Racism, Nonracism, and Antiracism

Race as a Social Construct

To discuss race and racism, we draw on the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Bell, 1992; Delgado and Stefancic, 2001). CRT views race as a social construct, not a biological concept. Delgado and Stefancic (2001) state, ”[R]ace and races are products of social thought and relations. Not objective, inherent, or fixed, they correspond to no biological or genetic reality; rather, races are categories that society invents, manipulates, or retires when convenient” (p. 7). This view on race is historically evident based on how White race has been constructed and (re)shaped throughout history to categorize people based on the political and economic needs of dominant Whites. For more detail, the Youtube video to the right shows a panel discussion on social construction of race.

Racism: Prejudice plus Power

One way to consider racism is that racism involves both prejudice plus power. “Prejudice is a preconceived judgement or opinion, usually based on limited information” (Tatum, 2017, p. 85). Each of us has prejudices because of the cultural messages and images we are surrounded by in society (Harro, 2008; Tatum, 2017). Power in the U.S. context, however, has been and is held predominantly by White men (i.e. government officials, business executives, school principals). Thus, it is through White men’s experiences and racial lens from which standards are created, along with what experiences are legitimized. When prejudiced actions and thoughts are enacted by Whites in a powerful position, we can name it as a racist act. On the other hand, racially prejudiced actions of a person of color cannot be named as such because those actions are not supported by the power that shapes policy or creates standards of judgment (decide what is normal or beautiful). Martin (2007; 2009b), for example, shows how the reporting of achievement test data normalizes Whites students and locates students of color as deviant and deficient. Compared to White students, African American, Latinx, and Native American students are portrayed as deficit. This comparison leads to narratives that pathologize cultural characteristics of those racial groups. Asian students, on the other hand, are often positioned higher than their counterparts. This positioning of Asian students is often conveniently utilized as a justification of White supremacy against other racial groups. The international comparisons between East Asian countries and the U.S. are often discussed negatively as a threat to the national security.

Permanence and Pervasiveness of Racism

“Black people will never gain full equality in this country. Even those herculean efforts we hail as successful will produce no more than temporary ‘peaks of progress.’ short-lived victories that slide into irrelevance as racial patterns adapt in ways that maintain white dominance. This is a hard-to-accept fact that all history verifies. We must acknowledge it, not as a sign of submission, but as an act of ultimate defiance” (Bell, 1992, p. 12).

As stated above, Bell (1992) sets forth the proposition of the permanence of racism. The fact that racism is permanent and enduring “is not an endorsement of racism” (Larnell, Bullock, & Jett, 2016, p. 23), nor does it “assert that race and racism should be permanent” (p. 23). Rather, it highlights that without intentional and sustained efforts of antiracism, the forces of racism will continue to persist. Acknowledging that racism has been permanent from the birth of the U.S., and that countering it requires significant effort at every level of society, (e.g., educational systems) is a necessary step MTEs needs to take toward antiracism (Martin, 2009a).

Critical Race scholars (e.g., Ladson-Billings, 1998) also commonly argue that race is implicated in all aspects of U.S. society and shapes each of our experiences whether or not its effects are visible to us. The domains of power framework (Collins, 2009) helps to make visible the multiple ways that racism operates, including through institutions as well as the everyday interactions of individuals (Collins, 2009).

Intersectionality

Crenshaw (1991) introduced the term intersectionality to examine how the interaction between race and gender shape the experiences of Black women. As Leonardo (2004) points, race acts as an organizing principle that cuts across social identities. In other words, race functions as a unique dimension, yet interacts with other oppressive social structures such as ableism, patriarchy, and capitalism. Thus, it is important to recognize that race is not experienced the same way by every individual and therefore racism isn’t the same everywhere. For instance, an African American girl might experience racism quite differently within the K-12 educational system from a dark-skinned Latino boy. There are, however, consistent and pervasive aspects of racism that can be and need to be addressed across multiple spaces, including in mathematics education.

On a Moving Walkway: Racists, Nonracists, and Antiracists

A moving walkway

Racism is a system that advantages group of people based on race (Bonilla-Silva, 2010). We assert that racism also includes non-overt actions and passive acceptance of systems that maintain a racial hierarchy. To understand how people participate in or resist racism, Tatum (1997) offers a helpful metaphor of a moving walkway that distinguishes racism, nonracism, and antiracism. In her description, a moving walkway represents the racist social structure that provides an advantage to the people who are on the walkway. As people interact differently with a moving walkway, so do they with racism. Some people walk along with the moving walkway. This represents the people who actively uphold and advocate for the racist structure (i.e., white supremacy), and they are commonly identified as racists (e.g., White nationalists, members of Ku Klux Klan). Most people, however, may not actively participate in racist acts but passively allow those racist social structures to persist. On the moving walkway, these are the people who merely stand and move forward along with the walkway. Notability, some people are not even aware that they are on the walkway, just as many White people are in denial of their own racial privilege and domination (Wise, 2008). These people represent nonracists who let racism play out within the domains of power and are complicit in racism. Finally, some people intentionally walk against the direction of the moving walkway. Tatum (1997) named them as antiracists who seek to understand how policies, practices, and institutions perpetuate racism and work with others to change these. In regards to MTEs’ pedagogy in the US, we believe that not thinking explicitly and intentionally about race and racism when engaging in MTE work is taking a nonracist stance.

ReferencesBell, D. (1992). Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York.Bonilla-Silva, E. (2010). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Identity politics, intersectionality, and violence against women. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299.Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction (Vol. 20). NYU Press.Harro, R. L. (2008). Cycle of Socialization: Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. Amherst, MA: Diversity Works.Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what's it doing in a nice field like education?. International journal of qualitative studies in education, 11(1), 7-24.Larnell, G. V., Bullock, E. C., & Jett, C. C. (2016). Rethinking teaching and learning mathematics for social justice from a critical race perspective. Journal of Education, 196(1), 19-29.Leonardo, Z. (2004) The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the discourse of ‘white privilege’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36:2, 137-152.Martin, D. B. (2007). Beyond missionaries or cannibals: Who should teach mathematics to African American children?. The High School Journal, 91(1), 6-28.Martin, D. B. (2009a). Does race matter? Teaching Children Mathematics, 16(3), 134-139.Martin, D.B. (2009b). Researching race in mathematics education. Teachers College Record, 111(2), 295–338.Tatum, B. D. (2017). Why are all of the Black Students Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race. New York, NY: Basic Books.Wise, T. (2009). Between Barack and a hard place: Racism and white denial in the age of Obama. City Lights Books.

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