Here are 3 potential classroom activities that could reflect Ibrahim's pedagogical philosophy:
1. Have students do research projects on influential figures from marginalized communities and present their findings to the class. This elevates voices that are often excluded.
2. Incorporate texts, music, films etc. from diverse cultures and communities into lesson plans to expose students to a variety of perspectives.
3. Facilitate open discussions where students are encouraged to respectfully share their own cultural experiences and backgrounds. This values multiple identities and ways of communicating.
Ibrahim is pointing out that the assumed "norm" in schools often reflects the dominant white culture and experience by default. As teachers, we need to be conscious
1. Week 11 and Week 12
1) Kubota and Lin‘s chapter on race, culture and
identities
2) Kumaravadivelu‘s article on cultural
stereotypes
3) Ibrahim‘s article Rap and Hip-
hop, race, gender and identity and the politics
of ESL
4) McKay and Bokhorst-Heng Chapter 1 and 2
2. What is your definition of race and racism?
Does racism exist today?
What is white privilege?
Does white privilege exist today?
3. I think whites are carefully taught not to
recognize white privilege, as males are taught
not to recognize male privilege. So I have
begun in an untutored way to ask what it is
like to have white privilege. I have come to
see white privilege as an invisible package of
unearned assets that I can count on cashing
in each day, but about which I was "meant" to
remain oblivious. White privilege is like an
invisible weightless knapsack of special
provisions, maps, passports, codebooks,
visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
4. Peggy McIntosh identified some of the daily
effects of white privilege in her life. Read her
statements and discuss which one of these
you can count on. At the end of this list, try
to think of two more ways you have privilege
based on your race.
5. Many issues that we discuss are racial issues, such
as immigrant identity and culture, politics of
ESL, transnationality, and citizenship.. These are
complex, racialized issues, yet they are usually
discussed in non-racial language.
http://www.languageonthemove.com/kay-ingleton
6. Infant morality rate 146% higher
Lack of health insurance coverage 42.3% more likely
Median income rate 55.3% lower
Poverty rate 173% higher
1:5 wealth gap regardless of income level
Life chances of imprisonment 447% higher
Rate death by homicide 521% higher
Percent with a college degree or beyond 59.5% lower
Average life span 5.5 years less
U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004-2005 & U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
7. Racialdifferences has increasingly been
replaced by the notion of cultural difference to
exclude experiences of certain racial and
ethnic groups (sounds more benign?).
Racism as a discursive construct:
Racism is a ―discourse and practice of
inferiorizing ethnic groups‖—remember the
experiences of Lin and Kubota as Asian, non-
native English speaking teachers. They
experienced unequal relationships in
employment.
8. Examining different forms of racism is
important. The ideology of exclusion as a
rhetorical device.
Statements like:
―I am not racist, but….[a xenophobic idea]‖
―Why do I have to pay for the challenges of
a minority group?‖
―But, I have many Black friends…‖
9. ―stating racial views in a principled manner‖-
Type of racism that acts as if skin color does
not matter – even when it does.
It is the most common form of racism among
Americans who grew up after the fall of Jim
Crow
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what/
10. It‘s not race, it‘s economics …
It‘s not race, it‘s culture …
It‘s not race, it depends on a person‘s background …
I‘m not prejudiced, but …
I‘m not black, but …
One of my best friends is black.
My cousin married a black man.
I voted for Barack Obama.
I don‘t see you as black.
Racism and the hegemony of whiteness as discourses
permeate every corner of society and shape social
realities.
11. Racial Ideology is an interpretative repertoire.
Storylines:
Often based on socially shared tales that are fable-
like. ‖My best friend lost a job to a black man‖ or
―Black women are welfare queens‖; ―I think the past
is past‖
Testimonies
Personal lived experiences. ― I know this for a fact
since I have worked all my life with blacks‖
Recognizing our white privilege.
12. Constellationof four cognitive ―frames‖ that
tend to lead to ―racist‖ beliefs, attitudes, and
actions without necessitating underlying
negative ―prejudice‖.
• (1) Minimization of racism/inequality
• (2) Biologization of culture
• (3) Naturalization of status quo
• (4) Abstract liberalism
Source: Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2003). Racial attitudes or
racial ideology. Journal of political ideology
13. Color-blind frames are not caused by prejudice,
but might produce prejudice.
Social functions of racial ideology:
All actors develop a racial identity (are racialized) as
part of their sense of self. This happens whether
actors are ‗aware‘ of it or not and whether they want
it or not. Individuals‘ cognitions are always
embedded in the social world and thus their acts of
self-recognition are always racialized.
14. Segregation has historical reasons, it‘s not a matter choice--we
need to understand the reasons of segregation. Ask, why?
Segregation forced by REDLINING:
It describes the practice of marking a red line on a map to
delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term
was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people
(usually by race or sex) no matter the geography. During the
heyday of redlining, the areas most frequently discriminated
against were black inner city neighborhoods
Who would choose to live in a severely impoverished
neighborhood when a better alternative exists?
Even if you assume that poverty is a necessary component of
capitalism, not clear why race and poverty should correlate so
strongly.
15. What definitions of race do you see in this
article?
Why is it significant to discuss the issue of
race/racism,/racialization in TESOL/BE?
16. Racial categories are not biologically
determined. They have no biologic
foundation.
Racial differences are used for legitimizing
divisions of human beings.
―Race is a concept which signifies and
symbolizes social conflicts and interests by
referring to different types of human bodies‖
17. ―Race is socially and historically
constructed and shaped by discourses that
give specific meanings to the ways we see
the world, rather than reflecting the illusive
notion of objective, stable and
transcendent truths‖ p. 474
18. Abandoning race as an analytical category
and focusing on racializing
This discussion could politically mobilize
racially oppressed groups to create
solidarity and resistance (p.475)
19. Sociocultural characteristics?—but how
are transnational individuals
characterized?
Just as race is not determined
biologically, ethnicity does not denote
innate or biological attributes.
http://www.languageonthemove.com/kay-
ingleton
20. Institutional or structural racism invades
society and shapes social relations,
practices, and institutional structures.
Epistemological racism is based on the
knowledge, and practices that privilege the
European modernist White civilization.
*It is also reflected in North American
textbooks for biology, history, and English
just to name a few.
21. CRT investigates and transforms the relationships
among race ideas, racism, and power.
Racism is deeply ingrained in the ordinary ways in
which everyday life in our society operates and thus it
cannot be fixed by color-blind policies of superficial
quality.
Because racism benefits ―both White elites and
working-class people, large segments of society have
little incentive to eradicate it.‖(p.482)
In addition to language, the ways that
race, gender, class, national origin, and sexual identity
intersect are taken into account as important factors in
and racial discrimination.
22. Amethod of telling stories of those people
whose experiences are not often told.
A tool for exposing, analyzing, and
challenging the majoritarian stories of
racial privilege.
23. Promoting social justice and equity through critical
examinations of power and politics that produce
and maintain domination.
Explicitly engage teachers and students in
dialogues on relations of power with regard to
race, gender, class, and other social categories.
Go beyond the liberal approach to
―multiculturalism‖ which is a difference-blind
egalitarian vision which perpetuate exotic Other
(i.e.. Heroes, costumes and holidays approach).
Encourage students to confront racism and other
kinds of social injustices.
24. A critique of knowledge-transmission-
oriented and fact-focused approaches to
teaching, which serve to perpetuate the
dominant ways of interpreting the world.
This
interaction leads to antiracist
education.
25. Becoming black meant learning BESL
The become is historical
Hip-hop/rap: a way of dressing, walking,
talking. Has been formed as voice for
voicelessness. Explored hopes, political
and historic experience of the Blacks.
Who do we as social subjects living within
a social space desire to become? Whom
do we identify with? What investment do
we have in doing so?
26. African youth find themselves in a racially
conscious society that wittingly or
unwittingly asks them to racially fit
somewhere.
Desire to belong to a location, a politics, a
memory, a history and hence a
representation.
27. Adopting:
Black English
Black cultural norms
Black values
See examples of BE talk on pg 363
Performing acts of desire: desire to belong
somewhere
28. In becoming black, the African youth were
interpellated by black popular culture: A
deliberate counterhegemonic undertaking
(p. 365)
Language learning is not free of the politics
of identity.
L2 learners in this study wanted to learn
marginalized linguistic norms as target.
29. Tolearn is to invest something that has a
personal or a particular significance to who
one is or what one has become. Because
language is never neutral, learning it
cannot and should not be.
30. Ibrahim proposes integrating marginalized
subjects and their voices into the curricula. In
your groups, come up with three classroom
activity that will reflect this pedagogical
philosophy.
What does Ibrahim mean when he say
―Schools unwittingly or wittingly sanction
certain identities and accept their linguistic
norm by doing nothing more than assuming
them to be the norm; we as teachers should
remember that these identities are raced,
classed, sexualized and gendered‖ (p. 367).
Notas del editor
During the post-WWI, many activists revealed the inherent racist bias in many mainstream cultural icons, artistic, lingusitic, scientific Hemingway, Aunt Jemina pancakes, Cream of Wheat Cereal Boxes Descendants of slaves and ex-colonialists had forced the partial dismantling of most official forms of discrimination an empire. Yet this brek had the effect if ameliorating racial justice and inequalities. This break is a GLOBAL BACK DRO, and economic, cultural, and political context in which national racial conflicts are being worked out.
Racial ideology: 1) Racetalk 2) Racial stories 3) Frames The first component of an interpretative repertoires is its style orracetalk— the idiosyncratic linguistic manners and rhetorical strategies used to articulate racial viewpoints.The major stylistic elements of colour blind racism are: (1) avoidance of racist terminology, (2) semantic moves to avoid been labelled as racist (racetalk), (3) diminutives, (4) projection, and (5) rhetorical incoherence. Since a complete analysis of the stylistic elements of colour blindness is beyond the scope of this article, I just showcase two of its five elements. First, I illustrate ‘semantic moves’ or rhetorical shields to avoid the appearance of racism and, secondly, I address the role of projection. Semantic moves such as ‘I am not a racist’ or ‘Some of my best friends are black’ . Projection: Black people are just prejudiced Second components is There are two kind of racial stories: storylines and testimonies. Storylines are socially shared tales that are fable-like and incorporate a common scheme andwording. Storylines are fable-like because, unlike testimonies (see below), they are often based on impersonal, generic arguments with little narrative content. The characters in these stories, if any, tend to be underdeveloped and are usually social types (e.g. the ‘black man’ in statements such as ‘My best friend lost a job to a black man’ or the ‘welfare queen’ in ‘Black women are welfare queens’). The schemata in these stories, and the reason for calling them storylines, refers to phrases and words that appear in most accounts (e.g. ‘I think that the past is the past’). Testimonies, however, are accounts where the narrator is a central participant in the story or is close to the characters in the story. Testimonies provide the aura of authenticity and emotionality that only ‘first hand’ narratives can furnish (‘I know this for a fact since I have worked all my life with blacks’). Therefore, these stories assist those who narrate them in gaining sympathy from listeners or in persuading them about points they want to convey. Most testimonies whites tell serve rhetorical functions such as saving face or signifying non-racialism or bolstering their arguments on controversial racial matters. In the post-civil rights era, whites have produced to date four storylines: (1) ‘The past is the past’ (a related storyline is ‘Present generations are not responsible for the mistakes of the past’), (2) ‘I didn’t own slaves’, (3) ‘My (friend or relative) didn’t get a (job or promotion) because a black (usually ‘man’) got it’, and (4) ‘If (Jews, Irish, Asians) have made it, how come blacks have not?’. There are frames (certain justifications based on reasons) or stories (personal or communal) to back up certain arguments. You use these frames to make sense of the world. The collection of frames constitutes ideology. These frameworks are the social representations of the races: that is, the conscious and unconscious sum of ideas, prejudices, and myths that crystallize the victories and defeats of the races regarding how the world is and ought to be organized. According to Jeffrey Prager, these frameworks embody the cultural material of ‘dead generations’ and operate as ‘public world-view[s], capable of being articulated, collectively arrived at, negotiated, and systematically organized through public channels’. ASK: What are these four frames? All of these four frames make use of the arguments used by the civil rights theories themselves.
1) Since racial ideology is the medium through which actors live their (racial) life, racial ideology helps ‘structurate’ their lives in at least five ways. First, racial ideology helps structurate35 the racial order by providing arguments to account for racial inequality. Racial ideology, again borrowing from Althusser, accomplishes this rationalizing task by representing not the real but the imaginary relations among the races. For instance, slave masters proclaimed that blacks’ status was due to their sub-humanity and hence argued whites had to ‘care’ for them. In the Jim Crow era, the racial ideology justified racial inequality by naturalizing the position of blacks and whites in society in biological and moral terms.2) Secondly, racial ideology provides the basic rules of engagement for racial actors (the ‘racial etiquette’) as well as the racial episteme to make decisions about ‘Other’ and ‘Same’.3) Thirdly, racial ideology provides the basic script for actors’ racial subjectivity. In a racialized society, all actors develop a racial identity (are racialized) as part of their sense of self. This happens whether actors are ‘aware’ of it or not and whether they want it or not. Individuals’ cognitions are always embedded in the social world and thus their acts of self-recognition are always racialized.4) Fourthly, racial ideology is systemic or global: that is, all social actors are affected by it. In racialized social systems it is impossible for any individual to be a non-racial actor and, as such, not to be shaped by racial ideology. The following examples of how whites’ views United States have affected blacks’ views should suffice to illustrate the global effect of racial ideology. First, blacks have historically internalized white supremacist standards of beauty and even recreated a color-based caste structure. Secondly, blacks have historically accepted many of the stereotypes developed by whites about blacks. For example, in the 1998 DAS, between 30 to 70 per cent of blacks agreed that the words or phrases ‘violent’ (32 per cent), ‘musical’ (63 per cent), ‘lazy’ (32 per cent), ‘athletic’ (70 per cent), ‘sexually well-endowed’ (44 per cent), ‘flashy’ (68 per cent), and ‘welfare-dependent’ (30 per cent) are ‘more descriptive of Blacks’. Lastly, blacks endorse views on the significance of individual effort as the source of mobility in the United States that are inconsistent with their social status and collective experience.Nevertheless, groups subordinated along racial, class, or gender lines develop oppositional views, ‘good sense’, and even counter cultures, as Gramsci pointed out in his work. In the DAS survey, whereas 53 per cent of whites stated that they prefer to live in neighborhoods that are ‘all white’ or ‘mostly white’, 62 per cent of blacks stated that they prefer to live in neighbourhoods that are ‘half and half’. In fact, over 70 per cent of white respondents stated that they lived in neighborhoods that had fewer than 10 per cent blacks at the time of theinterview! In terms of busing, 69 per cent of whites opposed it but 74 per cent of blacks supported it. While 56 per cent of whites believe that America has experienced lots of racial progress, only 29 per cent of blacks agree with that view. Since whites believe discrimination is no longer a salient feature of America, only 32 per cent believe blacks have any reason to be angry. In contrast, 76 per cent of blacks believe blacks have reasons to be angry. Finally, on the hot issue of affirmative action, whereas 50 per cent of whites indicate they would support a proposal to eliminate affirmative action, 89 per cent of blacks say they would oppose such a proposal. The divergent views of whites and blacks5) Fifthly, the dominant racial ideology helps normalize racial inequality by portraying the particularistic interests of the dominant race as universal and by instilling social and moral authority over all social actors.Targeted universalism Combines a call for the universal with attention to the particular experience of minority Americans.Supports the needs of the particular while reminding us that we are all part of the same social fabric. Rejects a blanket universal which is likely to be indifferent to the reality that different groups are situated differently related to the institutions and resources of society. It rejects the claim of formal equality that would treat all people the same as a way of denying difference.
Redlining is the practice of denying, or increasing the cost of, services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by community activists in Chicago. It describes the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people (usually by raceor sex) no matter the geography. During the heyday of redlining, the areas most frequently discriminated against were black inner city neighborhoods. Through at least the 1990s this practice meant that banks would often lend to lower income whites but not to middle or upper income blacks.