Note: This includes the third set of thought questions related to Austin Channing Brown’s book, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.
In White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, Robin Diangelo identifies key pillars of whiteness: (1) the belief that only bad people are racist; (2) how white people are taught to think of racism “as discrete acts committed by individual people, rather than as a complex, interconnected system”; and (3) how defensiveness when these dynamics are named maintains the racial status quo.
I challenge us to examine the ways we may be resistant to conversations of race — conversations that may reveal we are complicit in an oppressive system — and how we can work to build emotional stamina around conversations of race.
As you begin thinking about your Fall semester, the Adams Center would like to remind you that Austin Channing Brown will be on campus Monday, September 9, 2019. She will be speaking in chapel; leading an extended lunch session in the Adams Center from 11:45 a.m.-2 p.m.; and giving a public reading in Cullen Auditorium at 7 p.m.
Laura Bolin Carroll, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Adams Center for Teaching and Learning
Thought Questions for July 15 (pages 112-130)
Chapter 8: The Story We Tell
Chapter 9: Creative Anger
Interlude: How to Survive Racism in an Organization that Claims to be Antiracist
Read the selection on pages 71-76 describing one day in the professional life of a black woman. What stands out to you within this section? What is your internal response to what Austin describes?
In chapter 7 Austin writes, “Sadly, most white people are more worried about being called racist than about whether or not their actions are in fact racist or harmful.” Has this been your experience?
Chapter 11: A God of the Accused
Chapter 12: We’re Still Here
Interlude: A Letter to My Son