How to Talk about Racism

1. Begin with slides 1-9 the How to Talk about Racism PowerPoint presentation. Have students reflect on questions in their dialogue journals and through discussion.
2. Break students into teams, and give each team a set of 8 quotes. Each student will choose a quote with which they identify or about which they would like to know more. Students discuss their choices in their teams.
3. Return to the Powerpoint presentation (Slides 9 and on). The presentation will put each quote in a larger context thereby further explaining the ideas and/or history of the words. As you go through each quote remember to ask students to identify the quotes they connected with and, if they feel comfortable, to discuss why.
4. Introduce the Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege Checklist, from her 1988 article Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, including some examples.
5. Students return to their teams and begin to brainstorm more contemporary examples of white privilege that reflect the students’ experience and age bracket.
6. Facilitate a whole-class discussion, inviting students to share their examples and creating a new list on the board or as a final slide of the presentation.

Conversations about race and white supremacy might make students feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. Some BIPOC students may feel scared that they will be hurt by micro/macro aggressions and are tired of being the target of racist behavior. White students might feel deep discomfort, guilt, and hostility. Part of your job is making sure that the class is not a space where anyone is harmed. You may refer back to your Classroom Guidelines to make sure that the rules of discussion are clear. You also can refer back to the Terms That Matter and Four I’s of Oppression lessons. Ultimately, it is important to think through how you will head off and deal with potential discord in the classroom.

This lesson may be completed over several classes with concrete examples or other content mixed in. It is also possible to omit some parts of the activities as long as the main ideas are covered.

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• Talking About Race, Learning About Racism: The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom by Beverly Daniel Tatum
• What Does it Mean that Most Children's Books Are Still About White Boys? by Soraya Chemaly
• The Anger of the White Male Lie by Oluo, Ijeoma
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh