Shouldn't it be renamed the Ugly Dyke Conference?
Posted on 08/08/2011 8:43:13 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
As director of intercultural life at a small Iowa college 12 years ago, Eddie Moore Jr. decided to hold a conference on the advantages white Americans enjoy simply because of their skin color.
He called it the White Privilege Conference.
Every year since, people have suggested changing the name to something less provocative, Moore said.
He stood firm and now points to growing attendance — up from 150 that first year at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, to 3,000 this year in Minneapolis-St. Paul — as a sign the concept is catching on.
Authors of a book purchased by the Omaha Public Schools for cultural sensitivity training say teachers must acknowledge the existence of white privilege to better relate to minority students.
But critics view it as an unhealthy, hurtful fixation on race with dubious academic merit and potentially negative consequences for students.
Adherents to the white privilege concept define it generally as the tangible, but sometimes invisible, benefits whites enjoy as the dominant racial group in America.
Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh defined it plainly in 1988 in one of the early writings on the topic. McIntosh wrote of "an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day."
She compared white privilege to "an invisible weightless knapsack" full of tools that benefit whites like her.
Critics, however, say that focusing on white privilege distracts from the real challenges facing minority communities and from back-to-basics academic approaches that have been proven to lift poor and minority students' performance.
Carol Iannone, a critic who received a doctor of education degree in English literature from State University of New York Stony Brook and edits a national academic journal, said she's not aware of any evidence such training will improve achievement.
"Because overt racism and overt prejudice is very rare nowadays, now they have to find some kind of unconscious residue that is working without even any intention behind it to explain why their inequality persists," Iannone said.
Focusing attention on white privilege distracts from bigger issues that disadvantage many minority children in the classroom, she said, offering as an example a lack of fathers in the home.
Outside of academia, meanwhile, many people have never heard of white privilege.
OPS's book purchase stirred a firestorm of controversy. A recent World-Herald article about the book, purchased with federal stimulus money, raced across the blogosphere and national news media and prompted a surge of letters to the newspaper.
The authors of the book, "The Cultural Proficiency Journey," assert that only teachers who admit to white privilege can reach the highest level of cultural awareness.
The Omaha school board in April approved buying 8,000 copies of the book — one for every employee, including members of the custodial staff.
Advocates of the white privilege viewpoint see a disconnect between white teachers and minority students. Teachers who acknowledge white privilege stand a better chance of forging a productive relationship with students of color, they say.
Advocates see white privilege as a possible factor in persistent academic achievement gaps between white and minority students, which Omaha has suffered.
Recent census data also showed that wealth gaps between whites and minorities have grown to their widest levels in a quarter-century. The recession and uneven recovery have erased decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, according to an analysis of the data.
Omowale Akintunde, chairman of the Black Studies Department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, told educators at a recent education summit in Omaha that white people have a hard time seeing their privilege because they are the dominant class.
"If you're all the way in it, you don't see it," he said during one session at the summit co-sponsored by OPS.
Akintunde said he's not out to blame or shame whites, rather just to expose the concept.
As a child growing up in Mobile, Ala., Akintunde said he noticed that pictures on the wall of the Lutheran school he attended portrayed Jesus as white. Biblical figures on the chapel's stained-glass windows were white. The TV cartoon families Flintstones and Jetsons were white, too.
He said he discovered "a world of whiteness." He realized he had adopted the white race as normal, that the "default race" in America is white.
In his view, schools need to review what they're teaching to make sure lessons don't reflect only the white point of view.
The omission of the word "white" from textbooks or worksheets — for instance, assuming that great American heroes or political leaders were white but identifying minority figures by race — affirms white as the dominant class, he said.
Tim Wise, author of several books including "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son," said privilege isn't just about wealth.
He said white privilege actually is "any advantage, head start that a person who's white has that a person of color does not."
White privilege, for instance, means the white student doesn't have to worry that the teacher is making negative presumptions based on his race. White kids often are perceived by teachers as more capable, and therefore more likely to be tracked into advanced classes, while at the same time not disciplined as severely as students of color, he said.
Wise rejects the notion that the 2008 election of President Barack Obama ushered in a post-racial era free of discrimination.
"The reality is there are 85 million, approximately, black people in this country whose names are not Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey, and for the vast majority of black folks, and people of color generally, the opportunity structure is far different than that," Wise said.
Warren Blumenfeld, assistant professor of multicultural education at Iowa State University, teaches in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Ninety-five percent of his students are going into the teaching profession.
He said privilege exists not just for whites but also for men, heterosexuals, Christians, English speakers, U.S.-born residents and able-bodied people.
Blumenfeld said he teaches his students that their multiple identities impact their perceptions of the world, their teaching and their students' responses to their teaching.
Training teachers in cultural proficiency will help them function in an increasingly diverse democracy, he said.
"If I don't see a person's color, their race, I'm disregarding their background, their history, the legacy of oppression in this country and their culture," Blumenfeld said. "That's not a way to treat someone."
Critics find the concept of white privilege problematic on many fronts.
Mark Bauerlein received a doctorate in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has taught at Emory University in Atlanta and wrote a book about a 1906 race riot in Atlanta.
He said the concept of white privilege as something teachers must acknowledge fuels racial tension and "bleeds over into indoctrination, not education."
Discussing white privilege as a kind of mental condition that one must acknowledge borders on thought control, he said.
He warns of a potential negative effect on minority students.
"If that kid buys that, then every dissatisfying encounter that that kid has in later life, that kid will be inclined to ascribe it to skin color," Bauerlein said.
Iannone, who has criticized the teaching of white privilege in her writings for the National Association of Scholars, argues that a better approach would be to treat students as individuals.
Recognizing a certain amount of group identity is OK, but public schools should be a unifying force for students, she said.
"Heck, we're all Americans. And part of what public school education used to be about was giving a sense of unity to young people," Iannone said.
>> “Department of Curriculum and Instruction”?why would any student not hoping to get into the teaching profession take a course from a “Department of Curriculum and Instruction”?<<
Because The Department of Ministry Of Truth is impacted (overloaded with students), so they have to settle.
The presumption that White people are privileged by ‘virtue’ of being White is not a privilege. Purveyors of this nonsense facilitate all that is wrong in the realm of racial identity.
>> McIntosh wrote of “an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day.”
>> She compared white privilege to “an invisible weightless knapsack” full of tools that benefit whites like her.
Said the self-absorbed malcontent.
They also show the largest gap in education between whites and minorities ever documented. Apparently, working your butt off to make sure you can provide for your family is a "white privilege," as well.
And what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
Achievement gap?
The REAL reason is too politically incorrect even for FR.
I’m gonna print up a big stack of “Space” cards. When anyone tries to pull this crap I will hand them a card that says, “This card commemorates the empty SPACE between your ears because you’re too damn stupid to do anything but attempt to play your revoked race card.”
Every “advantage” supposedly held by white people is available to all races. The only people I hear this shite from are those who don’t or won’t understand the concepts of hard work, discipline, and deferred gratification.
So, minority students do waaaaaay better in areas where they are taught by minority teachers. Areas such as Atlanta, Georgia. Those minority teachers were really changing right answers to wrong, so the majority whites schools wouldn't have hurt feelings. And I'll bet life is soooooo much better in countries where blacks or Hispanics are the majority. I'll bet they have no need of aid from those old white privileged countries.
A Black buddy of mine had the same upbringing that you did. Today he owns his own business and has told me that he’s thankful that his granddad was probably a slave in Georgia. He says otherwise he’d probably be living in a dirt hut, wearing his underwear, hunting food with a spear and thinking the world was just fine. I told him no, at 66 years old he’d already be long dead and certainly wouldn’t have died a millionaire.
In short, (most) white people adhere to this axiom:
You don’t sh!t where you eat...
The whole problem with idiots like Eddie Moore - how do they explain the success in America of Chinese, Japanese, and South Asians?
Very well said.
Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh is seemingly unaware of the extent to which she has benefitted from "Women's Privilege".
It's long overdue for her to start paying reparations to men to make up for her unfair advantage in life.
Racism is assuming someone has certain characteristics simply because of their race.
For Example: whites have it easier simply because they are white.
Are we really going to end racism by rooting it in our system?
Just what the heck does a person's skin have to say about their personal history? Blumenfeld just asserted that skin color dictates history.
It is exactly the way to treat someone - to learn of their personal history from them, to listen and share, to relate to them person-to-person.
What a far Cry from Dr. King's plaintive speech.
Shouldn't it be renamed the Ugly Dyke Conference?
Do you really need to change the title for people to notice?
Akintunde and company are the ones who want whites in the U.S. to feel guilty about their "privilege" and to step aside so minorities get their turn.
If you want to annoy these academics just say "Well, you got your turn and look what your man, Obama, did with it."
I am really beginning to get tired of all this crap...
It’s all true about white privilege. Eddie Murphy went undercover to investigate. And found the proof.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/10356/saturday-night-live-white-like-me
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.