Being Asked To Teach Antiracistly?

[mamselle]

Can you just show what you're already doing and point out the areas where you can build on that or give it more visibility?

M.

[mahagonny]

What Black student groups really love is getting emails from 300 faculty asking them for uncompensated labor. Maybe we can also put Black faculty on more committees that don't help them get tenure.

Of course nobody can be opposed to being anti-racist, because none of us are (or want to be) racist. I suspect we all want to live in a world that is less racist. But the way we're overcoming systemic inequality is not by putting a paper by a Black author on the syllabus. It's absolutely insane that there's a collective belief that the reason minority students aren't becoming prolific researchers is because they don't see people who look like them in those positions. It's either that or massive educational inequality starting in pre-K. Just because one of those things is easier to fix doesn't mean it's the thing that'll actually be effective.

They don't need a fix. What they need is an image, a legacy. Here's a president who wants his university to be proactively antifascist. There's a reason he's got this pitch going. It's exciting and it costs little or nothing to take a stand. He could be trying to do something that actually changes a little piece of the world for the better. He could be paying his faculty more. But that's a dumb idea; it costs him and requires his cool friends to give something up.
https://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/tag/anti-fascism/

[ergative]

There are two ways we can react to this sort of edict.

1. We can get caught up in the disingenuousness of the people who are implementing it for the wrong reasons, and refuse to participate, and undermine it as an act of protest against the increased workload.

2. We can ask ourselves, genuinely, if there is a way we can improve the social justice in our teaching, and work to improve it. Just because a jerk is telling you to wash your hands in order to burnish his own image doesn't mean that you should leave them dirty.

[Ruralguy]

As others have pointed out, unless everything more or less stays the same for your career, then any added thing is more work. A granting agency makes you fill out 5 more forms, you are asked to take on 10 more advisees. You need to do more assessment than 10 or 20 years ago, etc. I would be inclined to take Ergative's view
that it could be of some benefit, so think of how you can do it. That doesn't mean administrators should never be asked to prove it does anything, but it doesn't mean that the idea is necessarily bad. 

[fishbrains]

No. Just no, at least with my College's situation. Example: Our admins have encouraged us to engage in "meaningful conversations" with our Black colleagues to learn how they are affected by racism and to learn about their experiences at our college.



Wait for it.



Wait for it.



Wait for it.



Wait for it.



Wait for it.



Here it comes . . .



And . . .



We currently only have one full-time African-American faculty member at our college.


And I know/hope other's experiences are a little different from mine right now. Sorry to sound negative.

[jerseyjay]

I think you are overthinking this. I will not try to analyze why this may be the case. However, unless there is a mandate to do a thorough-going revision of all your courses, it seems that what you should be doing is what everybody should be doing as part of their regular teaching duties.

1. Look at your content--material covered, readings, assignments, etc. Are your readings and the topics as inclusive as they should be. Are all your readings by white guys? Do you look at readings by people from different perspectives (women, men, etc.?) Do you cover topics only about white guys? Of course, this is probably more relevant to the social sciences and humanities than to physical sciences, but even so, it is good to be inclusive. (When I was in middle school, somehow the math teacher had dug up a mimeographed worksheet about fractions--and mimeographs had already gone out of style by then--that had a really offensive question based on what we would now call intermarriage. My guess is that the teacher had just found them in some old box and not reading to question 35, thought they would be useful. While you probably won't find something so egregious, it is always a good idea to cast an eye on course material to see if it should be discarded/revised.)

2. Look at your own teaching style and what happens in your classroom. Is discussion dominated by white guys? Do people often make insensitive/racist comments?  Do you try to build an inclusive classroom? Do you try to have a variety of voices heard? Do you respond to different students in different ways that might be considered offensive?

None of these is going to make racism disappear in the United States, get rid of sexism, or make us a "postracial" society. But they would show some good faith in trying to address issues of inclusivity--and, I think, are just good teaching practice.

[mahagonny]

I think you are overthinking this. I will not try to analyze why this may be the case. However, unless there is a mandate to do a thorough-going revision of all your courses, it seems that what you should be doing is what everybody should be doing as part of their regular teaching duties.

1. Look at your content--material covered, readings, assignments, etc. Are your readings and the topics as inclusive as they should be. Are all your readings by white guys? Do you look at readings by people from different perspectives (women, men, etc.?) Do you cover topics only about white guys? Of course, this is probably more relevant to the social sciences and humanities than to physical sciences, but even so, it is good to be inclusive. (When I was in middle school, somehow the math teacher had dug up a mimeographed worksheet about fractions--and mimeographs had already gone out of style by then--that had a really offensive question based on what we would now call intermarriage. My guess is that the teacher had just found them in some old box and not reading to question 35, thought they would be useful. While you probably won't find something so egregious, it is always a good idea to cast an eye on course material to see if it should be discarded/revised.)

2. Look at your own teaching style and what happens in your classroom. Is discussion dominated by white guys? Do people often make insensitive/racist comments?  Do you try to build an inclusive classroom? Do you try to have a variety of voices heard? Do you respond to different students in different ways that might be considered offensive?

I don't get the feeling that students want me to bring up the subjects of race, inclusion, diversity in the classroom just for the sake of doing it. Maybe partly because I can't really teach my subject without innovators of different races (and quite often American black) being entailed. It's always been that way, and it's obvious. And in fact, a source of pride and joy for me.
I haven't noticed racist comments in the classroom. People are pretty nice to each other. A black student told me of time he was treated badly on the shuttle that drives around campus. I tried to be a friend. You know, did what anyone of us would.

None of these is going to make racism disappear in the United States, get rid of sexism, or make us a "postracial" society. But they would show some good faith in trying to address issues of inclusivity--and, I think, are just good teaching practice.

If you substitute the phrase 'not really verified, categorical blaming of white America for many of the nation's ills' for your term racism in that sentence then, in my opinion, race relations are in pretty bad shape and getting worse. Any discussion of the problems we have has to allow for that to be approached inquisitively too. The present academic environment does not do that. The narrative of racial issues is all one way. Long on thoughts of activism and rebellion, short on analysis, I suspect.

[mahagonny]

OK, I might as well add, sexism is another riff that is prone to veering into nutty territory.

[marshwiggle]

I haven't noticed racist comments in the classroom. People are pretty nice to each other. A black student told me of time he was treated badly on the shuttle that drives around campus. I tried to be a friend. You know, did what anyone of us would.

x1000

One of the most tedious parts of all this discussion is the implication that avoiding racist and sexist comments is some sort of recent revelation. If a prof had commented on somone's sex or ethnicity as being surprising in a particular class that would have been odd even in the late 70's!!!! For my nearly 4 decades teaching it has been normal to refer to people as "students", rather than by gender.  And the idea that some peoples' historical contributions have been undervalued, like Lise Meitner? She had an element named after her in 1992!!!!!

Get over the conceit that overturning the "great white patriarchy" is some sort of iPhone generation epiphany. Things are much better than  they were decades ago because most people have acted like decent human beings and tried to correct the historical wrongs that have been acknowledged for at least half a century.

Even virtue-signalling is as old as humanity, even though the social media generation have turned it into high art.

[writingprof]

What Black student groups really love is getting emails from 300 faculty asking them for uncompensated labor. Maybe we can also put Black faculty on more committees that don't help them get tenure.

I would never ask a black student group for help designing my classes. I'm delighted to learn that this makes me an anti-racist.

[secundem_artem]

Let me peel this down to what I see as its nub.

Silence = violence. 

But - say something with all good intentions that maybe was not particularly well chosen or worded and be prepared for the "I don't feel safe.  Fire Artem immediately" chorus to have its say and demand your head on a pike as tribute.
Encourage POC voices, but don't do it quite correctly and find yourself accused of expecting some poor undergrad to be the voice of their entire race.

Tell me again why I need to put my neck in this particular noose. 

I just try to not be an a$$hole and to treat people like individuals.  I have no idea the race of the authors of most of the reading I assign.  That's going to have to be good enough.

[dismalist]

For a small number of years, many students in my classes have been from China. Race never came up, on anything. Why, or why not?

[mamselle]

Because, as a friend says, "I need not to be seen as that angry (black, yellow, brown, female) person yelling about discrimination if I want to get ahead in this system."

People learn to cope by being silent, and absorbing a lot they should never have to absorb.

Just because they were polite and didn't point out your gaffes (if you made any) doesn't mean you didn't make any.

It means they were being polite and trying to get along within the system as they found it.

(But people can really only do that for so long, and then things start coming apart. As they are now.)

M.

[dismalist]

Because, as a friend says, "I need not to be seen as that angry (black, yellow, brown, female) person yelling about discrimination if I want to get ahead in this system."

People learn to cope by being silent, and absorbing a lot they should never have to absorb.

Just because they were polite and didn't point out your gaffes (if you made any) doesn't mean you didn't make any.

It means they were being polite and trying to get along within the system as they found it.

(But people can really only do that for so long, and then things start coming apart. As they are now.)

M.

So, evidence of absence implies absence of evidence? This logical error is normally achieved the other way around! :-)

[mahagonny]

I haven't noticed racist comments in the classroom. People are pretty nice to each other. A black student told me of time he was treated badly on the shuttle that drives around campus. I tried to be a friend. You know, did what anyone of us would.

x1000

One of the most tedious parts of all this discussion is the implication that avoiding racist and sexist comments is some sort of recent revelation. If a prof had commented on somone's sex or ethnicity as being surprising in a particular class that would have been odd even in the late 70's!!!! For my nearly 4 decades teaching it has been normal to refer to people as "students", rather than by gender.  And the idea that some peoples' historical contributions have been undervalued, like Lise Meitner? She had an element named after her in 1992!!!!!

Get over the conceit that overturning the "great white patriarchy" is some sort of iPhone generation epiphany. Things are much better than  they were decades ago because most people have acted like decent human beings and tried to correct the historical wrongs that have been acknowledged for at least half a century.

Even virtue-signalling is as old as humanity, even though the social media generation have turned it into high art.

When young people do these things it can become a teachable moment. When they're egged on by scholars who've been trained in critical thinking, it's a failure. (Then again, perhaps not all my colleagues have been so trained).
I do get that black Americans are feeling a lot of pain now, and white America is looking for a heartening gesture. However, I put much more faith in people like the Mayor of Atlanta (may she get well soon!) who said something like it will be up to us to find solutions...plans and ideas and effort, not anger and lashing out.
https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/atlanta-mayor-bottoms-calls-violence-stop-after-year-old-death/ewb45h1m1KcuIMJFRxpkOI/

Because, as a friend says, "I need not to be seen as that angry (black, yellow, brown, female) person yelling about discrimination if I want to get ahead in this system."

People learn to cope by being silent, and absorbing a lot they should never have to absorb.

Just because they were polite and didn't point out your gaffes (if you made any) doesn't mean you didn't make any.

It means they were being polite and trying to get along within the system as they found it.

(But people can really only do that for so long, and then things start coming apart. As they are now.)

M.

So, evidence of absence implies absence of evidence? This logical error is normally achieved the other way around! :-)

Well, if that were the thought process then the odds are very good that it would blend well with a future life of employment as a college instructor. Good grooming.
(FYI: no one in the workplace knows what Mahagonny thinks. Quiet as a mouse. I'm not stupid.)