Pulling Back the “Post-Racial” Curtain: Critical Pedagogical Lessons from Both Sides of the Desk
Abstract
Though popular belief and social science analyses often assert the racial tolerance and liberality of institutions of higher education and the white students who attend them, our research reveals young, educated white students’ everyday lives are anything but racially neutral. We pull back the curtain on these “post-racial” assumptions by presenting journal data collected from white students around the U.S. over many years. Our data documents that racist performances are a normal, habituated part of most white students’ social worlds. Nonetheless, we also find that asking students to research and write about their own lives in the context of instruction that addresses the critical realities of systemic racism can be a powerful educational tool. We explore the limits of mainstream educational and multiculturalism approaches in probing the deep realities of systemic racism; address the challenges of confronting our white students’ deeply embedded racial framing; and characterize strategies progressive, antiracist educators should consider in developing a race critical pedagogy for white students.
Keywords
White Student White People Critical Pedagogy White Privilege Systemic RacismReferences
- Allen, R. L. (2005). Whiteness and critical pedagogy. In Z. Leonardo (Ed.), Critical pedagogy and race (pp. 53–68). Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
- Apollon, D. (2011). Don’t call them ‘post-racial’: Millennials’ attitudes on race, racism and key systems in our society. Full Research Report, Applied Research Center, New York.Google Scholar
- Bell, D. (2004). Silent covenants. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Blauner, B. (2001). Still the big news: Racial oppression in America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
- Bonilla-Silva, E. (1997). Rethinking racism: Toward a structural interpretation. American Sociological Review, 62, 465–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists (2nd ed.). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
- Bonilla-Silva, E., & Forman, T. A. (2000). ‘I am not a racist but…’: Mapping white college students’ racial ideology in the USA. Discourse and Society, 11(1), 50–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Collins, P. H. (2009). Another kind of public education: Race, schools, the media and democratic possibilities. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
- Conley, D. (2001). Decomposing the black-white wealth gap: The role of parental resources, inheritance, and investment dynamics. Sociological Inquiry, 71, 39–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- DiTomaso, N. (2013). The American non-dilemma: Racial inequality without racism. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
- Doane, A. (2006). What is racism? Racial discourse and racial politics. Critical Sociology, 32, 255–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Douglas, W. O. (1968). Concurring opinion. In Jones et ux. v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409.Google Scholar
- DuBois, W. E. B. ([1920] 2003). Darkwater: Voices from within the veil. New York: Humanity Books.Google Scholar
- Elisaoph, N. (1999). ‘Everyday racism’ in a culture of political avoidance: Civil society, speech, and taboo. Social Problems, 46, 479–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Feagin, J. (2010). Racist America (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Feagin, J. (2013). The white racial frame (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Feagin, J. R., & Vera, H. (2008). Liberation sociology (2nd ed.). Boulder: Paradigm.Google Scholar
- Feagin, J. R., Vera, H., & Imani, N. (1996). The agony of education: Black students at white colleges and universities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Frankenberg, R. (1996). ‘When we are capable of stopping, we begin to see’: Being white, seeing whiteness. In B. Thompson & S. Tyagi (Eds.), Names we call home: Autobiography of racial identity (pp. 3–17). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Freire, P. (2003). Pedagogy of the oppressed. 30th Anniversary edition. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
- Gallagher, C. (2003). White reconstruction in the university. In M. S. Kimmel & A. L. Ferber (Eds.), Privilege: A reader (pp. 299–318). Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
- Gatson, S. N. (2006). Living, breathing, teaching sociology: Using the micro to illuminate the macro. In C. Stanley (Ed.), Faculty of color teaching in predominantly white institutions (pp. 153–165). Bolton: Anker Publishing.Google Scholar
- Goldsmith, P. A. (2006). Learning to understand inequality and diversity: Getting students past ideologies. Teaching Sociology, 34, 263–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Gramsci, A. (1971). In Q. Hoare, & G. N. Smith (Eds. & Trans.), Selections from the prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
- Haddad, A. T., & Lieberman, L. (2002). From student resistance to embracing the sociological imagination: Unmasking privilege, social conventions, and racism. Teaching Sociology, 30, 328–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106, 1707–1791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Hooks, B. (2010). Teaching critical thinking: Practical wisdom. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Johnson, H. B. (2006). The American dream and the power of wealth. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Katznelson, I. (2005). When affirmative action was white. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
- Keister, L. (2000). Wealth in America. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Leonardo, Z. (2005). The color of supremacy: Beyond the discourse of ‘white privilege. In Z. Leonardo (Ed.), Critical pedagogy and race (pp. 37–52). Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
- Leonardo, Z. (2009). Race, whiteness, and education. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
- Moore, W. L. (2007). Reproducing racism: White space, elite law schools, and racial inequality. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
- Mueller, J. C. (2013a). The social reproduction of systemic racial inequality. PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.Google Scholar
- Mueller, J. C. (2013b). Tracing family, teaching race: Critical race pedagogy in the millennial sociology classroom. Teaching Sociology, 41, 172–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Mueller, J. C. (2008). Further student accounts of cross-racial costuming during Halloween. Unpublished research, Texas A&M University, College Station.Google Scholar
- Mueller, J. C., Dirks, D., & Picca, L. H. (2007). Unmasking racism: Halloween costuming and engagement of the racial other. Qualitative Sociology, 30, 315–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Oliver, M. L., & Shapiro, T. M. (2006). Black wealth/white wealth (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Picca, L. H., & Feagin, J. R. (2007). Two-faced racism: Whites in the frontstage and the backstage. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Picca, L. H., & Feagin, J. R. (2008). Experiences of students of color. Unpublished research, University of Dayton, Dayton.Google Scholar
- Royster, D. (2003). Race and the invisible hand: How white networks exclude black men from blue-collar jobs. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
- Shanks, T. R. W. (2005). The Homestead Act: A major asset-building policy in American history. In M. Sherraden (Ed.), Inclusion in the American dream: Assets, poverty, and public policy (pp. 20–41). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Shapiro, T. M. (2004). The hidden cost of being African American. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Smith, W. A., Allen, W. R., & Danley, L. L. (2007). ‘Assume the position. You fit the description’: Psychosocial experiences and racial battle fatigue among African American male college students. American Behavioral Scientist, 51, 551–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Yosso, T. J., Smith, W. A., Ceja, M., & Solórzano, D. G. (2009). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate for Latina/o undergraduates. Harvard Educational Review, 79, 659–690.Google Scholar