Teaching Diversity
I'm teaching the Cultural Diversity course next semester. I was -- and still am -- really excited about it. But it's also starting to sink in how frigging terrified I am.
I took this course as an undergrad, and it was really awful. I had no idea that my classmates were that racist, sexist, classist.... It scared me and made me sad. Classmates raised their hands, then when called upon by our black South African professor said things like "Well, it's clear that black people are just innately less intelligent than white people." What scared me the most was that, at that point in the semester, they weren't even trying to be inflammatory. They just believed it.
As the semester went on, they became increasingly angry with the professor for exposing them to the concept of privilege. I remember one day when the professor left the room while we were watching a video. After an African American man spoke on the video, a classmate jeered: "What white man taught him that word?"
I remember going, seething, to the professor and him telling me not to go numb to it. He has since told me that, after each class, he would lock himself in his office and cry.
When I took the course as a grad student (same prof), I was hoping for some sort of corrective experience. The undergrad got me so fired up...but I had been so disheartened in there as well. I was excited about having a class where I would be challenged. I believe that we're all sexist, racist, and classist. It's seeped into our pores after so much time living in this culture. I want to work on it.
That class sucked. A classmate was in the middle of having a psychotic break, and she commandeered the class. Along the way, some strange association seemed to have been made between the cultural diversity stuff and psychosis. Great. I was surprised in that class, too. A classmate told me that I "shouldn't feel the way that I do." I still want to fucking flip out about it. I shouldn't feel the way I feel? FUCK you. What the fuck gives you the right to tell me how to feel?
So...I decided that I want to teach the course. One last shot, or something. I know that this will be the hardest one...so far, I have ten students registered for the course. It's not a lot, I know. But holding the empathy with ten people while trying to push them further. Ugh.
I did some body-positive stuff with my Intro class recently. I have a stack of papers. The women are writing about hating themselves, wishing that they could spend less time thinking about their weight, listening to their parents call them fat.... and then one male student hands me this paper about how "Saying that there is sexism is as absurd as saying racism still exists."
Umm....yeah....by the way, did you check out the KKK rally as it went by? How do you explain that?
After class, several of my classmates were ranting about a professor who just "can't get over the race thing." He has asked where race fits into certain philosopher's work. He explained that, in some instances, he does not feel represented by the work. So, people get frustrated and whine about him being stuck on the race issue. Ironically, we've just been discussing Derrida and erasure. Umm...whiteness under erasure anyone? But no, let's get angry with the person who makes us see it. If we kill the messenger, it will go away, right?
Last night I went to dinner with my college roommate and a hallmate of ours. She explained that she wouldn't get angry with the teacher of a cultural diversity course. That's because: "I'm racist, and I know I'm right. So you wouldn't threaten me." She went on to tell me that stereotyping "saves time," so there's nothing wrong with it. All I said was "Except that it hurts people."
This week, I'm irritable about all of this stuff. I was talking to the group cofacilitator at my practicum about this stuff, and she was reminding me that they're all white, Catholic, upper middle class kids. They're scared of this stuff. Sometimes I can hold that, but at other times, it pisses me off. It's a cop out. I'm white. I was raised Catholic and was middle class. And I know that I have problematic beliefs. It's not like I was raised in some ultra-progressive family or anything. God. My second cousin has turned purple while screaming at me for daring to suggest that rape is bad. (I'm dead serious. She was talking about the Kobe Bryant case. I said: "If he raped her, that's awful." That, my friends, was controversial.) Her husband tells me that he's not racist because he doesn't hate all black people, just niggers.
So, sometimes I'm just not that sympathetic. I bubble over with rage, I can't catch my breath, my head pounds. My husband and I go on walks around the neighborhood as I rant and flail. I wonder if it's some of the bullshit that I've encountered as a woman that has felt soul-crushing but that I've been dismissed and ridiculed for. I know that some of my attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, actions, etc. have made people feel That Way.... and I really don't want to do that to other people. And more than anything, I don't want to be a part of something that tells people that they don't feel That Way when they know, somewhere in their soul, that they do. Because I know how annihilating that can feel. And somehow it feels like an ethical obligation. It's because of my privilege that I can choose whether or not to think about this stuff. The class hasn't been taught to undergrads since the class I was in. I figure that someone should teach it.
But teaching this class is so scary. I've decided to blog about it after each class...to document it (paper, perhaps?) and also to make sure I have as many structures in place as I can to not completely implode.
Yup.
I took this course as an undergrad, and it was really awful. I had no idea that my classmates were that racist, sexist, classist.... It scared me and made me sad. Classmates raised their hands, then when called upon by our black South African professor said things like "Well, it's clear that black people are just innately less intelligent than white people." What scared me the most was that, at that point in the semester, they weren't even trying to be inflammatory. They just believed it.
As the semester went on, they became increasingly angry with the professor for exposing them to the concept of privilege. I remember one day when the professor left the room while we were watching a video. After an African American man spoke on the video, a classmate jeered: "What white man taught him that word?"
I remember going, seething, to the professor and him telling me not to go numb to it. He has since told me that, after each class, he would lock himself in his office and cry.
When I took the course as a grad student (same prof), I was hoping for some sort of corrective experience. The undergrad got me so fired up...but I had been so disheartened in there as well. I was excited about having a class where I would be challenged. I believe that we're all sexist, racist, and classist. It's seeped into our pores after so much time living in this culture. I want to work on it.
That class sucked. A classmate was in the middle of having a psychotic break, and she commandeered the class. Along the way, some strange association seemed to have been made between the cultural diversity stuff and psychosis. Great. I was surprised in that class, too. A classmate told me that I "shouldn't feel the way that I do." I still want to fucking flip out about it. I shouldn't feel the way I feel? FUCK you. What the fuck gives you the right to tell me how to feel?
So...I decided that I want to teach the course. One last shot, or something. I know that this will be the hardest one...so far, I have ten students registered for the course. It's not a lot, I know. But holding the empathy with ten people while trying to push them further. Ugh.
I did some body-positive stuff with my Intro class recently. I have a stack of papers. The women are writing about hating themselves, wishing that they could spend less time thinking about their weight, listening to their parents call them fat.... and then one male student hands me this paper about how "Saying that there is sexism is as absurd as saying racism still exists."
Umm....yeah....by the way, did you check out the KKK rally as it went by? How do you explain that?
After class, several of my classmates were ranting about a professor who just "can't get over the race thing." He has asked where race fits into certain philosopher's work. He explained that, in some instances, he does not feel represented by the work. So, people get frustrated and whine about him being stuck on the race issue. Ironically, we've just been discussing Derrida and erasure. Umm...whiteness under erasure anyone? But no, let's get angry with the person who makes us see it. If we kill the messenger, it will go away, right?
Last night I went to dinner with my college roommate and a hallmate of ours. She explained that she wouldn't get angry with the teacher of a cultural diversity course. That's because: "I'm racist, and I know I'm right. So you wouldn't threaten me." She went on to tell me that stereotyping "saves time," so there's nothing wrong with it. All I said was "Except that it hurts people."
This week, I'm irritable about all of this stuff. I was talking to the group cofacilitator at my practicum about this stuff, and she was reminding me that they're all white, Catholic, upper middle class kids. They're scared of this stuff. Sometimes I can hold that, but at other times, it pisses me off. It's a cop out. I'm white. I was raised Catholic and was middle class. And I know that I have problematic beliefs. It's not like I was raised in some ultra-progressive family or anything. God. My second cousin has turned purple while screaming at me for daring to suggest that rape is bad. (I'm dead serious. She was talking about the Kobe Bryant case. I said: "If he raped her, that's awful." That, my friends, was controversial.) Her husband tells me that he's not racist because he doesn't hate all black people, just niggers.
So, sometimes I'm just not that sympathetic. I bubble over with rage, I can't catch my breath, my head pounds. My husband and I go on walks around the neighborhood as I rant and flail. I wonder if it's some of the bullshit that I've encountered as a woman that has felt soul-crushing but that I've been dismissed and ridiculed for. I know that some of my attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, actions, etc. have made people feel That Way.... and I really don't want to do that to other people. And more than anything, I don't want to be a part of something that tells people that they don't feel That Way when they know, somewhere in their soul, that they do. Because I know how annihilating that can feel. And somehow it feels like an ethical obligation. It's because of my privilege that I can choose whether or not to think about this stuff. The class hasn't been taught to undergrads since the class I was in. I figure that someone should teach it.
But teaching this class is so scary. I've decided to blog about it after each class...to document it (paper, perhaps?) and also to make sure I have as many structures in place as I can to not completely implode.
Yup.
posted by Wild West Intern @ 6:17 PM
1 Comments:
At 16/4/06 20:25,
Anonymous said…
Oh man, I hear that. My university has a number of students who want to understand and address privilege, but it has even more students who get really, really offended at any suggestion of privlege. They believe so strongly that they earned everything they have (and therefore, deserve it) and when you suggest that privlege is a factor, they can't handle it. I tend to use my research as a release -- learning everything I can about privlege, and using those ideas in my thesis, and in other papers. But sadly, I've mostly given up when it comes to my fellow students, even my friends. I've learned that I can't complain about straight privilege without alienating all of my straight friends (who don't see it, and don't understand) and so I mostly don't talk about it. I fantasize about escaping to a big northern city, where surely it can't be as bad. But I know that it's everywhere. Good luck with your class -- at least you know that you're fighting the good fight, and that while your students may frustrate and disappoint you, it's better that they hear these things. They might understand later in their lives when a personal experience finally drives it home.
Post a Comment
<< Home