Unmasking White Supremacy in Schools

1. How the System of White Supremacy Shows Up in Our Schools Every Day Fran Partridge - fepartridge@seattleschools.org SpecialistDepartment of Equity and Race Relations

2. Objective Participants will be able to define and give examples of how our schools perpetuate White Supremacy, and explore why it is important to interrupt it. .

3. Impact of Income and Race Percent Meeting Standard in Mathematics (Grades 3-8 Combined) White students living in middle and upper income households. White students living in low income households Student of Color **, Living in middle and upper income households 47-point GAP in 2014 Both Low Income (FRL), Student of Color ** ** Includes historically underserved students of color: African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander students

4. NORMS • Stay engaged • Speak your truth • Experience discomfort • Expect and accept non-closure • Listen for understanding • Maintain confidentiality

5. 4 Habits of Mind Remaining open to continuous learning Thinking flexibly Listening with understanding Thinking about your thinking

6. Setting goals • Think of a teacher or a student with whom you have had an uncomfortable interaction because it was racial. • Write down the situation and the goal you have around addressing it.

7. Culture Toss Use each card to write out an element of your identity • On the first card, write: Your name • On the second card: Your race or ethnicity • On the third card: Your language • On the fourth card: Your religion or spirituality • On the fifth card: Your life value • On the sixth card: Your vocation

8. Culture Toss (cont.) • The institution you entered has just become oppressive. • Arrange your cards like a hand of cards.

9. White Supremacy • The belief, theory or doctrine that white people are inherently superior to people from all other racial groups, especially black people and are therefore rightfully the dominant group in any society. Dictionary.com • White supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege. Challenging White Supremacy Workshop, Sharon Martinas. Fourth Revision. 1995. 

10. How white supremacy was historically institutionalized in the USA The Unequal Opportunity race. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_Vzl-r8NY

11. White Supremacy

13. U.S. NewsOct. 5 2015 • Ohio Court upholds school suspension of 12 year old black boy accused of staring at a white girl

14. Muslim teen Ahmed Mohamed creates clock, shows teachers, gets arrested.CNN Wednesday, September 16th 2015

15. Young Men talk about their educational experiences http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/05/life_cycles_of_inequity_a_colorlines_series_on_black_men.html Is that a teacher you know? Have the teachers you work with ever responded to a student in this way? Can you think of a student who could be one of the kids here that is telling their story? How does this relate to white supremacy? How might white supremacy be affecting our students?

16. What can you do about White Supremacy in the schoolhouse??

17. Learning Focused Conversations • 1. How are you feeling about interrupting white supremacy in the schoolhouse? (Think about the conversation you wrote out for a Goal at the beginning of this session.) • 2. What are your fears/foreseeable obstacles? • 3. What is your first step in addressing those fears/obstacles? Activating and Engaging, Exploring and Discovering, Organizing and Integrating.

18. One Word

19. Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education - Ali Michael • What does it take to interrupt white supremacy? • How do we “acknowledge the impact of race and work to change it?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBtrMIe-fj0

20. 1. The Role of the Unconscious Mind • The human brain processes 11 million • bytes of information per second • Consciously aware of any 40 of these, at best • Only 2% of emotional cognition is available to us consciously • Messages can be framed to speak to our unconscious • The process of Othering occurs in our unconscious network: this can lead to racial, ethnic, or religious bias • See David Brooks, The Social Animal (2011) Achieving Equity in Education [ 33]

21. How does White Supremacy show up today? Is Racism Over Yet? Laci Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_hx30zOi9I

22. Racial Identity Racial Identity is understanding how we, individually, walk through the world as racialized beings. Adapted from Tatum, B.D. Harvard Education Review, 62(1), Spring 1992.

23. Vital Conversations on Racism • http://www.gcorr.org/video/vital-conversations-on-racism-with-dr-robin-diangelo/ • Robin speaks about how white people see the world. • How do you see this showing up as you work with white teachers?

24. RACISM • A system of power and privilege that benefits white people to the detriment of people of color.