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.
I love the "case study" approach you use. A collection of case like these (I could provide you with some myself!) would be a great way to help those who have difficulty with topic.
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