspects of racism-its bio-psycho-social-spiritual dimensions. In these four dimensions reside the root causes of it emergence and persistence, as well as it elimination…


Unraveling the Knot of Privilege, Power, and Difference by Allan G. Johnson http://www.agjohnson.us/
Individuals and systems are connected to each other through a dynamic relationship. If we use it as a model for thinking about the world and ourselves, it’s easier to bring problems like racism, sexism, and able-ism out into the open and talk about them. In particular, it’s easier to see the problems in relation to us, and to see ourselves in relation to them.

If we think the world is just about individuals, then a white woman who’s told she’s ‘involved’ in racism is going to think you’re telling her she’s a racist person who harbors ill will toward people of color. She’s using an individualistic model of the world that limits her to interpreting words like ‘racist’ as personality flaws. Individualism divides the world up into different kinds of people – good people and bad, racists and nonracists, ‘good guys’ and sexist pigs. It encourages us to think of racism, sexism, and heterosexism as diseases that infect people and make them sick. And so we look for a ‘cure’ that will turn diseased, flawed individuals into healthy, ‘good’ ones or at least isolate them so that they can’t infect others. And if we can’t cure them, then we can at least try to control their behavior.

Culturally Relevant Teaching - from Teaching Tolerance

Culturally Relevant Teaching http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-36-fall-2009/relevant-beyond-basics: Culture is an important survival strategy that is passed down from one generation to another through the processes of enculturalization and socialization, a type of roadmap that guides and shapes behavior. If new information is not relevant to those frameworks of culture and cognition, people will never remember it. If the information is relevant, they will never forget it. <snip>

The cultural norms and behaviors of schools are based on a very specific set of mainstream assumptions. When there is a cultural mismatch or cultural incompatibility between students and their school, certain negative outcomes might occur, such as miscommunication; confrontations among the student, the teacher, and the home; hostility; alienation; diminished self-esteem; and possibly school failure.  <snip>

Teachers need to find pertinent examples in students’ experience; they need to compare and contrast new concepts with concepts students already know; they need to bridge the gap between the known (students’ personal cultural knowledge) and the unknown (materials and concepts to be mastered). <snip>

If you have a true, caring relationship with your students, you don’t have to be lucky. You will know what their interests are, what information they relate to. Even in an abstract discipline like mathematics, relationships with students matter. When you’re talking about distances, it certainly helps to be able to say, “I heard you talking about your cousin Miguel. How far do you think you go to visit him?”

Culturally relevant teachers recognize that they do not instruct culturally homogenized, generic students in generic school settings. Teachers armed with a repertoire of generic teaching skills often find themselves ineffective and ill‑prepared when faced with a classroom of culturally diverse students.

Teachers need to re-envision their roles in schools. Culturally relevant teachers are systemic reformers, members of caring communities, reflective practitioners and researchers, pedagogical content specialists and antiracist educators. <snip>

Thinking of culturally relevant teachers as action researchers extends another important component of the reflection process. Action research is inquiry conducted by teachers for teachers for the purpose of higher student achievement. Action research requires teachers to identify an area of concern, develop a plan for improvement, implement the plan, observe its effects, and reflect on the procedures and consequences.

Finally, student achievement is not the only purpose of a culturally relevant pedagogy. Culturally relevant teachers must also assist students to change the society, not simply to exist or survive in it. For some teachers, this can be very challenging. When teachers promote justice they directly confront inequities in society such as racism, sexism and classism. Far too many teachers appear to be not only colorblind, but also unable or unwilling to see, hear or speak about instances of individual or institutional racism in their personal and professional lives.