Racing Thoughts Ep 2: Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes, & White Pedagogy

Download here.

This episode talks about the whiteness in the classroom and how to discuss race in a way that is mindful of the white dominant lens of the US school system.

• At 8:50, School Psychologist Marquel Norton reflects on his own experiences with whiteness as a Queer Black man in the classroom.
• At 23:20, Thomas Finley, a recent Brown MAT graduate, discusses his training as a history teacher and what his own whiteness means to him in developing his pedagogy.
• At 34:55, Journalist Leah Shafer talks about translating academic scholarship on race and education on the Usable Knowledge publication from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
• At 41:35, Prabhdeep Singh Kehal comes through to unpack this all, discusses his own work on the construction of prestige and meritocracy in higher ed, and chats with me about public sociology.

Recommended Watching

 

Clips of Jane Elliott’s Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes Experiment were taken from a PBS documentary called A Class Divided .

Recommended Reading

• Leah Shafer’s Usable Knowledge articles, one discussing how to talk race in white dominant classrooms , and the other highlighting tips from Meira Levinson on responsibly cultivating a race-conscious classroom .
• McIntosh’s famous article on the “invisible knapsack” of white privilege, and the Midwest Critical Whiteness Collective urging educators to push us beyond conceptions of privilege & to be more proactive in antiracist efforts.
• A paper on categorization processes in schools.
• A book useful For White Folks who Teach in the Hood (AND THE REST OF Y’ALL TOO).
• From my extended conversation with Prabhdeep, a dystopian novel by Michael Young from 1958 imagining a meritocracy .

The ~Racing Thoughts~ theme song is “What you Want” by The Roots. It’s used for educational purposes only.

Musical interludes in order:

1. Instrumental of “Work,” Rihanna ft. Drake;

2. Instrumental of “Work,” A$AP Ferg; 

3. Instrumental of KSI’s “Keep Up”; 

4. Instrumental of “Wild Thoughts.”

Racing Thoughts Ep 1: Immigrants All?

Racing Thoughts

Hi, It's Laura! I'm testing out an idea for a new podcast series, called Racing Thoughts.

My sociological research deals with the links between race and cultural production, so I’m thinking about this stuff all the time.. And yeah, ideally I’ll articulate some of these thoughts in academic papers, in my teaching and stuff, eventually. But research takes a really long time, as I’m learning! And I’m guessing no matter how riveting academics make their work, it’s more or less confined to the academy if you’re gonna plop it in an academic journal, both because of this inaccessible language and journal paywalls. So consider this podcast my first shot at "doing public sociology!"

EP 1: IMMIGRANTS ALL?

The pilot episode talks race, nationalism, and that persistent “all americans are immigrants” narrative.

• Ben Carson’s “slaves are immigrants” gaffe earlier this year, and Obama’s during his presidency

• A throwback to 1930s wartime radio, when the government crafted the story of transatlantic slavery as a more palatable immigrant tale

• Professor of English and Sound Studies Jennifer Lynn Stoever stops by to talk about the sonic color line.

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Click Here for Episode 1's Transcript.

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MUSIC CREDITS

• The Racing Thoughts theme song is What you Want by The Roots. 

• Musical interlude and outro provided by Podington Bear, via www.soundofpicture.com.

 

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

Other publicly available episodes of Americans All, Immigrants All from WNYC.  Obama’s full speech on fixing America’s broken immigration system. German Lopez and Ben Carson’s “slaves were immigrants” comments.

RECOMMENDED READING

For more on Du Bois and the sonic color line, read Jennifer’s work, especially her article in Modernist Cultures and her book, The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening. It’s what got me started on this whole podcast episode.

If you wanna go all-in with nerding out on wartime radio propaganda, Atlas Obscura talks about another government-sponsored series that promoted patriotism across immigrant groups, I’m an American.

Pick up a copy of Professor Barbara Savage’s book Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948. There’s a whole chapter on this radio series in here!