Race and identity 343 for blog

1. Week 11 and Week 121) Kubota and Lins chapter on race, culture and identities2) Kumaravadivelus article on cultural stereotypes3) Ibrahims article Rap and Hip- hop, race, gender and identity and the politics of ESL4) 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 dailyeffects of white privilege in her life. Read herstatements and discuss which one of theseyou can count on. At the end of this list, tryto think of two more ways you have privilegebased on your race.

5. Many issues that we discuss are racial issues, suchas immigrant identity and culture, politics ofESL, transnationality, and citizenship.. These arecomplex, racialized issues, yet they are usuallydiscussed 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 lessU.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004-2005 & U.S. Department ofJustice, 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 Racialdifferences has increasingly been replaced by the notion of cultural difference to exclude experiences of certain racial and ethnic groups (sounds more benign?).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 groupsremember 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 ofa 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. Its not race, its economics Its not race, its culture Its not race, it depends on a persons background Im not prejudiced, but Im not black, but One of my best friends is black. My cousin married a black man. I voted for Barack Obama. I dont see you as black.Racism and the hegemony of whiteness as discoursespermeate every corner of society and shape socialrealities.

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 orBlack women are welfare queens; I think the pastis past TestimoniesPersonal lived experiences. I know this for a factsince I have worked all my life with blacksRecognizing 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) aspart of their sense of self. This happens whetheractors are aware of it or not and whether they wantit or not. Individuals cognitions are alwaysembedded in the social world and thus their acts ofself-recognition are always racialized.

14. Segregation has historical reasons, its not a matter choice--weneed to understand the reasons of segregation. Ask, why? Segregation forced by REDLINING: It describes the practice of marking a red line on a map todelineate the area where banks would not invest; later the termwas applied to discrimination against a particular group of people(usually by race or sex) no matter the geography. During theheyday of redlining, the areas most frequently discriminatedagainst 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 andsymbolizes social conflicts and interests byreferring 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 363Performing acts of desire: desire to belongsomewhere

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).