Invitations

MEMORY MATTERS

• Memory Activity (Bell, 2010, p. 49) & share

Think of one instance in your life when race (grouping/ethnicity) mattered. If too uncomfortable, when did you observe or experience a situation yourself, about or with someone else where and when race mattered-good or bad? (Choose frame of reference from childhood through adulthood.) Discuss at your table and then share out.

1. You are asked to imagine yourself at earlier stages of your life, starting with the present moment and moving backwards in five or ten year increments until reaching around five years of age. You are promoted to visualize in your mind's eye a vivid physical image of yourself at that age, siting on the lap or talking with someone you love - parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, siblings, or significant person - and imagine a conversation with that person about race. You may recall an actual conversation, construct a conversation from what the person said, or sense the feelings, attitudes, emotions of a particular event. It is your chosen memory! Playing out the event in your mind's eye, focus on particular words, language, feelings, gestures, lessons, implicit and explicit, about differences in your emerging memory.

2. Once you have completed the visualization, spend five minutes writing about the scene you visualized, noting dialogue, sensory memory, affect and your own responses of the situation you recall. Pair up with a partner and read what you have written aloud as your "partner bears witness to the frequently emotional, often painful responses it provokes." Once each person has shared his/her story, "analyze the stories together to consider what they tell us about how race is taught and learned, consciously and deliberately as well as unconsciously and inadvertently, from those we love and trust" (p. 49)

3. As a whole group look for themes, patterns across the stories.

(Memory stories can be emotionally upsetting for both tellers and listeners.)

• White Privilege Video

• Talking protocol according to Peggy McIntosh below:

Peggy McIntosh (June, 2010; transcript excerpt): "White privilege, which I was taught not to recognize, is the upside of discrimination; it’s the exemption from discrimination. It’s the benefits you get from a system in which others are pushed down but you are not. That pushes you up and that brings power to me. I describe that brings power to me. And a question is can I use my power; do I want to use my power as a white person to weaken the system of white power. It’s a choice one makes if one’s white…but for me it has transformed my life to use my power to weaken the system’s power. One of the ways we weakened the system today is to enforce a system of discussion in which:

1. no one could interrupt;

2. everybody will talk for equal amounts of time;

3. everybody will listen for equal amounts of time;

4. there’s no cross talk; and

5. there’s no building on what one’s heard.

6. You testify about your own experience; not your opinions and not your experience for that has a brand new politics to it. As a white, I care about that very much, distributing the listening, distributing the speaking, and preventing what the world calls dialogue. We were not in dialogue; we were what I call serial testimony, taking turns to tell parts of our story. And we are the sole authority on our own experience. Nobody else can argue with us about our experience and serial testimony protects that truth; the integrity of you and your own experience.

It’s not about blame, shame or guilt. It is recognizing that you have power and then deciding how you are going to use it; if you wish to use it toward social justice."

• •  

  • WP Definition Recognized invisible system of racism that exists in U.S. in that White people benefit from a system of advantage simply by the color of skin (Bell, 2010).

"Society has not been socialized and educated white people to recognize racism. It has trained us not to notice or understand our own race privilege.”

• Unpacking White Privilege with Peggy McIntosh

• Visual: Unpacking White Privilege

• Let's Talk about Racism in Schools (Rick Wormeli)

• REFLECTION TIME: thoughts, questions

LIGHT in the SHADOWS

View video excerpt and choose a character with whom you identify; or put a character into the scene that was not there to contribute to the conversation. Continue the conversation in your mind (based on what was talked about or start your own conversation. Allow your character to respond ,ask for clarification, clarify, question as you play through the dialogue.

When reminded that they are empowered by the mere virtue of their whiteness, white people typically tend to react with reflexive guilt, denial, defensiveness, or alternatively with defiance. (Willette & Lasarow, 2003).

Take Away: Begin to understand the complexity of the phrase, recognize it, reference it as an informed perspective and begin to enter into conversations with others. Bell (2010) shares: “Students commented that teachers rarely want to talk  about racism so simply putting racism on the table was a novel experience. As one of the participating teachers noted: "I think that most of them don't understand why it's not talked about, and they don't know how to deal with it...I think it's because people always say, 'Color doesn't mean anything' or 'I treat everyone the same" (pp. 67-69).

Response Questions for Reflection:

• • How did these activities work for you in understanding the concept of white privilege?

  • Now that you have a grasp of WP, what else would you need to be able to discuss it and understand it?

  • How do we create spaces to begin talking more about this? Why is this so important to talk about?

HANDOUTS

• • 2012 White Privilege Conference at http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/ 

  • Brent Staples: “Black Men and Public Space”

  • Beckwith, B. (2009). What was I thinking: Reflecting on everyday racism.Inquiring Minds Press.