Week 10 - March 23rd

   Takeaways: 

• It is important to teach children how to use their privilige and stand up. A good white ally is the one who listens, gives space, and know their motives. motives,

• Working with dolls can be used as a healing process, role models, and it helps for identity building and story telling. Dolls can represent parts of us and the healing that we go through.

• Talking about racism needs to happen early, often and honest. Kids can be approached by Dr. Seuss books, pop culture references, and many movies.

Reflection:

There are many ways in which racism can happen and we need to be aware and let our students be aware of which actions that are oftentimes seen as "normal" are actually racist actions. Racism has been a thing for a long time and many people do not even know that they are being racist beause it is how they were raised and what they commonly see in their lives. Actions such as tone policing (when white people tell black people to talk to them in a nicer way), cultural appropriation (making a culture your own without attributing it to the people that it comes from), and white saviorism (thinking that black people need white people to save them) are actions that need to be stopped. These type of actions and workplace discrimination, hate crime, and microagressions cause racial trauma.Our duty as teachers is to have conversations about this and let our students know about the actions that are better. Besides, it is important to let them know that even if they did some racist actions in the past, the can always change their ideas and change their actions in the present and the future.

The Clark Doll experiment blew my mind because it is so sad that kids feel that by just being black they are not pretty enough or might be the "dangerous" person next to a white person. I recommend watching this experiment. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk

Activity in class: 

Students can be asked to draw a house and ask them who would they let in into their house, only to the frontyard, to their gate, to their street, and who they would not even let get close to their house.

References

DiAngelo, R. (2020). Robin DiAngelo on "White Fragility" - EXTENDED CONVERSATION | Amanpour and Company. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx-gUfQx4-Q

DiAngelo, R. (2015). White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism. Retrieved from https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/

Libro.fm. (2020). Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad (Audiobook Excerpt). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxeAwJG_Yao 

Wallace, K. (2021). White Fragility [pdf]. 

Wallace, K. (2021). White Supremacy & Children/How to talk with children about racism [pdf]. 

Wallace, K. (2021). Racialized Trauma [pdf]. 

Completed Intergenerational Trauma Form (see on section "Tests and Quizzes")