In “Making Commitments to Racial Justice Actionable,” Diab, Ferrel, and Godbee (2016) write that “a great deal of self-work is required on the journey of growth from articulating a commitment to racial justice to making that commitment actionable and sustainable” (20). In addition to individual self-study (“serious, processual self-reflection and a rich dialogue with the self about how we think [and] how we feel”), the authors also address doing self-work with others: “doing self-work with others involves ongoing care-full self-reflection that takes place, in part, through courageous dialogues” (32).
Personal reflection on identity, positionality, and biases represent the first step or area of exploration and understanding for most approaches to anti-racist pedagogy.
Racism takes several forms and works most often in tandem with at least one other form to reinforce racist ideas, behavior, and policy.
Learning about how racism shapes all our lives allows for more informed anti-racist work.
Understand the stressful impact of racism on BIPOC communities.
Examples of social identities are race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, (dis)abilities, and religion/religious beliefs.
The practice of interrogating race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship
The following resources and tools for reflection and discussion are adapted from several sources, including:
Columbia Univeresity CTL “Anti-Racist Pedagogy in Action: First Steps”
Wheaton College (MA) “Becoming an Anti-Racist Educator”
Cornell University “Teaching and Learning in a Diverse Classroom”
Columbia University “Inclusive Teaching”