Laura A. Roy - Teaching While White: Addressing the Intersections of Race and Immigration in the Classroom

Teaching While White

Addressing the Intersections of Race and Immigration in the Classroom

Laura A. Roy

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Roy, Laura A., 1978 author.

Title: Teaching while White : addressing the intersections of race and immigration in the classroom / Laura A. Roy.

Description: Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018]. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018026445 (print) | LCCN 2018032258 (ebook) | ISBN 9781475840391 (electronic) | ISBN 9781475840377 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781475840384 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Multicultural educationUnited States. | MinoritiesEducationUnited States. | Teachers, WhiteUnited States.

Classification: LCC LC1099.3 (ebook) | LCC LC1099.3 .R69 2018 (print) | DDC 370.117dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026445

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For my strong, kind-hearted mom, Danamy first teacher.

On the first day of any class I teach, I invite my students to be comfortable being uncomfortableto live for a while in the disequilibrium that ultimately leads to real learning and transformation. This book is an invitation for White teachers to be uncomfortable. The intersection of race and immigration is the primary theme of this book and thus topics such as racism, White supremacy, White privilege, and citizenshiptopics that White people often deem too controversial or divisive to discussare explored.

I argue in this book that avoiding authentic dialogue about racism and White supremacy is part of why these topics seem so challenging and divisive to begin with. But what is the cost of not talking about it? What is the cost of allowing racism to thrive? In order to solve the problem of racism and White supremacy, White teachers must be willing and able to name and identify the system of racism and White supremacy. For White teachers, this can evoke feelings of guilt, anger, fear, and discomfortespecially among White teachers who believe themselves well intentioned. This book invites White teachers to build from those good intentions by sitting with and unpacking their reactions to conversations about racism, White privilege, and White supremacy.

I advocate specifically for White teachers who are concerned with equity and social justice to address racism and White supremacy head-onto get comfortable using words like racism, White supremacy, White privilege, for example, when naming the problem and teaching about the social, cultural, economic, and political realities of our history past and present. I urge teachers to reconsider terms such as diversity and instead actively work to decenter Whiteness in educational spaces and amplify issues of social justice and equity.

The US teaching population remains largely White, middle class, and female. The student population, however, is increasingly diverse. At the same time, school communities are becoming increasingly segregated and resegregated, especially in exurban areas that exist in and beyond traditional suburbs. Preservice and in-service teachers who grow up and live in predominantly White communities are less likely to interact with people of color, including new immigrant populations.

Chang (2016) asserts that this White isolation from communities of color is intentional. He states, Whether through white flight, the optics of diversity, or metaphorical and actual wall building, the privileged spare themselves the sight of disparity, and foreclose the possibility of empathy and transformation (p. 4). This isolation, segregation and resegregation, and distancing of White communities, physically, socially, and emotionally, allows biased, deficit, and racist polices, practices, and views to go unchallenged.

As such, White teachers and community members in predominantly White communities may not see or recognize the need for critical conversations or action, especially as it relates to the intersections of race and immigration. And, if the majority of the teaching population is White and the majority of books and curricula published are by White people, this means White teachers are teaching through curriculum and pedagogical practices that are grounded in White, Eurocentric, middle-class norms, further distancing Whites from the ways communities of color are marginalized and oppressed by the system. As a result, stories of people of color are misrepresented, silenced, or omitted in schools. I argue in this book that real teaching is about liberation and freedom for all students. As such, I urge White teachers to take an activist stance in decentering Whiteness in pedagogy and curriculum by educating White students, colleagues, and communities about the intersections of race, racism, and immigration.

The intention of this book is to engage White teachers in a critique of Whiteness, especially the notion of White as defaultthe norm, regular, or the standard. The title Teaching While White is to call attention to the permanence of the problem of Whiteness as a liability for both students of color and White students. What I mean by this is that, intentionally or unintentionally, White people, including White teachers, are complicit in perpetuating the larger system of White supremacy and racial oppression that is embedded in the USs history and social, economic, educational, and criminal justice systems.

This is not a call to remove White, European histories, practices, and experiences. Nor is it to suggest that White teachers cant be a part of the solution to racism. Rather, it is a call for White teachers to recognize, identify, and disrupt the ways current pedagogical practices and curricula privilege White, European histories, practices, and experiences as the primary narrative.

The aim of this book is to critique the system and to emphasize the role White teachers can and should play in disrupting it. As you will read in this book, a critique of the system, while sometimes challenging, does not have to be an unpleasant endeavor. The White teachers I have worked with find CRTA (critical race teacher activism), critical literacy, and liberatory education practices, all discussed in this book, to be rewarding for their students, families, and communities. I argue that White teachers have the potential to play a primary role in transforming the notion of teaching while White from a liability to an emancipatory act of radical love and critical consciousness (Freire, 1972).