Teaching Antiracism: Understanding Social Identities

The "Flower of Power" activity was created by educators to help teachers working with groups identify who they are and who they are not.  A flower worksheet is given to each student and as a group, the outer petals are filled in with the dominant or most powerful identities in society.  Then, students individually complete the inner petals with their information about their social identity.  The point of the exercise is to visually show how dominant or not their identity is in society.  The more inner petals that that the person has that matches the outer ones, the more power that person has in society.

You may already be familiar with the “Power Flower”.  It is an activity that many anti-oppression educator use when teaching.  I will be adding how I adapt this for younger students (grade 4+) and how to embed this activity in your back-to-school lessons. 

Objectives:

• Visualise how your identity lines up dominant groups
• See which identities give you unearned privilege and which identities do not
• Understand the assumed norm (aka dominant identity) in the various systems of oppression

Before engaging in this lesson, consider:

Tips for talking about race with students (https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/race-talk-engaging-young-people-in-conversations-about) The article linked with give you some tools and support leading these conversations.

Recognize that you are a learner too, and that you are also working towards becoming an Anti-Racist Ally

Please note: “Oppressions are like jigsaw puzzles or lego pieces where the different forms connect together and support each other and they do not occur in isolation. For example a gay man of colour faces homophobia and racism, just as an older trans woman endures ageism and transphobia.

It is important not to rank or rate oppressions. All forms of oppression require resistance from and work to end. Focusing solely on one inequality does not address the root causes. Here are some other reasons we must not rank oppressions from the Youth Environmental Network

      
 “The practice of ranking oppressions, then:

• Leads to disputes over which forms of oppression are the worst and least severe;
• Fails to recognize how different forms of oppression intersect or work together to oppress people;
• Avoids looking at structures of power and privilege because people end up spending time arguing over which forms of oppression are the worst instead of focusing on how power structures divide struggles against racism from struggles against sexism (e.g. ‘divide and rule’ strategies);
• Overlooks the fact that all forms of oppression are harmful and unjust, and it fails to recognize that the best strategy to end oppression involves tackling all forms of oppression at once.”

The Lesson:

To start:

Write the student pre-reflection question on the board.  Ask for volunteers to give a short presentation answering this question and write down in point form what they say to describe themselves.  After about three presentations, have the class reflect on:

• What aspects about themselves students listed first.  
• What aspects did they omit altogether?

Display the definition of identity so students can see it:

Identity: the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that make a person (self-identity in psychology) or group (collective identity in sociology). ... A psychological identity relates to self-image (one's mental model of oneself), self-esteem, and individuality.

Review that there are more than one way to identify: visually (what you look like), emotionally (what you feel about yourself); through associations (who are your friends, where you live, your religion) and sociologically, or social identity- what we are going to learn today.

Investigate: 

Distribute the handout “The Power Flower” to students and have a large copy that you can work on filling in your own information as the activity progresses. 

The centre of a daisy-type flower is divided into 16 segments, each representing one facet or category of our social identity. This centre is surrounded by a double set of petals, one outer, one inner. The outer petals describe the dominant or powerful identities in society. The inner petals are filled in by participants and describe the social identity of each individual. 

Explain the object of the activity:  to discover how close, or how distant, each person is to the dominant identity of their current society. The more inner petals match the outer (dominant) ones, the more social power that person possesses.

Working as a group, fill in the outer petals together. For instance, when completing the social dominance category, it would not be too difficult to agree that “white” should go in the outer petal. The same might go for “English” in the language category language, and “heterosexual” in the sexual orientation category. Refer to the attached  answer key for the appropriate information for the outer petals.

Distribute one blank individual diagram and have everyone transfer these outer petal descriptions onto their individual sheets.

Working individually, have participants locate themselves in each inner petal on their own sheet.  You can model this by going petal by petal, modelling entering your own identity information and have the students add their identity on their sheets.

Count up the number of matching petals, colouring each petal that matches. Let each pair compare their results with that of their neighbors, making observations as they go along.  

Note that coloured petals represent social power OVER people different from the social “norms” of the outside petal.  This is how oppression functions.

The Power Flower exercise is also a good way to help us visualise systems of oppression. There are many forms of oppression: race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, age etc. Oppressions have a long history and a part of our society in every context-political, economic and social. What we consider the norm and what we think of as the “other” is based in oppression. Something as trivial seeming like hair and what we value as a society is deeply rooted in historical oppressions. For example, there have been several media reports of school children being sent home or suspended because their hair was not deemed suitable for school.  (See article: https://jezebel.com/florida-school-forces-black-student-to-cut-hair-or-face-1472062679 )

Consolidate: 

Lead a class discussion focusing on the different types of identity and its relation to oppression:

Personal social identity: Count how many of your petals are different from the dominant outer petals, which means you do not share those areas of power conferred by society. What light does this throw on the way you have been treated as a person of privilege or as a marginalized person? Which of these cannot be changed (for example, where you were born, your sex), and which ones could be changed (e.g. level of education)?

Group social identity: What does the composite picture tell you about who you are as a group? Are you privileged? In what ways are you not privileged? How might this affect, for example, the way you might go about anti-racism work? If your church is in a neighbourhood that has changed quite substantially in recent years, what kind of power flower pattern might your “neighbours” present, and how much would it differ from your group flower? What implications would this pose to your church’s outreach ministry?

Interpersonal relations within your group: Notice who has fewer matching petals and thus less social power, and who has more. How can you turn this knowledge to advantage as the group works together? As you make decisions? For instance, you might as a group decide to take measures to make sure members with less power do get a chance to be heard. How do you as leader/facilitator compare with your group members? What does this reveal about possible tensions?

Reflect on the unequal weight given some of the categories, for example, race or social-economic class, and thus the need to adjust the “power quotient” wielded by some petals over others.

How does your new understanding of oppression change how you think about your identity?  Did it affect how you would identify yourself, if you had to answer the question “who am I?” and “what makes me who I am?”

Going further: 

Conceptualizing “Oppression” in Art and Music: 

The concept of oppression and their relation to it is explored in the arts by artists of color.  Play the song “Oppression” by Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUIYoxd7f2s) and display the lyrics for students to follow (https://www.benharper.com/songs-lyrics/originals/oppression.

Discussion questions:

How did this song make you feel?

What idea is the writer concerned about?

Does the song make you aware of something you did not know before? What is it?

Are there any surprises in the poem? Like what?

What is/are the most important word(s) in the song? Why?

What are some things that are puzzling to you about this poem? Did you solve any of the puzzles? Which ones and how?

How do you feel this song connects with your generation?  If you picked an older song, how do you connect with this song?

How does the music fit the lyrics to the song?

Have students search for other artistic explorations of oppression by artists or colour.

Sources:

This lesson is adapted from the LGBTQ2S Toolkit from: http://lgbtq2stoolkit.learningcommunity.ca/training/power-flower/ 

Additional Sources:

Aran, I. (2013, November 26). Florida School Forces Black Student to Cut Hair or Face Expulsion. Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://jezebel.com/florida-school-forces-black-student-to-cut-hair-or-face-1472062679

Canadian Race Relations Foundation. (n.d.). CRRF Glossary of Terms. Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://www.crr.ca/en/library-a-clearinghouse/glossary-a-terms-en-gb-1

Ng, W. (n.d.). A Tool for Everyone: Revelations from the “Power Flower”. Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://lgbtq2stoolkit.learningcommunity.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/flower-power-exercise.pdf

Youth Environmental Network. (n.d.). Green Justice Guide. Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://antiracist-toolkit.users.ecobytes.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Green-Justice-Guide-Part-1.pdf

Anti-Racism for Teachers 101: What is Racism?

Most people think they can answer this question confidently- what is racism?  This seemingly simple question actually has multiple, complex answers. Its key to develop an understanding of racism in order to be an Antiracist.  At its core, racism is "the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance." (Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, 1984 p. 115.)  However, explaining racism and all the complex social relations it encompasses is kind of tricky.  Racism is even part of the languages we speak in Ontario (English and French).  How we talk and communicate is riddled with racist ideologies and practices embedded within it.  Even our associations with the words "white and black"; or "light and dark" have good and bad connotations.  Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton use an example from a VW car ad to exemplify this.  Take a look at the ad below:

What assumptions do we all need to know to understand this ad?  That black is bad and white is good?  That black and white are oppositional?  

It is not a stretch to say, that these ideas have been applied to how we see each other as well; Black people are seen as not as good as White people.  Or that being Black is "dirty," or not the "normal" condition of humanity.  These ideas are all understood with the same premise that black= bad and white= good.  

Consider this ad:

What is the implication of this ad?  That the body wash will make this Black woman "normal" or "clean" by lightening her skin?  You can see the relationship to the VW ad- the movement from dark to light across the ad; the implication of dirty to clean and bad to good.  Both ads depend on the same understanding of dark/light that we understand in our language.  

Canadian racism is about the construction of social relationships on the basis of assumed inferiority of non-white peoples and flowing from this, exploitation and oppression.  By construction, I am referring to the social construction of race and racism.  A social construction is a concept of understanding that race is not necessarily a biological imperative, but a "contract" created by how we live in a society.  That is, people have created an understanding on what race is, and what race means.  

Stuart Hall defines racism as a set of economic, political and ideological practices through which a dominant exercises hegemony over subordinate groups (Hall, 1980, p. 338)  To secure hegemony, a dominant group must have captured public understanding in a concrete way without being conscious of it. Because of this innate understanding of dominance, it makes it difficult for many white people to see racism as endemic to society; as a part of all aspects of it.  It also allows people to see racism in separate forms- that is as overt, crude and irrational beliefs and social interactions of "racists" instead of a feature society as a whole.  

Racism is apparent in everyday life, as in institutions and government and law.  It permeates all aspects of our lives, and so confronting it is complex and difficult.  Racism can be thought of as consisting in three main elements that interact with one another: individualized/ interpersonal racism, institutionalized racism and cultural/ historical racism (Bromley and Longino, White Racism, Black Americans, 1972.)  

Interpersonal racism is made up of those everyday interactions with each other.  Its what we say and do based on prejudgement of another racial group.  But.  individual racist attitudes need institutional backing to be racist.  Institutional racism consists of the customs that distribute power to one group over another.  For example, racist institutions pathologize non-whites and blame them for their predicament.  (For example, my graduate work look at popular texts from the 60s and 70s in Canada and the US about the "state" of the Black family as an explanation for poverty and racism.) The interplay and interaction between the individual behaviour and acts of racism form the the dynamics of institutionalized racism.  Cultural racism is centred around those values and ideas that enforce the superiority of white people and culture.  Cultural racism is part of how  the dominant group captures public understanding through the "hearts and minds" of white people. (Cultural here includes history, language and other markers of culture.  These all contribute to how we see ourselves and our position in society.)  As there is such significant interplay between these 3 types of racism, one can see that individualized racism, is just one part of how all racism functions.

So what does this mean for education?  These three levels of racism are also present in our classroom and school board, because racism permeates all aspects of society and our institutions.  In order to illustrate this, I will use examples from my own experience as a teacher and how they exemplify the racism that I see everyday in school; as well as how I understand these experiences.  

Storytime!

Situation 1: After a parent-teacher interview, my principal took me aside, and said that my (afro-textured) hair was not appropriate or professional for important meetings.  She had seen my tie it back before, why didn't I tie it back for this meeting?  (Yep.  That happened.)  I explained that this constituted a micro aggression, and was actually racism. This administrator was offended by my response to her "professional advice."  For the rest of the school year, I was micro-managed and surveilled- so much so that my 13 year old students noticed the administrators presence and commented on it several times.  My only recourse was to leave that school, and work with a new principal. 

Analysis: In this situation, one can see how all aspects of racism are at play.  Interpersonally, my administrator's comments to me were problematic and racist.  There is a lot of information out there about how Black women's hair is political and deeply connected to civil rights (see this great article by Teen Vogue about Black hair; or this one from the BBC; or Althea Prince's book The Politics of Black Hair).  When I informed my supervisor of the racism inherent in her comment, she was insulted, and didn't believe that what she said was racist because she said to me "Im not racist."  As a white person, it was enough that she didn't believe that what she did was racist for her to dismiss my analysis of the situation.  Institutionally, when I complained about this interaction; it was dismissed again at upper school board levels, and my administrator's position was upheld, and my position ignored.  As a result, my principal could then take out her anger on me with heightened levels of surveillance and passive aggression until my only recourse was to escape the situation, as I was told by the administration and my union, that there would be no other recourse for me and my safety.  

The above situation is fairly obvious as it involves people at all levels of the school board.  I would argue that every example of racism would involve all levels of education.  Let's look at another story:

Situation 2:  One of my students was teaching me some words in Urdu (as she was preparing for a trip) and a colleague joined us and asked what we were doing.  When I told them, they said, "where do they speak that?  Urduistan?"  My student was upset, and did not know how to respond.  As an anti-racist teacher, I said that I would take care of it to my student.  I spoke to that colleague privately, about how that comment was inappropriate.  He was angry about the interaction, so he told the principal, and I was called into her office for a "harassment" complaint.  When I told her what had happened, she told me he was "joking" and that I shouldn't have alienated my co-worker like that.  

Analysis:  There are a few issues with this one.  One the one hand, my student was the victim of a terrible, racist joke.  But, as they were in the subordinate position as a student, they did not know what they could say to address the racism in this situation.  To take the burden off my middle schooler, I informed my colleague about the problems with what he said.  However, there was a power imbalance that called on cultural racism to dismiss my concerns again.  Because what he said was taken as my administrator as "just a joke" I was instructed to apologize for speaking to him so severely.  Even though we are equals as both teachers, I was not equal to the white colleague and my white administrator.  My concerns were easily dismissed, where my co-worker feelings were valued as higher than mine because I was mean. 

These situations, show that the interpersonal racism I faces and see is ingrained in the three types of racism; that they all interplay and feed each other to give teeth to each example of racism.  

However, racism does not need that interpersonal play to be damaging in our classrooms.  Here are some ways institutional and cultural racism harm our students, and we may not even know it:

• text books that have more white people in them than any other race
• math and science texts that feature white people as actors and people of colour as observers
• classroom libraries that feature the experiences and texts and pictures of white people more than people of colour
• posters and other displays that only have white people on them
• schools in which there are only white teachers (or a majority of staff is white)
• concerns about racism by students or staff not taken seriously by co-workers and administration
• racist "jokes," memes or other materials
• books that feature stereotyping of people of colour
• increased suspensions and expulsions of students of colour
• dismissive attitudes of parents of colour 
• no hat/ hood policies; dress codes
• hair policies
• tokenizing students of colour ("Jessie's Black, what do Black people think about that?")
• tone policing ("I know you're mad but don't yell!")
• history lessons that focus on white people's experience
• school police officers
• only white authors of books used in class
• zero tolerance policies
• denial of racism and white privilege 
• stereotyping
• achievement gaps
• standardized testing that depends on knowledge of white culture and experience
• pathologizing students' of colour behaviour and learning (that students of colour are more represented in special education measures)

We need to remember: this list is so long because education is an institution created by society- so its very basis is racist.  As teachers, we work within a racist system, and so our work as anti-racist teachers is difficult, and all encompassing.  As teachers, we are complicit in this racist system.  So we need to actively fight against it and create our own tools to do so.  

  

Being an Antiracist Educator Part 2: Always Educating

For part one of my Being an Antiracist Educator series, click here.

In my last post on being an Antiracist educator, I wrote that there is no checklist.  That being an Antiracist teacher, had to come from being an Antiracist person and activist.  There is another part to being an Antiracist teacher that is important to know— as an Antiracist educator, you are always educating.

As a teacher this is a key part of your activism.  You can use the practical and tangible skill you have to bring about real change.  Yes, even (maybe especially) if you are a white teacher.  Let me explain:

There is a real emotional toll on people of colour doing the heavy lifting of teaching for change.  When I talk about Antiracism, as a black woman, I am actively trying to convince people of my worth, my humanity.  It is painful, sometimes soul destroying, but important work.  Work I often (including right now) do for no pay, and with great psychic and spiritual cost to myself.  More, racism isn’t a system that me or other people of colour created.  It is a system we are plagued by and victimized with- but for a very long time, we were the ones that fought to teach others about its abuses.  For too long, white people had seen themselves outside of racism, not as its beneficiaries, or as an active part of it.

But- recently, I have seen some momentum in teacher’s willingness to acknowledge racist systems, and educate themselves to be better teachers and better people.  And that’s heartening.  Now that people are learning, the next part, the more difficult part happens.  Sharing that learning.

And this is the key/ challenge to being an Antiracist educator- you are always educating.

In my classroom, I take every opportunity to engage my students by talking about some problematic opinions they have and teaching them about that.  For example, one of my students didn’t get the “big deal about Residential schools.” And that led to an inquiry about Residential School and Truth and Reconciliation.  But, I don’t only educate in my classroom.  As an Antiracist teacher, I teach everywhere.  It is the crux of my activism, as a teacher and as an Antiracist activist.

I would argue, that to be a true Antiracist teacher, you must be willing to teach antiracism everywhere.

Anyone who knows me in person (or has access to my social media) knows that I use my voice and forums for Antiracist educating any chance I get.  Just this week, a friend sent me a picture of a sign that she was having trouble describing why it didn’t seem right to her.  In Antiracist teacher fashion, I posted the picture and an analysis of why its a problem.  (To see the photo I and explanation, click here.)  I saw that conversation and photo as an opportunity to educate people around me.  As Antiracist educators, we need to see those tough conversations as an opportunity for activism, and education.