Post Stereotypes: Deconstructing Racial Assumptions and Biases through Visual Culture and Confrontational Pedagogy

Abstract

The Post Stereotypes project embodies confrontational pedagogy and involves postcard artmaking designed to both solicit expression of and deconstruct students’ racial, ethnic, and cultural stereotypes and assumptions. As part of the Cultural Diversity in American Art course, students created postcard art that visually represented their personal stereotypes about Others, knowing that the postcards would be anonymously and publicly displayed. The result was a complex and uncomfortable revelation of personal beliefs. Following the display, we discussed shared images in class, and students wrote reflection papers exploring how this project transformed their perceptions of stereotypes. Students also made follow-up postcards that focused on ways to deconstruct institutionalized perceptions of Others. In this article, I present the background, methodology, context, processes, analysis, and theories of Post Stereotypes. Using the framework of critical race theory and difficult knowledge and methodology of content analysis, I theorize the project as confrontational pedagogy that is critical and unknowable.