Racism as

1
Racism as Racialized Social Systems

• Placement of people in social categories
• Attaching meaning to groups
• Creation of hierarchies
• Top group--economic, social, political power
• Conflict maintain vs. challenge hierarchy
• Application of racial ideology to explain and
  justify hierarchy
• Blacks as lacking motivation to work

2
Racial Ideologies as Interpretive Repertoires

• Racetalk
• Avoid being seen as racist/Archer Bunker
• Storylines used to justify hierarchy
• the past is part/my friend lost out on a job
• Categorizing whiteness as normalizing
• White lives isolated in schools/suburbs/peer
  group
• Whites as racial tourists-- others defined by
  what whiteness is not

3
White privilege

• White students in homogeneous, largely white high
  school (Perry, 2001)
• Less aware of racial identity
• Perceive Whiteness as norm
• Students in diverse high school
• More aware of racial identity
• Race as the principle of social organization

4
Income gap between White and Black families grows

• Whites 1974 50,262 2004 60,000
• 19 increase
• Blacks 1974 31,833 2004 35,010
• 10 increase
• White males in 30s
• 1974 41,995 2004 40,081
• White females in 30s
• 1974 4,021 2004 22,030

5
Racism and local news Deficit discourses of
urban America

• Portrayals of urban worlds as crime-ridden
• http//www.centerforsocialmedia.org/videos/racism_
  and_local_tv_news
• Conservatives deficit discourses lead to
  backlash policies on taxes/funding related to
  support for urban areas

6
Robbinsdale 281 CARE (Citizens Acting for
Responsible Education)

• 9,000 in advertising on a billboard, lawn signs
  and professional services
• "district problems are brought in with
  nonresident students.
• "all problems come from open enrollment"
• "5.5 million could be saved by throwing out
  1,000 students
• Jason Lewis "Freedom Dogs" interview

7
Senator David Hann, R-Eden Prairie

• If local residents cannot be persuaded to support
  increased funding for the schools their children
  attend, why should we expect citizens across the
  state to pay higher taxes to support them?
• Malone also cites the recent phenomenon of
  "outside consultants" helping citizen groups
  organize opposition to levies as evidence of
  polarizing politics harmful to the mission of
  education. Yet we think nothing of the aggressive
  political natures of employment unions and their
  allies, or of district administrations and their
  lobbyists, spending huge amounts throughout the
  year, not just at levy time.

8
Texts read in the course

• House on Mango Street
• Bless me Ultima
• Kindred
• Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Obason
• Woman Warrior
• Love Medicine
• Bastard Out of Carolina
• Yellow Raft in Blue Water

9
Co-construction of lived and text worlds (Beach
Myers)

• Lived worlds
• Identities/.roles
• Objects/purposes
• Norms
• Beliefs
• Traditions/history
• Dialogic tensions

• Text worlds
• Characters
• Objects/purposes
• Norms
• Beliefs
• Traditions/history
• Dialogic tensions

10
Characters hybrid identities

• Readers experience imaginative performances of
  alternatives to their own fixed notions of
  identities.
• Kindred African-American female main character,
  Dana, moves between the contemporary world and
  the world of slavery
• Dialogic tensions in her conflict allegiances to
  these different worlds
• Heritage of slavery has a profound influence on
  her current identity as a contemporary African
  American

11
Shift from first-person to third-person reflection

• Perceiving a character as subject operating in
  systems
• Perceiving a character as an object constructed
  by status-quo systems
• Nora The Dolls House
• Subject subservient, childlike identity as
  wife
• Object of the patriarchic system

12
School culture

• School in a changing working-class neighborhood
• Increasingly diverse populations
• Challenges to status-quo traditions
• Winter-Fest celebration Whiteness
• Discourse of order/control
• Sports traditions
• Racial segregation

13
Tensions School versus Classroom Cultures

• School culture
• Discourse of control/order
• Lack of discussion in other courses
• Male status/power sports
• Hierarchical racial segregation

• Classroom culture
• Dialogic exchange and tensions
• Focus on discussion
• Challenges to male status/power
• Discussion about issues of race

14
Institutional racism and class Savage
Inequalities

• Parks example of 2,000 home in East St. Louis
• Reasons for low value of housing related to
  racism and housing policies

15
Students who adhered to status quo discourses

• Corey white male
• allegiances to a discourse of masculinity/individu
  alism
• competition and hard work being self-assured,
  authoritative, and in control
• Michelle white female
• content with allegiances to expected roles in her
  family, marriage and work in a fast-food
  restaurant familiar roles

16
Corey response to Bastard Out of Carolina

• I thought that Glen sort of started off backwards
  from his family. His family is rich, and he
  should have an easier life to start off with, but
  he kind of failed at everything and started going
  down the tubes and now hes got to rebuild his
  way back up. Like, you guys were saying, he
  didnt follow in his familys footsteps, he kind
  of funneled down. Hes got to just build up and
  work harder now to get back up to where his
  family is with expectations.

17
Student attitudes towards affirmative action

• Student opposition to affirmative action
• job hiring practices and college admissions
  framed in terms of race rather than class
• conservative discourse
• individual as a free agent not constricted by
  institutional or governmental forces
• pits Whites against people of color

18
Corey job hiring

• I want to be a police officer, but supposedly now
  a day it is not easy to be a cop if you are
  white. If you are white and you are better than
  the person next to you and he is black, the white
  person might not get that job. Just because that
  person is a different color. It is also that way
  for college, white people get no help at all
  because they think every white person is rich.
  Minorities get enrichment programs to get help
  with their scholarships, when most white people
  dont get help with any money for college.

19
Students who interrogated status quo discourses

• Kayla white female
• operating in a future world of college
• perceived high school and community cultures as
  limited
• not concerned about the social consequences of
  challenging peers
• Adopted feminist perspectives in n challenging
  some of the males

20
Students who interrogated status quo discourses

• Devin white male
• Involvement in youth church trips to Mexico and
  Native American reservations.
• Classroom identity as provocateur and the
  successful student
• Vacillated between progressive and traditional
  discourses

21
Devin Response to McIntosh, White Privilege

• We just dont see it because we have unearned
  advantages of being white. We dont see that
  because we are brought up this waynotice there
  isnt a whole lot on how poorly we treated
  others. In a way we are dictators of other
  cultures. I say this because we enclaves a race
  for almost 200 years.

22
Devin Response to Savage Inequalities

• But what values lie in a city like this? The
  school can hardly be considered an institute of
  learning. The sewage is backed up so bad it
  squishes underneath the one piece of decent land
  they have, they are poorly fed, and the crime
  rate is unbelievable.

23
Devin Response to Yellow Raft in Blue Water

• We thought that life on a reservation itself
  automatically puts you in a lower classhow being
  born into certain situations or lifestyles put
  you closer or further from the goal line in the
  game of success. Being born into life on a
  reservation puts you down at the bottom a ways.

24
Devins development

• Others worlds are different from his own
• Characters identities are shaped by worlds that
  limit them
• Shift from model of individualism to one of
  institutional critique
• They said if you work hard for it, you get what
  you deserve, and thats not necessarily true,
  because the racism in society is really strong
  when you try to get a job.

25
Blog role-play and wiki writing Montana 1948

• Montana 1948
• http//missboeser.googlepages.com/montana1948
• Blog Roleplay "Fighting Sioux" mascot
• http//roleplaymascots.blogspot.com/
• Wiki site
• http//jhscollegewritingmontana.pbwiki.com/

26
Marie Little Soldier

• My name is Marie and I am a Hunkpapa Sioux
  Indian. I have a boyfriend who is also Native
  American like I am Ronnie Tall Bear. he is very
  strong and athletic (not to mention cute). he
  holds many school records and was in the American
  Legion Baseball team!
• he is an amazing athlete, but because he is
  Native America, he is not allowed to go to
  college. i hate that. he is so talented, but
  because of his heritage, its all going to go to
  waste, and I hate waste.

27
Marie Little Soldier

• I am not against the name of the team in fact, I
  believe that is shows the strength and will of my
  people. though it is a name white people gave us,
  I do not believe that they meant it to be
  offensive. but why does a white man have the
  right to play football and go to college when
  Ronnie cant? Ronnie is Sioux, yet he cannot bare
  the colors of the "Fighting Sioux" as well as a
  white man can? it does not make sense to me at
  all. why should a white man be allowed to call
  himself a Sioux when a real Sioux cannot? It is
  silly.

28
Clyde Bellecourt

• I support your thoughts very much. As the leader
  of the AIM, I think that it is important of us to
  keep out Sioux strength strong. When they are out
  there using our name as a sports team mascot, I
  find it very offensive. It is wrong to be doing
  this. I feel for your boyfriend who cannot play,
  they treat us like trash and throw our name
  around like trash.

29
Dan Snidyr, owner of the Washington Redskins

• I believe that we should not change it. The name
  the "Redskins" is not meant to affend anyone of
  any race. "It means wonderful things. It means
  success, it means pride, it means integrity,
  honor and winning tradition. All of those great
  things, plus many more, are what the Redskins are
  all about for Washington and all of the
  Washington Redkin fans throughout the nation."
  http//web.syr.edu/ajhill/dan.html

30
Winona Yepa

• As a Native American women, I am also very
  offended by the name "redskins". Perhaps your
  name should be changed to Washington Whitetrash"
  then perhaps you could see why I feel the way I
  do about the name. We are native American's, not
  redskins. I find it to be a very offensive name.
  At least NDSU has enough respect for Native
  americans to address us properly as "Sioux" the
  fighting part is debatable but they don't refer
  to us as "redskins". we have names.

31
Student perspective-taking

• At first I was indifferent and wanted the NCAA to
  leave them alone so the pinion of my character
  was the opposite. Felicia wanted it to be
  changed. After this role-play I think the Sioux
  should be the ones to decide if the mascot should
  stay of not. I feel that since I am more
  educated on the subject and look at the issue
  through another persons point-of-view I can see
  more reason to have the mascot changed that to
  have it stay.

32
Summary

• Dialogic tensions serve to challenge status-quo
  discourses
• Temporary trying on of alternative discourses
  when presented with hypothetical situation
• Shifts in perspectives
• possible to challenge the hegemonic discourses
  constituting the students identities

33
Multicultural literature Role in a pedagogy of
discomfort

• Not simply exposure to the other or diversity
  just in the text
• Tensions due to institutional racism, class
  conflict, and sexism
• Value lies in mixture of texts, teacher
  activities/challenges, and student discussions of
  dialogic tensions

34
Implications teacher education

• Human relations training
• Tolerance and appreciation of diversity
• Not address institutional forces race, class,
  gender difference
• Need for social justice/critical pedagogy
• Focus on control/management
• Need to foster dialogic tensions and pedagogy of
  discomfort

35
Implications for further research

• Chart adoption of alternative discourses
• Temporary trying on of new discourses
• Revising/amending status-quo value stances
• Link adoption to teacher modeling
• Recognize value of dialogic tensions related to
  ideologies of difference
• Challenges to familiar value stances and
  color-blind racism

36
Race Create sitcom script (Bird, 2003)

• White group largely white characters
• Stereotypical portrayals of Indians
• Mediated by media representations
• Limited cultural tool-kit for
• Indian group aware of outside role
• Rejection of stereotypes of Indians
• White characters based on lived-world experiences