What White Children Need to Know about Race/Independent School Magazine

What White Children Need to Know about Race

"...Silence is a racial message and a “tool of whiteness.” In order to support the goals of their diversity mission statements and work toward a “racially just America,” schools need to take a more proactive approach to teaching white students about race and racial identity..."

Want To Address Teachers' Biases? First, Talk About Race

"We are going to experience discomfort — well, we may or may not experience it — but if we have it that's OK," says Coles, a third-grade teacher at Eagle Creek Elementary School in Indianapolis.

Coles is black, one of just four teachers of color among Eagle Creek Elementary's 37 staff. Throughout last year she gathered co-workers in her classroom for after-school discussions about race.

Her goal? Create a common understanding of race and power, with hopes that teachers acknowledge, then address, how that plays out in the school.

Read the rest of the article from Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations here:

Want to Address Teachers' Biases? First, Talk about Race

How to Stop the Racist in You

Read the entire article here:  How to Stop the Racist in You

By Jeremy Adam Smith, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton | July 27, 2016 | 

The new science of bias suggests that we all carry prejudices within ourselves—and we all have the tools to keep them in check.

"...For many people, the very possibility that they too might get caught saying one thing but doing another is extremely threatening and aversive. That threat, in fact, has a name: aversive racism. It refers to the type of racism in which a person’s implicit biases are so out of line with their conscious values that social situations where they experience this conflict—such as interracial interactions—are something to fear and avoid..."

"...So what are the tricks that you can use to stop the racist in you? There are many, of course, but here are six to consider that follow from the scientific insights we describe.

• Consciously commit yourself to egalitarianism.
• But recognize that unconscious bias is no more “the real you” than your conscious values. You are both the unconscious and the conscious.
• Acknowledge differences, rather than pretend that you are ignoring them.
• Seek out friendship with people from different groups, in order to increase your brain’s familiarity with different people and expand your point of view.
• It’s natural to focus on how people are different from you, but try to consciously identify what qualities and goals you might have in common.
• When you encounter examples of unambiguous bias, speak out against them. Why? Because that helps create and reinforce a standard for yourself and the people around you, in addition to providing some help to those who are the targets of explicit and implicit prejudice.

Those are steps you can take right now, without waiting for the world to change..."

What I Said When My White Friend Asked for My Black Opinion on White Privilege by Lori Lakin Hutcherson

Read the article here: What I Said When My White Friend Asked for My Black Opinion on White Privilege by Lori Lakin Hutcherson

Lori Lakin Hutcherson is a Los Angeles native, Harvard graduate, former film studio executive, film and television writer/producer, and founder/editor-in-chief of the award-winning website Good Black News. She is also a wife, mother, vegetarian, crossword puzzle enthusiast, nerd, and avid music lover.



On Being

Reading While White

RWW's Mission Statement:

We are White librarians organizing to confront racism in the field of children’s and young adult literature.  We are allies in the ongoing struggle for authenticity and visibility in books; for opportunities for people of color and First/Native Nations people in all aspects of the children’s and young adult book world; and for accountability among publishers, book creators, reviewers, librarians, teachers, and others.  We are learning, and hold ourselves responsible for understanding how our whiteness impacts our perspectives and our behavior.

We know that we lack the expertise that non-white have on marginalized racial experiences.  We resolve to listen and learn from people of color and First/Native Nations people willing to speak about those experiences.  We resolve to examine our own White racial experiences without expecting people of color and First/Native Nations people to educate us. As White people, we have the responsibility to change the balance of White privilege.

Reading While White

Why Talk About Whiteness?

Why Talk About Whiteness?

Toolkit for Why Talk About Whiteness

Don’t take it personally—it’s not about you! 

White people have come to expect a level of racial comfort. When that expectation is met with racial stress, DiAngelo explains the result can be White Fragility: “White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.”

Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs by David R. Roediger 

At the vanguard of the study of race and labor in American history, David R. Roediger is the author of the now-classic The Wages of Whiteness, a study of racism in the development of a white working class in nineteenth-century America. In Working Toward Whiteness, he continues that history into the twentieth century. He recounts how American ethnic groups considered white today-including Jewish-, Italian-, and Polish-Americans-once occupied a confused racial status in their new country. They eventually became part of white America thanks to the nascent labor movement, New Deal reforms, and a rise in home-buying. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenants--the racist real estate agreements that ensured all-white neighborhoods--Roediger explores the murky realities of race in twentieth-century America. A masterful history by an award-winning writer, Working Toward Whiteness charts the strange transformation of these new immigrants into the "white ethnics" of America today.

Take a look inside here.

When Whites Just Don't Get It OP-ED Series by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist?

When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 2

When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 3

When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 4

When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 5

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 6 

"...So if we’re going to address systemic disadvantage of black children, we have to broaden the conversation to unequal education. There’s a lot of loose talk among whites about black boys making bad decisions, but we fail these kids before they fail us. That’s unconscionable when increasingly we have robust evidence about the kinds of initiatives (like home visitation, prekindergarten and “career academies”) that reduce disparities...

New York Times, A Conversation on Race 

A series of short films about identity in America.

White Privilege

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh

Teaching Tolerance: On Racism and White Privilege

Tim Wise on Racism

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (Download and Read)

4 Ways to Push Back Against Your Privilege by Mia McKenzie

White Debt - Reckoning with what is owed — and what can never be repaid — for racial privilege. By EULA BISS

Some Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States by Judith H. Katz

Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories by Eddie Moore (Editor), Marguerite W. Penick-Parks (Editor), Ali Michael (Editor), Paul C. Gorski (Foreword)

Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories

 206 pages Publisher: Stylus Publishing, (March 6 2015)

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While we are all familiar with the lives of prominent Black civil rights leaders, few of us have a sense of what is entailed in developing a White anti-racist identity. Few of us can name the White activists who joined the struggle against discrimination, let alone understand the complexities, stresses and contradictions of doing this work while benefiting from the privileges they enjoyed as Whites. 

This book fills that gap by vividly presenting – in their own words – the personal stories, experiences and reflections of fifteen prominent White anti-racists. They recount the circumstances that led them to undertake this work, describe key moments and insights along their journeys, and frankly admit their continuing lapses and mistakes. They make it clear that confronting oppression (including their own prejudices) – whether about race, sexual orientation, ability or other differences – is a lifelong process of learning. 

The chapters in this book are full of inspirational and lesson-rich stories about the expanding awareness of White social justice advocates and activists who grappled with their White privilege and their early socialization and decided to work against structural injustice and personal prejudice. The authors are also self-critical, questioning their motivations and commitments, and acknowledging that – as Whites and possessors of other privileged identities – they continue to benefit from White privilege even as they work against it.

This is an eye-opening book for anyone who wants to understand what it means to be White and the reality of what is involved in becoming a White anti-racist and social justice advocate; is interested in the paths taken by those who have gone before; and wants to engage reflectively and critically in this difficult and important work.

Look inside here.

A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life by Janet E. Helms

A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person 

or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life

Written for a general audience, this book examines White racial identity and how its recognition may help to end racism. White people generally fail to understand that they have a racial identity -- whether they are willing to recognize it or not -- and that having it doesn't have to be a negative. Designed specifically for Whites, but useful for others, this easy-to-read paperback includes examples and activities that enhance the reader's understanding of the part race plays in the lives of each of us. This book is being used in various programs and classes at universities, school districts and businesses across the country, as well as by individuals across the world.

Read the essay: Life Questions by Janet E. Helms

The Heart of Whiteness by Robert Jensen

              The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege

124 pages Publisher: City Lights Publishers; September 1, 2005,12.95

In The Souls of Black Folks, W.E.B. DuBois wrote that the question whites wanted to ask him was: “How does it feel to be a problem?” In The Heart of Whiteness, Robert Jensen writes that it is time for white people in America to self-consciously reverse the direction of that question and to fully acknowledge that in the racial arena, they are the problem. While some whites would like to think that we have reached “the end of racism” in the United States, and others would like to celebrate diversity but are oblivious to the political, economic, and social consequences of a nation—and their sense of self—founded on a system of white supremacy, Jensen proposes a different approach. He sets his sights not only on the racism that can’t be hidden, but also on the liberal platitudes that sometimes conceal the depths of that racism in “polite society.”  The Heart of Whiteness offers an honest and rigorous exploration of what Jensen refers to as the depraved nature of whiteness in the United States. Mixing personal experience with data and theory, he faces down the difficult realities of -racism and white privilege. He argues that any system that denies non-whites their full humanity also keeps whites from fully accessing their own. This book is both a cautionary tale for those who believe that they have transcended racism, and also an expression of the hope for genuine transcendence. When white people fully understand and accept the painful reality that they are indeed “the problem,” it should lead toward serious attempts to change one’s own life and join with others to change society.

What White Children Need to Know About Race by Ali Michael and Eleonora Bartoli

"Silence is a racial message and a “tool of whiteness.” In order to support the goals of their diversity mission statements and work toward a “racially just America,” schools need to take a more proactive approach to teaching white students about race and racial identity."

What White Children Need to Know About Race

Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving

            Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race 

288 pages Publisher: Elephant Room Press (January 9, 2014) $19.95

For twenty-five years, Debby Irving sensed inexplicable racial tensions in her personal and professional relationships. As a colleague and neighbor, she worried about offending people she dearly wanted to befriend. As an arts administrator, she didn't understand why her diversity efforts lacked traction. As a teacher, she found her best efforts to reach out to students and families of color left her wondering what she was missing. Then, in 2009, one "aha!" moment launched an adventure of discovery and insight that drastically shifted her worldview and upended her life plan. In Waking Up White, Irving tells her often cringe-worthy story with such openness that readers will turn every page rooting for her-and ultimately for all of us.

Read Irving's essay "White Privilege in the School House" here.

What Does It Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy by Robin DiAngelo

        

          What Does It Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy

          318 pages Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing Inc. (May 30, 2012) $41.95

What does it mean to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless yet is deeply divided by race? In the face of pervasive racial inequality and segregation, most whites cannot answer that question. Robin DiAngelo argues that a number of factors make this question difficult for whites miseducation about what racism is; ideologies such as individualism and colorblindness; defensiveness; and a need to protect (rather than expand) our worldviews. These factors contribute to what she terms white racial illiteracy. Speaking as a white person to other white people, Dr. DiAngelo clearly and compellingly takes readers through an analysis of white socialization. She describes how race shapes the lives of white people, explains what makes racism so hard for whites to see, identifies common white racial patterns, and speaks back to popular white narratives that work to deny racism. Written as an accessible introduction to white identity from an anti-racist framework, What Does It Mean To Be White? is an invaluable resource for members of diversity and anti-racism programs and study groups and students of sociology, psychology, education, and other disciplines.

11 Ways White America Avoids Taking Responsibility for its Racism