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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:
Instrumental of “Work,” Rihanna ft. Drake;
Instrumental of “Work,” A$AP Ferg;
Instrumental of KSI’s “Keep Up”;
Instrumental of “Wild Thoughts.”