REFRAME

Freire (1993) reminds us the trick of the oppressor is convincing the oppressed that reality is static. Understanding reality is ever changing and dynamic offered me a renewed sense of agency. To paraphrase advice given to Oprah by Maya Angelou: I did what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I can do better.

Currently, our proposed “solutions” seem to revolve around our understanding that the problem is primarily “the struggle” experienced by individual students of Color and the presumed ignorance/indifference of certain white faculty members.

I am advocating for a mindset change -- that is, shifting how we understand and frame “the problem.” We need to look for and transgress boundaries that are self-imposed.

We will never “find the solution” if we remain invested in maintaining our current discursive understanding of ourselves, our classrooms, and our students because it is this framing that confines our imaginations (Watzlawick et al., 2011).

Reframe: Classrooms as dynamic

It is well-documented in academic research that the social context(s) in which an individual develops profoundly impacts on their life course. As an educator, I believe it is our responsibility to help students distinguish between their personal impressions of the world and what is taken to be known by a specific culture — namely, the patriarchal, capitalist, predominantly white culture of academia.

Reframe: Ourselves as accountable

Many of my white colleagues -- including those who participated in this practitioner inquiry -- agree conversations about race and identity are important if we are genuinely interested in disrupting patterns of racial inequity and interpersonal racism in our community (Personal correspondence). Nevertheless, participant responses suggest our ambivalence about the role we play in the larger, multi-generational, national and international struggle for justice and equity undermine our sense of personal agency. Our reflexive assertion of our ignorance -- e.g., the repeated proclamation, “I don’t know” -- helps to stabilize two of the default narratives we use to discursively understand ourselves: “Our ignorance is reasonable” and “We are doing our best” (Chapter 4). These two default narratives, when considered together, signal to others/ourselves that things are out of our personal control and justify our dependence on others (read: faculty and students of Color) to report and address problematic patterns of racial inequity and racism within our predominantly white community. Not only does this discursive framing reduce the likelihood that we will act without “expert” intervention, but it also allows us to maintain the perception of ourselves as “good” white people who are “doing our best” given what we understand as the limitations of our white racial identity, our position as a faculty member within the institution, and the current status quo.

Reframe: Ignorance as illiteracy

During my small group conversation with Sam and Robert, Robert explained a highlight of his week had been “a very spirited conversation” about whether or not Odysseus, the white male protagonist in Homer’s Odyssey, was a good person:

...the people were passionate, and all sorts of great things were raised. Um-- and people were disagreeing. They were forced to find in the text, you know, examples to support tha-- and there was conflict. (Robert 09:18, Phase Two Small Group 3, 10/17/18)

A few minutes later, during the same conversation, Sam explained that in science, it is important to spend time “airing out what we think, so you accept things not based on faith, but based on-- you know, your concerns being met and so on” (Sam 14:15, Phase Two Small Group 3, 10/17/18). Robert and Sam, like many of the other white participants, understood these types of “spirited” discussions and intellectual exercises as both productive and generative -- thanks in no small part to what they perceived as a racially neutral learning environment. Like other participants, Robert and Sam also understood the intentional introduction of race and student identity to these conversations would fall outside our community’s socially sanctioned practices. Their responses suggest neither Robert nor Sam were confident in their ability to navigate and negotiate topics of race and identity and, as a consequence, decided against doing something outside the norms of the community for fear that it might potentially jeopardize the “autonomy” they currently enjoyed regarding their personal pedagogical and curricular choices (Sam 47:23, Phase One Interview, 05/29/18). But what if it is our socially sanctioned practices that are holding in place the oppressive status quo? #chickenoregg #doesnotmatter The scholarship is clear: it is our socially sanction practices that hold in place the status quo (Leonardo, 2009; Anderson, 2016).

Reframe: Students as aware

The presumed innocence of (white) students is based primarily on a discursive assumption that students are essentially unaware of how their actions/inaction contribute to (problematic and typically unnamed) racial dynamics in our school community and the world at large (Sue, 2015). However, as we hear reports of the racist behaviors of (white) students in our school community, as well as other predominantly white independent schools, we begin to question what we had assumed to be the innocence of our (white) students: “But maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know” (Robert 21:36, Phase One Interview, 06/11/18). This hedging/wishy-washy framing of the “innocent” (white) student suggests that while students may be aware, their innocence should be assumed until proven guilty. Although space and time constraints prohibit me from fully exploring the relationship between “guilt” and responsibility here, the scholarship is compelling (e.g., Young, 2013). For now -- and to me, this suggests a tension in our default narrative about the innocence of our (white) students: Being unaware maintains innocence because it means your transgression was unintentional, which then means you are not guilty of (read: responsible for) anything you’ve said, not said, done, or not done that could be construed as racist (Kendi, 2018).

**Figure 3. Visual representation of a disruption of a content-driven classroom space**

Reframe: Struggle as engagement

Our default narrative that our classrooms are safe suggests we believe them to be -- for the most part -- predictable environments over which we are in control. For example, a number of participant responses suggested “issues” raised by community time presenters about the world at large disrupt what many perceived as a racially neutral, academic learning environment (see Figure 3).

Consider the following response from Mark during our Phase Two small group conversation:

<Chuckle> I find the hardest times with that is where you have a particularly contentious community time and it just sort of spills out. [CORNELIUS: Yeah.] But the kids didn't have any framework [CORNELIUS: Yeah.] to have that conversation. Just kind of, "Wow, I have something- I feel something about that. [CORNELIUS: Right.] Blah." [CORNELIUS: Yeah.] (Mark 09:35, Phase Two Small Group 6, 10/26/2018).

Mark’s suggestion that “the kids didn’t have any framework” suggests the “contentious” topics introduced by the guest speakers are recognized as being distinct from the content of what many in our community understand as our liberal arts curricula. This, in combination with Mark’s suggestion that students struggled to make sense of how they felt -- “I feel something about that. / Blah” -- suggests the nature of our curricula is intended to make “objective” sense of discipline-specific content, and not the “feelings” students have about the oppressive and problematic aspects of the world at large and/or who they believe themselves to be in relation to systems of oppression and violence.

Imagine if a guest speaker suggested that the Green New Deal is an “elitist fantasy” (e.g., Meyer, 2019). Students (and faculty alike) might struggle to make sense of why the institution would choose to invite this particular speaker to present at one of our “community” times, e.g., their reaction might be similar to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s response when this was suggested on the floor of the United States Congress (AOC goes off after critics mock Green New Deal, 2019). Of course, given time to process and prepare a rebuttal, I imagine the vast majority of our students and faculty would be able to deliver a passionate, yet measured response a kin to one offered by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez in her keynote speech at the International C40 Climate Summit (Ocasio-Cortez, 2019).

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Work w/ Dan