Transcript of Anti-Racist Educational Tenets: CRT Applied to Pedagogy

Transcript of Anti-Racist Educational Tenets: CRT Applied to Pedagogy

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I made the following transcript of an anti-racist, critical race theory speech to help people understand the perceptual filters that critical social justice wishes to apply to the world. Below the transcript is a video link to a 3-part, mini-documentary of how this neo-racism is incredibly harmful.

In summary of the below transcript of a wee bit of the documentary, Whiteness studies stipulates that all Whites are racist and always will be; thus they must always fight their racism. Any interaction that a White person has with another person is also always racist. Finding out where the racism in every interaction lies is called “problematizing” the scenario, the study of which is called “problematics.”

Transcript:

These are core tenets developed by anti-racist educators who were on a panel at the recent pedagogy conference in Tacoma last year. 

Here are the tenets:

  • Racism exists today in both traditional and modern forms. 
  • Racism is an institutionalized, multi-layered, multi-level system that distributes unequal power and resources between white people and people of color as socially identified, and disproportionately benefits Whites.
  • All members of society are socialized to participate in the system of racism, albeit within varied social locations. 
  • All White people benefit from racism regardless of intentions. 
  • No one chose to be socialized into racism, so no one is “bad,” but no one is neutral.
  • To not act against racism is to support racism.
  • Racism must be continually identified analyzed and challenged. No one is ever done. 
  • The question is not “did racism take place” but rather, “how did racism manifest in that situation?”
  • The racial status quo is comfortable for most Whites.
  • Therefore anything that maintains White comfort is suspect. 
  • The racially oppressed have a more intimate insight via experiential knowledge of the system of race than their racial impressors.
  • White professors will be seen as having more legitimacy, thus positionality must be intentionally engaged. 
  • Resistance is a predictable reaction to anti-racist education and must be explicitly and strategically addressed. 

I believe these core tenets can be a guide for our work moving forward, with actions to educate ourselves and our students. We galvanized white privilege in the form of curriculum, exalting white canons of fine art, literature, theory, and scientific thinking. We don’t examine how those canons are made. 

I hope this helps you understand some of the jargon that you’re seeing.


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