Other People's Children

Other People’s Children 

Cultural Conflict in the Classroom 

Lisa Delpit 

 

Talking Points: 

1. “All of the nonwhite respondents have spoken passionately on being left out of the dialogue about how best to educate children of color”. Black educators and parents feel that their opinions are not heard. The white educators do not considert the experiences that are being shared with them, so they stop trying to explain. The author gives several examples of this.  

2. “I want the same thing for everyone else’s children as I want for mine” This is a comment from liberal educators who don’t have the same view as nonwhite educators and parents. “Parents who don’t function in that culture want something else....they want something more, they want to ensure that the school provides their children with discourse patters, interactional styles, and spoken and written language codes that will allow them success in the larger society”. 

3. “To act as if power does not exist is to ensure that the power status quo remains the same” .

The author talks about power several times in the article. This statement is clear but honestly some of her arguments were confusing to me.

    The author argues that education models must be constructed utilizing the input from people who are from the student’s culture. The author also suggests, “students must be taught the codes needed to participate fully in the mainstream of American life, not by being forced to attend to hollow, inane, decontextualized sub skills, but rather within the context of meaningful communicative culture”.  

Colorblindness is the New Racism

“Colorblindness is the New Racism” 

Raising Awareness about Privilege Using Color Insight 

Margalynne J. Armstong and Stephanie M. Wildman 

 

    While reading this article I had to look up a word I had never heard before. Egalitarian, relating to or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. That was easy to find online. The strange thing was when I searched for “color insight” everything that populated was related to colors used in interior design, or colors describing energy and personalities. When I changed the search to “color blindness is the new racism”, the AI generated search that comes up at the top of the page with an explanation of what you're searching for said, AI overview is not available for this search. It just seems crazy that you can find most anything on the internet in a second, but this topic required extra digging. 

    The two videos I found are about a similar concept called Color-Brave.  The first video is a short explanation of the difference between Color-Blind and Color-Brave. The video defines Color-Blind as “I don’t see race” and Color-Brave as “I see race and I am actively trying to be anti-racist. 

    The concept of Color-Brave was introduced by Mellody Hobson, the president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, in her TED Talk. She was told by her colleges not to talk about race. She was warned that it was a bad for her career but she felt that to solve a problem you can't hide from it. In the first video the statement was made, “We can’t fix what we won’t acknowledge”. Just as we spoke about in our last class with Johnson’s work, talking about the elephant in the room and having uncomfortable conversations must happen for there to be any change.  

In Johnson’s writing he also referenced Rodney King’s statement, “can’t we all just get along?” Johnson states, “you'd think we could manage to get along with one another....you’d think we could treat one another with decency and respect and appreciate if not support the best we have in us”.  I think most people do truly want the best for others. But going back to my egalitarian search, believing everyone is equal and deserves equal rights isn’t enough. Believing isn’t doing anything to help anyone. 

Privilege, Power, and Difference

Privilege, Power, and Difference

Allan G. Johnson 

 

Talking points: 

1. 1. “For all our potential, you’d think we could manage to get along with one another. By that I don’t mean love one another in some profoundly idealistic way. We don’t need to love one another- or even like one another- to work together or just share space in the world. I also don’t mean something as minimal as mere tolerance or refraining from overt violence. I mean you’d think we could treat one another with decency and respect and appreciate if not support the best we have in us”  

 

2. 2. The Diversity Wheel is a list of factors that make you who you are, but it only shows what others see not how you really feel. 

 

3. 3. Race and all its categories have no significance outside of a system of privilege and oppression, and it is these systems that created them. The social construction of reality. 

    The author, Allan G. Johnson, argues that difficult conversations about inequality cannot be avoided. We live in a society that has created many divides, and we are not getting along well with each other. He argues that even those who don’t appear to benefit from their privilege still have an advantage.