Creating Space and Belonging
Resource: Blackwell, Deanna M. 2010. “Sidelines and Separate Spaces: Making Education Anti-racist for Students of Color.” Race Ethnicity and Education 13 (4): 473–94.
Description: Writing from her own experience as a graduate student and academic, Blackwell problematizes anti-racist education that focuses on educating White students on their own racial biases at the expense of students of color and their educational development. Blackwell prompts professors to continuously re-evaluate their own teaching, asking that academics recognize anti-racist pedagogy as an ongoing project instead of an end goal, using a Black feminist lens to advocate for the centering of students of color’s experience in the classroom as an anti-racist strategy. Drawing from other literature and her lived experience in the classroom, Blackwell provides specific instructions for how to honor when students share their experiences without centering White students’ ‘epiphanies’ as the main goal of anti-racist teaching. This article is a powerful summary of several theories that have been advanced in the literature of anti-racist pedagogy, and Blackwell’s testimony and suggestions prompt professors to consider how they manage discussion in a way that empowers students of color to remain as students instead of forcing them to act as cultural experts, teacher’s aides, or witnesses to White students’ growth.
Reflection Questions:
- When you think about your own anti-racist teaching, how do you conceptualize your goals, and which students emerge at the center?
- How might you bridge the value of students’ lived experience with learning as it relates to the material in your classes?
- How do you permit students to structure their own discussion spaces in ways that might work best for them, and what resources do you provide for students of color to find spaces in which they feel welcome to explore their own questions? Are there ‘safe spaces’ which you thought were inclusive that this article critiques, and if so, how do you think about them now?