Connecting the Quantitative and the Qualitative: Data Driven Messages that Perpetuate Internalized Oppression and “Othering”

Editor's Notes

• #2: Welcome\nIntro - RP - CPL, Corajus\n\n
• #3: RP\n
• #4: RP\n
• #5: RP: Intros - RP & MP\n
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• #9: “Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom”\n
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• #16: Education is said to be the great equalizer. What if I told you that education is actually the great normalizer? It represents the single institution that every single citizen is required by the government to enter. (Of course, we have the option to home school; but the vast majority of people attend traditional schools.) \n\nSocialization is the method by which we receive messages. Guess what?! it’s all data! Remember: data is defined as “information in invisible form.” Let’s take a closer look at how socialization works/happens.\n
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• #18: The cycle begins before we’re born. All of the mechanics, assumptions, roles, and structures of oppression are in place and functioning. Our identities are ascribed to us before our birth without our permission or choice. Our very first socialization informs our sense of self-perception, norms, rules, roles, and the future are shaped by the people who we love and trust the most--our families and teachers. \n\nWe are then inundated with stereotypical messages that shape how we think and what we believe about ourselves and others...it is woven into every structural thread of the fabric of our culture. It’s how we come to understand who’s treated better and worse. Meanwhile, these messages are reinforced by a system that rewards compliance and punishes nonconformity. The results have impacts on both the agents and the targets. We internalize the superiority or the inferiority.\n\nThe good news is that we have a choice. The choice to do nothing and repeat the cycle or the choice to build allyship and movements that create positive change for us all. Authentic relationships have the kind of depth that restore our humanity.\n
• #19: If messaging determines how you understand your identity, society’s perception of you, and subsequently your position/place in society, then your ideas about race (your own and that of your peers) has been subliminally and explicitly communicated.\n\nWhat’s more is that the messages you received about race from childhood until now are being transmitted to the students you teach.\n\nMessaging is like a dance of communication. ....Those with privilege lead .... We are all constantly sending and receiving signals taht have significant meaning...and it’s all data.\n
• #20: If messaging determines how you understand your identity, society’s perception of you, and subsequently your position/place in society, then your ideas about race (your own and that of your peers) has been subliminally and explicitly communicated.\n\nWhat’s more is that the messages you received about race from childhood until now are being transmitted to the students you teach.\n\nMessaging is like a dance of communication. ....Those with privilege lead .... We are all constantly sending and receiving signals taht have significant meaning...and it’s all data.\n
• #21: If messaging determines how you understand your identity, society’s perception of you, and subsequently your position/place in society, then your ideas about race (your own and that of your peers) has been subliminally and explicitly communicated.\n\nWhat’s more is that the messages you received about race from childhood until now are being transmitted to the students you teach.\n\nMessaging is like a dance of communication. ....Those with privilege lead .... We are all constantly sending and receiving signals taht have significant meaning...and it’s all data.\n
• #22: I grew up in a predominantly black, working class community in Philadelphia. I attended a small private school in my neighborhood where I excelled academically. One day I was called to the principal’s office and instructed to report to a different classroom for rest of the school year. According to the letter sent home to my parents, I was being skipped two grades from 2nd to 4th because of my ability grasp advanced concepts with ease.\n\nLater that school year, my family moved to a predominantly white, upper-middle class community in suburban Washington Township, New Jersey. My parents gave me the usual new school pep talk: behave, be yourself, and make new friends. But it was two weeks before I got the chance to take that sound advice. The administrators in my elementary school held me in the principal’s office for those initial two weeks, putting me through a battery of skills tests. Many of which I passed at first. It wasn’t until they started timing me, challenging me to complete hundreds of multiplication problems in 60 seconds or less that I began to fail.\n\nI remember my father asking me if I’d made any new friends yet. When I told him no because I hadn’t been to class, he and my mother took action. They argued that the school should honor my “skips”and that the reason my aptitude was being question was because I was one of 6 black students in the entire grade. In the end, the school placed me in third grade, not fouth, honoring one of my merit-based advancements.\n\nThe experience caused me to question my intelligence, my ability to succeed, and the ease with which I trust authority to see me for who I am. Though I didn’t have the words for it then, I now realize that I felt invalidated, insecure and marginalized. In essence, I was othered.\n
• #23: I grew up in a predominantly black, working class community in Philadelphia. I attended a small private school in my neighborhood where I excelled academically. One day I was called to the principal’s office and instructed to report to a different classroom for rest of the school year. According to the letter sent home to my parents, I was being skipped two grades from 2nd to 4th because of my ability grasp advanced concepts with ease.\n\nLater that school year, my family moved to a predominantly white, upper-middle class community in suburban Washington Township, New Jersey. My parents gave me the usual new school pep talk: behave, be yourself, and make new friends. But it was two weeks before I got the chance to take that sound advice. The administrators in my elementary school held me in the principal’s office for those initial two weeks, putting me through a battery of skills tests. Many of which I passed at first. It wasn’t until they started timing me, challenging me to complete hundreds of multiplication problems in 60 seconds or less that I began to fail.\n\nI remember my father asking me if I’d made any new friends yet. When I told him no because I hadn’t been to class, he and my mother took action. They argued that the school should honor my “skips”and that the reason my aptitude was being question was because I was one of 6 black students in the entire grade. In the end, the school placed me in third grade, not fouth, honoring one of my merit-based advancements.\n\nThe experience caused me to question my intelligence, my ability to succeed, and the ease with which I trust authority to see me for who I am. Though I didn’t have the words for it then, I now realize that I felt invalidated, insecure and marginalized. In essence, I was othered.\n
• #24: I grew up in a predominantly black, working class community in Philadelphia. I attended a small private school in my neighborhood where I excelled academically. One day I was called to the principal’s office and instructed to report to a different classroom for rest of the school year. According to the letter sent home to my parents, I was being skipped two grades from 2nd to 4th because of my ability grasp advanced concepts with ease.\n\nLater that school year, my family moved to a predominantly white, upper-middle class community in suburban Washington Township, New Jersey. My parents gave me the usual new school pep talk: behave, be yourself, and make new friends. But it was two weeks before I got the chance to take that sound advice. The administrators in my elementary school held me in the principal’s office for those initial two weeks, putting me through a battery of skills tests. Many of which I passed at first. It wasn’t until they started timing me, challenging me to complete hundreds of multiplication problems in 60 seconds or less that I began to fail.\n\nI remember my father asking me if I’d made any new friends yet. When I told him no because I hadn’t been to class, he and my mother took action. They argued that the school should honor my “skips”and that the reason my aptitude was being question was because I was one of 6 black students in the entire grade. In the end, the school placed me in third grade, not fouth, honoring one of my merit-based advancements.\n\nThe experience caused me to question my intelligence, my ability to succeed, and the ease with which I trust authority to see me for who I am. Though I didn’t have the words for it then, I now realize that I felt invalidated, insecure and marginalized. In essence, I was othered.\n
• #25: I grew up in a predominantly black, working class community in Philadelphia. I attended a small private school in my neighborhood where I excelled academically. One day I was called to the principal’s office and instructed to report to a different classroom for rest of the school year. According to the letter sent home to my parents, I was being skipped two grades from 2nd to 4th because of my ability grasp advanced concepts with ease.\n\nLater that school year, my family moved to a predominantly white, upper-middle class community in suburban Washington Township, New Jersey. My parents gave me the usual new school pep talk: behave, be yourself, and make new friends. But it was two weeks before I got the chance to take that sound advice. The administrators in my elementary school held me in the principal’s office for those initial two weeks, putting me through a battery of skills tests. Many of which I passed at first. It wasn’t until they started timing me, challenging me to complete hundreds of multiplication problems in 60 seconds or less that I began to fail.\n\nI remember my father asking me if I’d made any new friends yet. When I told him no because I hadn’t been to class, he and my mother took action. They argued that the school should honor my “skips”and that the reason my aptitude was being question was because I was one of 6 black students in the entire grade. In the end, the school placed me in third grade, not fouth, honoring one of my merit-based advancements.\n\nThe experience caused me to question my intelligence, my ability to succeed, and the ease with which I trust authority to see me for who I am. Though I didn’t have the words for it then, I now realize that I felt invalidated, insecure and marginalized. In essence, I was othered.\n
• #26: I grew up in a predominantly black, working class community in Philadelphia. I attended a small private school in my neighborhood where I excelled academically. One day I was called to the principal’s office and instructed to report to a different classroom for rest of the school year. According to the letter sent home to my parents, I was being skipped two grades from 2nd to 4th because of my ability grasp advanced concepts with ease.\n\nLater that school year, my family moved to a predominantly white, upper-middle class community in suburban Washington Township, New Jersey. My parents gave me the usual new school pep talk: behave, be yourself, and make new friends. But it was two weeks before I got the chance to take that sound advice. The administrators in my elementary school held me in the principal’s office for those initial two weeks, putting me through a battery of skills tests. Many of which I passed at first. It wasn’t until they started timing me, challenging me to complete hundreds of multiplication problems in 60 seconds or less that I began to fail.\n\nI remember my father asking me if I’d made any new friends yet. When I told him no because I hadn’t been to class, he and my mother took action. They argued that the school should honor my “skips”and that the reason my aptitude was being question was because I was one of 6 black students in the entire grade. In the end, the school placed me in third grade, not fouth, honoring one of my merit-based advancements.\n\nThe experience caused me to question my intelligence, my ability to succeed, and the ease with which I trust authority to see me for who I am. Though I didn’t have the words for it then, I now realize that I felt invalidated, insecure and marginalized. In essence, I was othered.\n
• #27: Transitions create feelings of uneasiness. (Nancy Schlossberg). People facing change question their ability to manage their transition...as well as what their new role will be. Students (just like me) experience this every time they enter new schools, new classrooms, new lunchrooms, new playgrounds with new teachers, principals, professors and classmates. And that’s normal.\n\nBut almost universally--without exception--in schools/workplaces there are people who are made to feel like they are the ones who really matter. They feel appreciated and are often (if, not regularly) sought out for projects, friendship, group work, and dodgeball teams. At the same time, some are made to feel like they are less important or insignificant. They are marginalized as “others”--and they know it.\n\nThere is a strong correlation between this concept and performance. Often, it eclipses skills and abilities. It happened to me. When people are marginalized their self-esteem and confidence are eroded, so they doubt their abilities and minimized their contributions.\n
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• #30: Now here’s what that means in practice. Internalized racism is experienced differently by targets (people of color) and agents (white people). Targets experience internalized oppression. Agents internalized their privilege. It’s important to note that most--if not ALL-- of the ways in which internalized racism plays out in UNCONSCIOUS because it’s how we’ve been socialized.\n
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• #34: how we internalize racism affects how we, in turn, interact with each other. it can lead us to “otherize” one another.\n\n“others” are deemed as such when they fail to fit into the dominant standard or when the dominant standard FAILS fit the others.\n\nit defines who matters and who’s marginalized and invites you to internalize those assignments.\n
• #35: Decision Making: Policy makers, students themselves,\nResources: the incorporation into institutional policies or practices of attitudes or values that work to the disadvantage of students of color (for example, differential \nStandards: the unquestioned acceptance by the institution of white-middle-class values (for example, the scarcity of authors of color in many secondary schools' English curricula)\nNaming the Problem: schools' being passive in the face of prejudiced behavior that interferes with students' learning or well-being (for example, not addressing harassment or teasing, or meeting it with punishment instead of attempting to build communication and understanding).\n
• #36: Let’s connect the idea of achieving racial justice with the actual work we do.  In spite of our different levels of experience, we are all GATEKEEPERS. What is a gatekeeper?  Someone who tends or guards a gate, letting people in and out.  A gatekeeper is a person who controls access. Educators are gatekeepers because information--and messages--flow through you like water through a faucet. You decide whether and how much to the open or close the spigot.  \n\nAs one of the chief agents of socialization, teachers control students’ access to: language and literacy, writing and arithmetic, grammar and promotion to the next grade. Educators facilitate students’ understanding of themselves, the world around them, and their place in it. \n\nTake a moment to consider your role as a gatekeeper. Now remember what it was like to be a student. Remember the messages you received from your teacher.  Could it have been based on your own data profile? What stories will you tell about the students you will teach?\n
• #37: Story is everywhere. Story is everything.\n\nStorytelling is an ideal teaching and learning tool. It takes seriously the need for students to make sense of experience, using their own culturally generated sense-making processes.\n
• #38: Stories may help teachers to reframe the negative racialized narratives they hear, while making them less prevalent. The rich, diverse, and often untold histories, life stories, and perspectives of people of color can provide opportunities for teachers to learn about and better understand students, families and their communities.\n\nThrough storytelling, educators may disrupt racist messages that students of color often receive in predominantly White settings.\n\nLastly, storytelling serves as a means for both educators and students to carve out spaces to share personal experiences.\n
• #39: Take a look at this picture? What’s happening here?\nIn 1967, KATHERINE SWITZER became the first woman to enter and run the Boston Marathon. Her entry made history not only because she was the first to do this but because a race official (the gentleman behind her in this picture) forcibly tried to remove her from the competition. Her boyfriend at the time (the gentleman to her right) jumped in to fend him off to allow her to run. The other (male) runners around her, surrounding her for the remainder of the race like a human shield. They finished the race together. This, my friends, is allyship.\n
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• #43: Michaela and I co-founded an initiative aimed at impacting race-based disparities by unpacking institutional racism, policy by policy, organization by organization, leader by leader. \n\nThe Coalition for Racial Justice was founded with three ideas in mind. First, achieving racial justice will require a synthesis of individual, institutional & systemic change. Our approach hinges on analyzing how we have internalized racialized messaging. Lastly, we recognize the need for academics & advocates to work together in this activism. If you’re interested in learning more, please visit our website at www.corajus.com. You can also like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!\n\nWe thank you for sharing this time with us today. Please complete an evaluation before you leave. We’d love to have your feedback. \n\n\n\n\n
• #44: Keheler, Terry. “Racial Equity Impact Assessments: An Overview.” Applied Research Center (2009).\n\nHarro, Bobbie. “Cycle of Socialization.” Referenced in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 2nd edition by Adams, Blumenfeld, Casteneda, Hackman, Peters, and Zuniga (2010).\n\nBison, Julie. “Children and Youth’s Development in Understanding Race, Gender, Disability, and Class.” Adapted by Cultures Connecting (2012).\n\nNiccol, Andrew, dir. “Gattaca.” Film (1997).\n\nSchlossberg, Nancy. “Marginality and Mattering: Key Issues in Building Community.”\n\n“Mattering & Marginality Team Activity.” ProGroup Managers Toolkit (2004).\n\nBivens, Donna. “Internalized Racism: a definition.” Women’s Theological Center (1995).\n\nDerman-Sparks, Louise and the ABC Task Force, Stacy York, Elizabeth Jones, and The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. “Racism and Its Effects/Impacts on us All.”\n\nEck, Sally. “Social Identity Mapping.” Women’s Studies, Portland State University.\n\nRodriguez, Dalia. “Storytelling in the Field: Race, Method, and the Empowerment of Latina College Students.” Cultural Studies, Vol. 10, No. 6 (2010).\n\nLee, Rosetta Eun Ryong. “Privilege and Allyship: Owning Our Stuff and Taking Action.” WPC Symposium(2011).\n\n\n\n\n\n