Eleven classes left until I can write fic again!

[rivkat]

Important poll on Sci-Fi’s rebranding as SyFy: was the focus group just fucking with Sci-Fi?

Frances Lee Ansley, Race and the Core Curriculum in Legal Education, 79 Cal. L. Rev. 1511 (1991)
If you are a teacher of students in a predominantly white but desegregating institution, you cannot consistently do the right thing no matter how hard you try, if by the right thing you mean behavior that makes the average student of color feel equally as welcomed and personally validated as the average white student. Nor can you consistently do the right thing if by that you mean behavior that allows the average white student to avoid any feeling of being personally accused or defensive when matters of race are discussed. Nor can you consistently do the right thing if by that you mean behavior that results in the average student of any race feeling enthusiastic and competent when encountering ideas that force that student to examine his or her own privileges, shames, and resentments.

Achieving such goals with any regularity is not an available option because the present realities of race in American higher education are comprised of many different factors that are working against such goals. And most of those factors are not within a teacher's control. “The right thing,” if defined in this way, is a snare and a delusion. Neither teachers nor students are superheroes. And we have precious few role models for productively discussing matters of race across racial lines.

Nevertheless, if you cannot always do the right thing, you can sometimes do a right thing. Progress will not come from having discovered “the” right behavior for each situation and then donning it like moral armor. Instead, it will come by establishing a steady pattern of repeated effort and openness and by engaging in interactions that cumulatively help you begin to cure the ignorance that teachers and students alike almost certainly bring to a race-conscious educational setting.

As one benefit of this process, teachers may work themselves into a better position to discern racism and to support students of color in productively reacting to it. Second, teachers may become better able to discern the needs and problems of all students who are entitled to (that elusive concept) a fair share of professional time and attention. Third, teachers may become better able to discern situations in which students of color are having problems that they inaccurately or disproportionately attribute to racism and then to support those students in productively handling and reexamining those situations. The ability to do all of these things is important to the welfare of all students and to the future quality of racial integration in our institutions.

Comments

[snake-easing.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty impressive quote. Has it been true, in your experience?

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I don't know yet! This is the work I need to be doing.

[snake-easing.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Even when you know what to do it can be hard (really hard!) to know how to do it.

[ender24]

that book is from 1991 , that's like 20 years ago!??!
do you think, what it says, still is somewhat valid for US?

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely.

you know, i tried to read through that quote above

[ender24]

like twice, and its still boggling my mind. I mean, it sounds so...totally imprecise and theoretical.

whats a teacher to exactly do, to make both color and non color students feel validated and all the entailed stuff?!?!
and is that even their duty?
wouldnt it be much easier, just go in the class, and teach your topic as best as you can?
and ignore the color issue?

Re: you know, i tried to read through that quote above

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Well, it's part of a bigger article with discussions of how specific classes and cases can integrate issues of race and justice. You can't just ignore race--Property, for example, starts with a case in which the Supreme Court upholds the claims of the British government, now held by the American government, to own land rather than the Native Americans who live on it, because the Native Americans were considered incapable of having the appropriate ownership relationship to the land (and had been conquered besides); a lot of people teach slavery as part of property law, since certain people, defined by race, used to be property; it doesn't make much sense to teach about mortgages and the history of housing in the US without talking about redlining, racially restrictive covenants, and other racially specific measures; and so on. Ignoring race doesn't make race disappear, it just leaves students with less information.

aha!, this is the first time since the whole LJ racefail

[ender24]

discussion, where i begin to see a bit, why the whole mostly US based fandom has such severe issues with fannish and non fannish race topics , both in your media and in RL.

thats sounds all awfully complicated with such a history.