![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
Abstract
This action research, which utilizes critical race theory's counter-storytelling, analyses a process of debunking White students' epistemology of ignorance in a history course at an urban public high school. After piloting a raced curriculum that deliberately re-centers marginalized counter-stories of students of colour, I document its impacts on White students' understanding of history. Ultimately, such a process problematizes White students' sense of identity. I employ the analytic tools of Whiteness as power to understand how White students responded to curriculum on race and racism. The analysis silences White dominant Discourse while activating counter-stories by modelling critical consciousness and colourscence for my students of colour. Further, I detail two specific responses made by White students in this study: (1) symbiotic transformation; and (2) active resistance. Regardless of the differences in responses, both are processes in debunking White epistemology of ignorance.
Acknowledgement
A special thanks to Nolan Cabrera, Zeus Leonardo, Kip Austin Hinton, Manuel Espinosa, and Sheila Shannon. Bounded in every word is fear and hope; yet it is courage that writes them down.
Notes
1. Racial microaggressions are ‘…everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group. These exchanges are so pervasive and automatic in daily interactions that they are often dismissed and glossed over as being innocuous’ (Sue et al. 2007, 72).
2. A state within the United States of America
3. A major city inside the state of California, USA
4. An American author who wrote many stories of how an individual went from rags (poor) to riches (wealth) by hard work, so glorified in American culture
5. American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2010 paper presentation, ‘Who I Am is Who You Is?: Racial Symbiosis and the Colorscence of White Racial Identity via Critical Race Dialogue.’
6. A landmark US court case that challenged who is considered White in order to obtain US citizenship. At the time, only those racially categorized as White were allowed US citizenship. Takao Ozawa was a Japanese male seeking US naturalization claiming that his skin was whiter than most Whites and thus, should: (1) be deemed White; and (2) by categorizing himself as White should then receive US naturalization. The court under Justice George Sutherland ruled being ‘White’ meant a person belonging to the (Caucasian) race. Since Ozawa was not of the Caucasian race he was denied racial categorization of White and thus, US citizenship.
7. Another landmark case that challenged what constituted ‘White’ and thus, parceling who can or cannot receive US citizenship. Bhagat Singh Thind, a northern Indian American, argued that since his descendants are from northern India he is categorically Aryan (and thus a part of the Caucasian race) and should be deemed as White. By granting racial categorization of ‘White,’ he thus is eligible for citizenship. The courts under Justice George Sutherland ruled that he was not White and that ‘popular’ definitions of White will be used to determine who is and who is not White. They ultimately revoked Thind’s citizenship.
8. A 1960s American-based Black militant group that resisted racial, economic, and social oppression by any means necessary
9. A term used in many disciplines, however in CRT, it is a concept used to understand the racial positioning of Asian Americans during the post 1965 US immigration act which selectively filtered ‘highly skilled’ Asian Americans into the US typically from countries already colonized by the US. This produced a highly skilled Asian American immigrant population which US magazines argued are Model Minorities because they ‘overcame’ racial barriers that many Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans faced in the US.
10. A concept derived from a lecture made by critical race theorist, Danny Solórzano.
11. I discussed the St. Louis World’s Fairs and how Filipinos were displayed as caged animals in their ‘natural habitat,’ often starved and served dog meat to heighten the spectators’ perceptions of Filipinos as savages. The US annexation of the Philippines was so important that the Philippine exhibit in St. Louis comprised roughly one-fourth of the entire 1904 World’s Fair. Such a dynamic played right into the political justifications of the US colonization of the Philippines (Matias 2005)
12. The US invasion of Iraq and using military to pacify the Iraqi ‘insurgents.’
13. A famous Black comedian who is known for critically using Black stereotypes in his HBO series ‘The Dave Chappelle Show.’ However, during the lecture one points out that Chappelle’s intent was to show the absurdity of Black racial stereotypes. Unfortunately, because his White audiences were using his skits to reinforce their already racist mindsets instead of seeing the absurdity of it, Chappelle quit the show and wrote a public letter decrying the racial bigotry.
14. A prominent Black professor who is the author of Race Matters (1994) and is known to deliver speeches around the US on how race and racism operate in America.
15. A US enforcement practice used typically by police departments to stop and/or detain individuals by the basis of race.
16. A popular American phrase derived from the film, Wizard of Oz. It is used to reference feeling estranged from one’s surrounding.