Race

A word whose multiple meanings are rather revealing…

Positionality & Notes

Key themes: Twice Migrant, British Raj, Indic region, India, Tanganyika, Tanzania, East Africa, Non-Black African, African Asian, Brit-ish, Male presenting, Brown, ‘Racially Ambiguous’.

Format Notes

Key theme: Spoken truth

SoN

Key themes: Intersectional Space, Archive, Broadcast, Healing, Reflection, Historical and Contemporary resistance. Academic Terms of Reference, Communal dissemination of knowledge.

Un-(concious bias & the ‘Room of Silence’)

Key themes: 2 in 1, linguistics, prefix, implicit v explicit, un(considered/explored/believed/respected/critical/comfortable/safe spaces), lived experience, pain, disillusionment, stagnation, harm,

Pedagogy of Social Justice – H. Tapper

Provocations:
What steps are you taking to present a wide array of resources/content to cover ALL involved perspectives?
How are you encouraging reflection in your process?
– can this be formalised, (like the IPU post-tasks)

Key Themes: Intersectionality, Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, SIT (Social Identity Theory), Chosen Identity, Core Pillars, explicit aims & intentions, embodied knowledge of intersectionality, group dynamics as indicators of global group dynamics, students as ‘living texts’, facilitation (process focus) v teaching (content focus), Non primordial approach to identity, Complicate understandings, questions > answers, no socialisation or brainwashing, critical thinking & reflection to form own opinions, post-program challenges, alumni experiences, reexamine/reconstruct relationships and commitment to individual and group narratives. Balance: activist burnout & compassion fatigue.

Retention and attainment

Key Themes: Belonging, Class & Opportunity, Slay in your lane, Role Models, Spinning data, PoC Staff Retention and attainment, Creative Attraction Gap, Immigrant Narrative, Publication Critique Published, Qualitative reasoning behind attainment gaps, individual circumstances & structural problems, Creative Comfort/Safety & Ambiguity/Risk, Trust, Facilitation, Public Critique, Practicing Tutors with Diverse Backgrounds, Decolonising the curriculum & Diversifying resources, P2P, Students not customers, bell hooks, student-centred, Tell Us About It, Lessons from Film Crew, ‘The Oppressed must free themselves’ – Freire, GEMS: Visibility, Community, Influence, Gaps, Collective solutions (power), Recommendations.

Peekaboo

Key Themes: Whiteness, Naming the problem – Sara Ahmed & SoN TORs, Terry Finnigan’s growing comfort in discomfort, Linda Stupart breaks the 4th wall, ‘I don’t know myself or my whiteness well enough to tell’, ‘most of the policemen [in SA] are black’,

4 Replies to “Race”

  1. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I appreciated the variety of images, text and voice notes that you used to fulfil these blog tasks. It was interesting to listen to you speak, pause, think, reflect and continue. Highlighting key themes is an important way to remind the listener/reader/viewer of the topics discussed and a means of encouraging further investigation.

    1. I appreciate your appreciation,
      If I’m honest, I felt that too much was provided.
      Voice note diaries are helpful in some ways, but can be quite inefficient, especially when distributed/broadcast.

      Mark Twain once said, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.”
      Time in the academy seems to be the most fraught and finite resource.

  2. Zish, I enjoyed reading and listening to your reflection on race. it is true that we cannot rest on our laurel or we become stagnant.
    Your voice reflection was very clear, pausing for the listener to reflect on the message .
    Overall your methodology was interesting.

  3. Hi Zish, I agree with Florence that your positionally statement and the way you referred to your experience of racial identity, others interpretation was personal, historical and matter of fact, this combination made it feel objective. It made me realise in my statement that I failed to understand the proper meaning of positionality.

    It’s interesting to read that afterwards you feel you overshared. I think perhaps it’s a valid response to share when many you encounter have over-judged or over-predetermined.

    I resonated with your experience of reading SoN’s glossary and how you feel your entire life has changed. Of course, my intersectionality is very different, but I do feel completely changed, with my perspectives and languages and interpretations of works I encounter, my environment. Also, thank you for your openness about the importance of the family stories you shared and their relation to contemporary resistance in practice.

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