Okay--several interesting negative things have been happening that are probably worth writing about:
1. The paper assignment and /reading each other's racial histories exercise. Again I have to ask, who am I empowering here? The white kids reading the "other" kids stories--delighting in guessing who it might be, while the deytails of their own lives go unnoticed. Scary thought.
Jaclyn read over Sabeela's paper and was careful to "other" her by speaking her name (when she knew she shouldn't and had been told not to). Sabeela was so embarrassed that she put her hands over her face. Although she told me later that she thought it Jacyln's problem and wished she (J) would have apologized, it did not happen. Neither of them were in class today. Hmm coincidence?? I spoke about what was going on in the performance studies group last night. . . got some interesting suggetsions.
2. So today there was a presentation by two black students on a topic that was not theirs but the group going on Thursday. Their project led to some interestinng discussion on what made itnerracial friendships so difficult. What stood out to me though was that the two used the presentation as a platfrom for sharing some pretty honest and disclosive stuff. I honestly think that THEIR sharing allowed some of the white students to sheare their own ignorance--and some humorus stories as well. What i wish Tinisha would have recognizie though, was that SHE was the one who had the power in that sense--the class was not going to move in the direction of disclosing more until she admitted her own feelings--not them.
Maybe i am wrong about this, but in this case I think not.
posted by Leda @ 3:47 PM
