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Sure. The much more interesting question is "would you want to?"
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Science fiction
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Most Mondays, play tug of war with the kids who usually don't want to get out of bed. Once the kids are in school, I try to take a quick look at Twitter and Facebook and then do some writing. What do you do, Sandra?
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I'm not sure. I just saw (and used) the option to search through facebook and Twitter friends.
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I'm an academic psychologist. The definition above is mine, but it's informed by lots of other individuals and ideas.
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Like Dominic, I am more and more starting to view passionate, honest disagreement with my ideas as an incredible gift, as such disagreement challenges me to refine, (and, if necessary, revise), as well as to better articulate my own thinking. Maybe not in the moment, but later (when everyone's feelings are calm) try asking those that got scared off what made them not want to engage with you on this topic [notice I made the question more neutral). See if you can have a conversation, not to change his/her mind but so that you can understand how others are experiencing your invitations. Again, I'd love to hear your reaction to this...and (if you decide to try this), how it goes for you.
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There are lots of university classes on race. Some are taught in sociology, some in anthropology, some in political science, and some in African American Studies or other ethnic studies. I'm a psychologist, so my course is housed in the psychology dept and is called "The Psychology of Race and Ethnicity". It focuses on racial identity, stereotype and prejudice formation/maintenance/reduction, and examines the role of race in various domains like education. Definitions of race vary. One I like is "a socially constructed and politically motivated method of grouping people into distinct (but scientifically invalid) categories based on skin tone and other phenotypes."
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I like these questions. Thanks for asking them.
In one sentence what works for me is when I'm able to meet a person where he/she is (as opposed to where I want him/her to be or where I think he/she should be).
Usually, the people around me know my interests (or soon will) because I'm pretty open about what I do, and I'll talk about my own white privilege when it's relevant (and I'm aware of it).
If they want to talk about privilege or racism with me, they'll find a way to initiate the conversation. If they don't want to talk about it with me, they're not open to anything I say anyway so it's counterproductive (as you said, it just scares people away, people that might have initiated a conversation a week later if I left them alone). When they do initiate, I try to ally with them, so it's the other person and me against privilege/racism. That is, I assume and behave as though they want to interact with the world as an anti-racist, even though they may not yet be there. Basically, I try to be supportive, rather than confrontational.
When I teach my race class, I do mostly the same thing, except that I do sometimes provide students with gentle feedback about their own privilege, usually by asking exploratory questions (e.g., have you thought about whether this belief might come from a place of privilege?). I do this because I assume that the fact that they decided to take my class means that they've initiated a conversation with me. Again, I try to ally with them against racism. I use a variety of strategies to communicate this, but as just one example: I never label a person as racist. Instead I may talk about specific behaviors (e.g., jokes) that "some people perceive as racist" and explain why they're perceived that way.
When I first started teaching the race class (10 years ago), I used to be more direct and straightforward in class...and I used to enjoy having Black students come up to me after class and say things like "I really like that you tell it how it is". The problem was that I was loosing a bunch of white students in the process. They'd stop coming to class or they'd come but pretty much tune me out b/c they decided that I couldn't (or wouldn't) relate to them. Over time, I shifted to what I described here. Now, I sometimes have Black students ask me "Why do you hold their hand instead of just telling it like it is?" And I reply by expressing appreciation for the unspoken compliment (that I get how it is) and then explain that I am doing my best to tell it like it is, only I'm trying to do it in a way that the white students can actually hear. I'm not under the illusion that I am successful 100% of the time, but I can see the difference and feel more effective in class than I used to.
I think I'll stop here. I would really enjoy hearing how you're experiencing this response. -
I like answering this question so much, I wrote a "basketball" essay about it: http://www.psych.illinois.edu/~lyubansk/track.pdf
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Always challenging. Never boring. At times, fun and fulfilling. At times, frustrating. Often quite surprising. Amazingly (given I'm not far from 40), I'm still figuring it out.
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Mikhail Lyubansky’s Bio
Psychology prof at the University of Illinois, managing editor at OpEdNews.com, student of NVC & RC. I blog about racial issues and justice for Psychology Today but tweet/read broadly.
