Final Reflection:
Personal Understandings from Race and Education
Sunil Santoni-de-Reddy
December 2005
Throughout my life in white suburbia and at Colgate I have felt what Ladson-Billings (1994) refers to as the “burden of blackness,” an unspoken, yet false understanding that I am “held to a higher standard than other people” because I am a person of color (p. 31). I suppose since I am not black I should modify Ladson-Billings’ terminology and discuss my burden of “coloredness,” although I don’t feel completely comfortable with that terminology either because anyone can use this label to identify me as “colored.” Returning back to the author’s quote, clearly the “other people” that she discusses are members of the white majority. I find myself constantly thinking about race in social settings because I have been socialized to think in these terms, much in the same way I believe everyone is socialized from a young age to view race and use racial difference as a means of reinforcing the structure of power dynamics in society. I am always cautious not to be hostile with white peers or to get too loud when I am speaking about something I am passionate about because I know that more likely than not I will be stereotypically viewed as just another angry, loud minority. Even if this isn’t the case, I still know that it is a possibility that I will be perceived in these ways and this provides enough impetus for me to “check myself” with respect to expressing my race. This in itself is difficult to do because I can never know how strongly others perceive me as a racial minority.
The “burden of coloredness” is an ever present weight that I must carry around which forces me to consider that wherever I go I may be viewed, in large part, by my race. I believe this has everything to do with Peggy McIntosh’s (1992) reflections on white privilege. The author identifies many invisible advantages given to her as a Caucasian, including the following: “I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race” (p. 74), and “If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones” (p. 75). Thus, whereas whites may be able to go about their usual routines not having to consider whether their behaviors will be attributed to their race, I feel that no matter how positive my behaviors are my actions will still be critiqued by others who wear a lens of racial analysis. Therefore, the “higher standard” that Ladson-Billings pinpoints further pushes me to consent to whiteness by forcing me to question myself so that I do not come across negatively to my white peers. I believe this method of putting the self on a backburner is exactly what perpetuates the “minority” status of people of color.
I think the “burden” discussed above also ties in with Amanda E. Lewis’ (2001) discourse on race. In Lewis’ interviews with white parents, she found that “many parents contended that racism was not really an issue. Rather, they explained that it is the attitude of racial minorities and Blacks in particular that keeps them down. One mother (Mrs. Lucia) stated that the problem was racial minorities’ ‘chip on the shoulder’ attitude” (p. 793). This is another burden that people of color experience, the perception that we are simply bearing a grudge that enables us to easily call a white person racist or believe that racism is existent in any situation that we consider to be negative. This directly relates to the blackboard postings between Merdi and me on December, 5, 2005. Merdi stated at least six times in his post that young students of color are “suspicious” or are “quick faultfinders” when it comes to perceiving whites as targeting them racially. I challenged Merdi in the following way:
Personally I am offended by the terminology you use because by saying that these people
are “suspicious” you are stripping them of potentially negative encounters that they have
experienced first hand. I do not think that it is the norm that people of color are quick to
label a white peer as racist. I tend to believe that if someone feels they are a target of
racism they have some grounds for believing this and are not simply saying so as a result
of habituation from being exposed to their parent’s experiences. You are blaming parents
of youth of color but aren’t identifying anywhere that these youth are “suspicious” for a
reason. Instead, I feel you are attacking the population of color for “playing a race card.”
I was tremendously surprised when Merdi spoke in such ways because the kinds of comments he made typically aren’t spewed by a person of color. It could be that I misinterpreted his message, as he says, but I believe the words he used warrant the critique I make of them.
The burden is that we are quick to think about race, or that we “play a race card” too frequently in social spaces that are racially integrated—at least in the physical sense of being integrated since I don’t believe the United States genuinely is integrated in terms of equal respect for all people. We are consistently thinking about ourselves in terms of our race, and we are attacked by some whites as perpetuating racism because we can not move past racism in America. Beverly Daniel Tatum (1999), in “Color Blind or Color Conscious?” poses and answers the same question: “Why are young people of color thinking about themselves in terms of race or ethnicity? Because the rest of the world is viewing them that way” (p. 28). No matter how much one would like to believe American society is a utopia where no one is judged by their race, this attitude is not realistic and extremely ignorant. Young people of color are discriminated against in the classroom, on the playground, in stores, in print ads, television, and film, and by public policy and other governmental initiatives and/or practices. People of color do not have the white privilege of simply being another human being because instead we are always first seen as a different color. Thus, if we are thinking about race it is because we have been trained to think in these terms. However, I do not believe this automatically makes us prone to label all whites as racist or prejudiced.
In relation to the above, I believe that our Race and Education class has also clarified and
defeated the idea that America functions as a colorblind institution. Geneva Gay (2000) highlights how culture infiltrates American institutions, schooling to be more specific.
Culture is at the heart of all we do in the name of education, whether it is curriculum,
instruction, administration, or performance assessment. As used here, culture refers to a
dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, worldviews, and
beliefs used to give order and meaning to our own lives as well as the lives of others.
Even without our being consciously aware of it, culture determines how we think,
believe, and behave, and these, in turn, affect how we teach and learn (pp. 8-9).
Therefore, Gay falsifies the notion that race or ethnicity is insignificant or irrelevant and stresses that colorblindness is impossible because everyday interactions are infused with cultural differences; culture influences everything that we do.
We have discussed a lot in class about the necessity of multiculturalism education in schools. The argument against this, as voiced by some in class as well as in various readings, was that everyone should be viewed as equal and by discussing race in the classroom we are further dividing society. Lewis (2001) identifies some of these opinions: statements are made such as “‘We should all be Americans,’ or ‘Talking about race is divisive.’ […] With regard to current race relations, most White parents believed (or hoped) that their kids were just taught that everyone is the same, and that we should all be color-blind” (p. 788). Additionally, we see in the film “Crash” how people are attacked for not “speaking American,” and these ignorant comments are made each day in our society. The other day I was driving around town doing errands and over the radio the DJ was talking about how upset he was that no longer is it acceptable to wish someone a merry Christmas because not everyone celebrates the holiday. A woman called in and agreed with his frustration and added her belief that we are living in America and therefore if people don’t want to be wished a merry Christmas than they should go back to where they came from. This woman was extremely ignorant and stupid, if I may say so, for not understanding that just because you aren’t Christian doesn’t mean you aren’t American. However, similar ignorant comments are all related to ideals of a homogenous society that is color-blind and one that mitigates the significance of diversity of other cultures.
We must take from Gay that it is naïve to believe in a society that is not color-conscious in order to understand how to effectively approach race in America or in the classroom, for example. Ladson (1994) reveals that “teachers must take care not to ignore color” (p. 31), because “the notion of equity as sameness only makes sense when all students are exactly the same […] Different children have different needs and addressing those different needs is the best way to deal with them equitably” (p. 33). Ladson goes on to say that the experiences of all students must be part of the curriculum because only in this way can you reach all students and create a space that is accepting of all cultures (p. 53). I find these statements to be valuable as well in relating to our class discussions. I have learned that one method for defeating racism, and perhaps the only method, is to educate young people early in their schooling about acceptance and tolerance for all races. Kids don’t have to be told explicitly that they should love another race, but implicitly through exposing them to histories of other cultures the kids are being educated and socialized not to think about race in negative ways. The early exposure to multiculturalism means a greater acceptance and understanding of races later in these children’s lives when race may play a bigger role through the media or pre-existing social conventions that will attempt to corrupt their young minds.
Wanting to be a teacher myself, I am always wondering what the best approach to educating youth and defeating racism is. How do I reach children and teach them to acknowledge and respect cultural differences? As John U. Ogbu (1998) indicates, educators “need to find ways to help students see that they can be successful in school and maintain their cultural identity” (p. 181), and I think this is significant because often there exists a dilemma for young people with respect to how they should be performing their race or how they are viewed by others as “acting” like a certain race. Gay (2000) refers to the aforementioned dilemma as “double dealing.”
“Double dealing,” or being at once highly ethnically affiliated and academically
achieving, can take a terrible toll on students when the two agendas are not
complimentary, as is frequently the case in conventional schools. Negotiating both ways
of being can be stress-provoking and emotionally exhausting; it can even cause some
students to drop out of the academic loop entirely […] Students should be able to achieve
academically, ethnically, culturally, and socially simultaneously without any of these
abilities interfering with the others (pp. 19-20).
Many young people are discriminated against for not “acting black,” for example, because either they don’t excel in sports, or because they are able to achieve academically and enjoy learning, or both. Black men who can’t play basketball are often “not black,” and similarly whites are afforded the same discrimination or expectation with respect to race since I have heard people say when they see a white girl dancing that she “dances like she is black.” These ideas about what it means to be a certain race are all based on stereotypes but they create a system whereby students don’t know how to identify with the various aspects of their being or talent.
I find a personal connection with the “double dilemma” due to my multiracial existence. In past discussions in class and in my racial identity development paper I talked about how I identify more with my Puerto Rican heritage than with my Indian culture. I have felt guilty about not exploring the other half of my racial composition because I thought that this ignorance could be perceived as racist. James A. Banks (2001), in his discussion on multicultural education, indicates that it is expected that each of us experience some conflict or “dilemma,” as Gay would assert, “because each individual belongs to several groups at the same time,” and one “might have a strong identification with one of these groups and a very weak or almost nonexistent identification with another” (p. 14). Thus, while I have a strong identification with being Puerto Rican, being Quaker, being male, being a Colgate student, to name a few, I have a weaker identification with being Indian, being middle-class, being a son or brother to my parents and sister, the list could go on. I may have multiple identities and it is my right to express any or all of them in the ways I see fit. Although others may perceive me one way, essentially what matters is how I chose to identify.
Along these lines of discussion, I have found another degree of growth from class with respect to my responsibility or the power I have to defeat racism by building community. As Professor Palmer has clearly expressed to me, while I may not necessarily feel the same identification with my Indian culture as with my Puerto Rican culture, because I possess aspects of each side I can act as the bridge between the two populations, at least at Colgate. I have talked about being a member of the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) but never attending a South Asian Cultural Club (SACC) meeting. I have learned that I can be the link on the Colgate campus between LASO and SACC. If enough people took the initiative to explore all aspects of their identity or even just took the time to respect another’s culture, then perhaps true community would form and enable the “melting pot” analogy to have some validity in the context of American society. We must tear down the walls that contain our distinct cultures and build bridges which could convey how each culture may be unique but ultimately how simply it is to traverse racial boundaries to recognize how we are all connected.
My vision is additionally less clouded by the “smog” of racism with respect to understanding the boundaries of race that I have briefly mentioned in the above section. I believe that the “King of the Hill” symptoms of our society are disheartening but I believe the analogy is dead on. I see how people often comment about the media’s depiction of people of color but most often the conversations center around how much time is dedicated to one race over another. People talk about how the number of African-Americans in the media is far more concentrated than Asian-Americans or Latinos and how this is unfair. I think people lose sight of how to understand the statistics because what is unfair is the low positive representation of color in the media; we should spend less time tearing down another race to enhance our own and push for greater representation of our race, whatever it may be, rather than demanding for a mitigation of another race’s presence in the media.
At Colgate the ALANA groups are perceived by the white majority as being a solid, unified group that has the same agenda of defeating the white majority on campus (which is an incorrect interpretation of the organizations’ goals). Despite the fact that many of the cultural groups have similar objectives with respect to highlighting the richness of different cultures on campus, and therefore raising awareness and respect for what is “other,” most of the time the ALANA groups are not communicating and instead engage in contests with each other. I have talked about the ALANA groups banning together during the time of SA4C and F.A.C.T., and when various racist speakers have graced campus with their presence, however these events are not frequent and therefore most of the time groups enrich the campus with their cultures but do not include other groups into the events. Afterwards we talk about how one group put on X number of events during a certain time period whereas another group only put on Y number of events. Thus, comparisons are made in order to establish a hierarchy of sorts to position one group over another. People also judge attendance at events as the measure of their success and triumph over another group’s events. There are also more direct examples of ALANA groups fighting with each other. Recently many groups were targeting another by saying they received more funding from BAC and that this is traditionally how the system works. Rather than acknowledging that perhaps this group presented BAC with a better proposal, the attackers were quick to victimize another ALANA group and compete with them.
Class has taught me that it is futile to compete with other people who are similarly being oppressed in society. We need to help each other up the hill rather than push each other down because the latter only leaves us stuck at the bottom of the hill with limited success at achieving upward mobility. Not only do we have to recognize that those at the bottom of the hill can act as support but we also must learn to see whites as allies. For me, although I grew up in a white area and have many white friends, although I did not have a hard time befriending whites I never really considered incorporating them into my struggle with race in America. We rarely spend time talking about race and perhaps on both ends we are uncomfortable addressing race because we are scared that the other will become defensive. I suppose I am also guarded because the few times when I have attempted to engage in dialog with friends about race it always seems to be ruined when my partner says something about a “colored” person, talks about minorities segregating, or that students of color unfairly benefit from affirmative action, to name a few examples. After comments such as these I am disappointed by my white peers and perhaps, then, it becomes difficult for me to think of them as allies in the fight against racism. However, I see the significance in building alliances with those that have been given the power in society and I believe this must be done on both ends. He on the bottom of the hill needs to extend his hand upward and he on top of the hill needs to reach down and offer support.
I think maybe one of the most important things I have learned from class is the distinction between individual, institutional, and cultural racism. I have seen that most often of all three classifications of racism people react to individual racism although cultural or institutional racism may be most prevalently influencing their lives. This inability or tendency for people to notice individual racism more so than the others is because cultural and institutional racism are ingrained into the systems that be as the status quo and have allowed people to adopt ideals or conventions without them realizing it. Individual racism is more visible because it is blatant and in-your-face. When someone looks at you with disdain it is not difficult to identify the situation as perhaps being individual racism at play. In contrast, when someone questions why his or her grades in school are low this person may not consider how institutional and cultural racism have created a disparity in education with respect to urban and suburban instructional resources. Before I began the class I had a limited view of what racism was, defining it more in terms of discrimination, oppression, etc. targeted on one race by another, and perhaps, then, I my thinking was more centered on individual racism rather than the broader, more influential categories. I see, now, that in order to defeat racism we must look past the individual displays of racism—which often cause us to be defensive—and target the higher institutions which perpetuate ignorance and prejudiced thinking on the individual level.
As Tatum (1999) discusses in “When You’re Called a Racist,” racism is like pollution in the air that we all breathe in. “While we may not have polluted the air, we need to take responsibility, along with others, for cleaning it up” (p. 31). We talked a lot in class about why someone would want to give up their privilege and I believe that since we all contribute to the negative status quo of race-relations in America then we should all contribute to making things better. I can see how someone at an advantage would not look at the current standings as negative if they are the ones wielding the power, however all people should realize that unearned advantages can be taken away just as easily as they were given to any group of people. Pedro Noguera (2003) believes that racism can be defeated only with people’s “willingness to engage in a process of change that aims at transforming relationships between those who have power and those who do not” (p. 149). Rather than whites believing they should maintain a monopoly over the reigns of power as long as they can, while they can, they should realize that by defeating the system of racism they will never be subjected to dominance and so don’t have to worry about reaping as much of the benefits now while they can do so. As we have talked about in class, we need to change the mindset of entitlement that dominates in the United Sates.
I do believe that it takes a community to build and maintain a community. When we started our class discussions in Race and Education I didn’t know how everyone would relate to one another or what people would get out of the class. I think towards the beginning I was upset or disappointed with people most of the time because no one seemed very enthusiastic or passionate about understanding race at Colgate and a lot of ignorant and complacent thinking dominated blackboard posts as well as discussions in class. Towards the beginning of the last half of the semester I started to see a change in some people. Certain classmates who weren’t engaging in class discussions started taking a risk—probably, in part, because Professor Palmer chided them for not doing so earlier—and people began getting into posts and outside-of-class discussions with each other. I know one classmate took the initiative to email me about some of my posts, and this is an example of growth and community building, as I see it. I think people warmed up to each other which allowed us to speak up and not be afraid that another would condemn our notions although it would be possible that they may be challenged.
Despite the growth that I think the class experienced by mid-semester, I believe at the end of the course people regressed back to their initial states. We started focusing again on individual racism and becoming defensive or reserved about what we had to tell each other. I got the sense that people weren’t into their posts anymore since many of them became very short and were lacking in substance. Perhaps the end of the semester created a lot of work for people who, as a result, didn’t put as much effort into their posts or readings. I didn’t get the sense that a majority of our class cared to be there anymore. It is definitely clear that some people were very excited by the invitation for us to come up with innovative ideas to get the campus discussing race but I think this group of people was in the minority. Personally, I tried to hang-back as much as I could because I wanted to see who would step up their game. Talk is cheap and I believe that too many people at Colgate talk a big game but don’t follow through in the end. With my experiences in the many student groups I am a part of I have often been the one left doing most of the work and this irritates me when the final product is benefiting the entire group.
I was nervous that I would become heavily invested in whatever project we would do as a class and that ultimately everyone would drop out, leaving only a few dedicated people to get things done, as Professor Palmer indicated has happened in the past. I guess in discussions I wanted to see who would dedicate themselves to the project and who would fall back into complacency. I had many conversations with classmates outside of our usual meeting time about what we thought was going to happen. Most of them felt that even if the project went on with only a few people it would still be worthwhile. I too can find value in any initiative on campus that will improve race-relations either in Hamilton or on a larger scale. However, I believe that if this was supposed to be a class initiative then having only a few people take action draws away from the original concept and therefore it is no longer a movement of the Race and Education class but rather something that can be established by the few people independently.
Ultimately I am disappointed by our class. When the email was sent indicating who the group was that volunteered to continue discussions next semester there were only 17 of the 37 class members listed, which is less than half of our group. It seemed like people in class were gung-ho and therefore seeing the list was proof to me that the rest of the class doesn’t care (and this is not race specific when considering who did not sign-up). I hate to be a skeptic but my fear is that next semester 17 people will not be consistently dedicated and a large number will drop out. I am hoping I am wrong but past experience over the last 3.5 years at Colgate has trained me to think in these ways. I have already made the decision that on the first day of our meeting I am going to hold everyone accountable by letting them know I expect everyone in the room to stay dedicated to whatever we do just in the same way that I hold myself responsible for volunteering and how my peers should be holding me accountable.
Ultimately the course was beneficial for me as a student of color at Colgate but also just as an individual struggling with my own personal identity issues. Having an open forum allowed me to communicate my feelings to the larger group while understanding from them how they think differently with respect to race. Even though racial identity is something very personal, racism is something that must be defeated on a larger institutional and cultural level. For the younger generation, multicultural education seems to be the best approach to cultivating young minds to respect difference. For the older generation, defeating racism depends on tearing down exclusive boundaries or borders and building bridges. It takes a few people to act as the links between communities but once the bridges are made people can walk across difference.
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