Sage Sociology Exchange Inclusive Discussions

Question:

What advice do you have on creating inclusive, productive discussions around the topic of race and racism?

Answer:

Provided by Sage Author: Rodney D. Coates, Miami University of Ohio, USA

It starts with five basic questions:

1. Who are my students? Center the course around who they are. By knowing who they are as the starting point, you bring them into the conversation and let them know that their identities are integral to the course and that they cannot understand or appreciate another's identity(s) unless they first understand their own. Once you have established your students, let's discuss who you are. You can use your story to link to theirs. Now, you are ready to begin the conversation. Multiple identities are associated with race and racism; there are no innocents (for all white, black, indigenous, ethnic, gendered, sexualized, nationality, ability, class groups, geographical and historical periods have produced multiple forms of racism and racializations).  

2. What do you want to accomplish with this discussion? What do you want them to take away from the conversation/discussion? Why is it important that they gain this information? What can they do with it? Unless you can answer these questions, then again, you will not engage your students in the conversation.  

3. When race and racism are time-sensitive. This means that neither is static. What changes have occurred with the various sources of race and racism that you are discussing? What has happened, why has that happened, and what do these changes, or the lack thereof, show about the situation you are talking about?  

4. Why is this conversation necessary? Engage the students in understanding the dynamics of race and racism within their own experiences. Look at local news reporting and link this to national stories. Then, look at why these are happening now, here, and why.

5. And Where are we right now? Where are institutional, geographical, and temporal questions? Where do we see manifestations of race and racism? Each institutional setting produces different variants of racial outcomes associated with unique racial groups. In what ways do these different racial outcomes vary or work in concert with different institutions? What does this suggest about systemic racial and racist structures? (The cradle-to-prison pipeline linking poverty, schools, police, prison, and families is a classic example.) How do these systems differ across different class or geographical areas? Finally, how have they shifted over time?