Tuesday 25 September 2012

Pedagogy, Bias, and an Entirely Unrelated Amusing Internet Video

Last week, I had my students read a 1988 article by Peggy McIntosh called "The Invisible Knapsack", an abridged version of which can be found here.

For those of you who haven't read it, it's on the subject of privilege, especially unseen privilege, as it pertained to the white majority in the United States in the late 1980s. I use the past tense there (with reservation) because of the conversation that took place in my class.

Given that it is, primarily, a composition and rhetoric class, we spent much of our time on how McIntosh presents her argument, and the effect it has on the reader. But we spent more time than I expected grappling with the relevance of the article to modern readers.

My students' first reaction was "how old is this, anyway?"

Back up: The majority of my students are 18 years of age. This means that they were born, by and large, between the first day of January and the last day of December in 1994, and for whom, as Beloit's Minset List for this year tells us (among other things) "Slavery has always been unconstitutional in Mississippi, and Southern Baptists have always been apologizing for supporting it in the first place" (that state ratified the 13th amendment on 16 March 1995 -- Kentucky beat them to it by just under 19 years). Since they were young enough to be even aware of politics, there have been prominent black figures in the upper echelons of American governance, with Condoleezza Rice serving as National Security Advisor from 2001-5, later replacing Colin Powell as Secretary of State from 2005-9. (And, as the list also notes, since they were eleven, the job of Secretary of State has been a woman's job).

So it's with a great degree of skepticism that my students came to a list meant to highlight white privilege, with items on it like:

I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can deal with my hair. 

and

I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race. 

and

I can be sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge" I will be facing a person of my race. 

Which, I suppose, fair enough, right? It's easier than ever before to see, especially in cities, the growing cosmopolitanism of America. All colours of culture have been, to a large extent, equally commodified (and so what if that's just because there was a profit to be made and a market to be explored, right?). And the "person in charge" has been a black man for the past four years (long may he reign). But the real challenge was in getting them to recognize that there are still items on the list that continue to be relevant. Especially in places like Arizona, items like this:

If a traffic cop pulls me over, or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race. 

The number of people who get pulled over for "driving while black", "flying while brown", and so on in this country is, in the words of a prominent internet meme, still too damn high. Profiling, I tried to tell them, was a form of racism. And they largely seemed to agree.

But they also seemed to think that the lion's share of racism in this country was due to economic conditions, ones that, at one point in history were due to racism, but now are due to a repeating cycle of poverty only tangentially and historically related to race. Because if everyone is equal, like they've been brought up to believe, then the problem isn't racism. The problem is money.

Well, I'm still working on them with that one. We had to get to compositional matters.

This week I'm having them read an article from Scientific American. "Study Shows Gender Bias in Science is Real. Here's Why It Matters." It's part of my ongoing quest to teach them to analyze rhetorical situations, understand bias, and, this week, how genres produce expectations. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, and because I promised in the title, here's a silly video treating the story of Hengest and Horsa as though it were a) historically accurate and b) a first-time home-buyers' TV show. Enjoy?





22 comments:

Bellatricksy said...

When I taught that in an intro to women's and gender studies class, it prompted one person to change her major. I also had them read John Scalzi's "Being Poor" (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/) and then write their own "privilege inventory," using his as a model. I taught "Being Poor" in a comp class, too, when introducing contextual analysis--we read the essay, then students wrote a response to it, and then they read his "Going Meta for a Moment" about what prompted him to write it, and then students wrote about how their understanding changed once they learned that it was written in response to media coverage of Katrina, as well as what they learned about the author.

Nathaniel M. Campbell said...

Has it occurred to anyone to take a moment and think about whether your students are on to something? That maybe, in a country with a black president, the problem is now the economic inequalities that are racism's legacies rather than racism itself?

I say this because I live and teach in rural Appalachia, where we deal with many of the same social problems--high unemployment, low education, teen pregnancy, single motherhood, high incarceration rates for drug users--associated with "black" communities, yet here they are manifested in majority "white" communities. In other words, the evidence is staring me in the face every day that the root problem is poverty and economic inequality, regardless of race.

Vellum said...

Bellatricksy -- I love Scalzi, and I haven't read that yet, so it's going to the top of the pile!

Nathaniel -- Oh I think certainly they're on to something. But it's a situation of both/and, not either/or. Certainly poverty is one of the more immediate causes of the marginalization of groups of people in America today, but at the same time, the idea that racial bias has disappeared is overstated. It doesn't take a lot of looking to see that the growing popularity of what I'll call the "Immigration Control" mentality in increasingly Latino areas of the US is disproportionately affected by racial preconceptions, and the unperceived biases we ourselves exhibit (even when we think we're being unbiased) can be shown to be there, especially in hiring circumstances -- all it takes is a racially "marked" name to change the perception of a candidate. It all feeds back on itself.

Anonymous said...

It's an free app for best ever movies downloading experience. Download cinemabox app which is compatible with all your devices and get quality entertainment.
cinemabox app download

Jenna Jamieson said...

This app is a final destination for all movie lover via this amazing you can stream videos as fast as possible.
You Pelis apk
IPTV Player APK

Unknown said...

This was a great read. I'm trying this app right away.showbox pro app

Unknown said...

I haven't read a post as amazing as this in a while. I'd never have known about this app had i not chanced upon your website.
OGYouTube video downloder

Unknown said...

getting you amazing content to watch without relying on your cable TV connection
voot apk download

Anonymous said...

showbox gives you mind blowing movies download experience with showbox apk you can download all kind of movies.Showbox is one of the best compatible movie downloading app for PC , Anadroid , iOS which may help you to get high quality video downloading .Get showbox and download high quality movies.
showbox apk
showbox app
showbox app for movies


Anonymous said...

showbox is an app gives you mind blowing movies download experience because of its user friendly interface with showbox apk you can download all kind of latest movies at just few clicks. Nowadays showbox is an app which is must for every movie lover and lots of youngsters access this one the most trendy app and get entertain. showbox app
showbox latest app

Anonymous said...

Wow thats great, but i just want to know sometimes before i used MI4 but in my phone i m not able to download app which is not in google play store like showbox, cinemabox etc so can any one tell , in newly launched mi5 these apps are working or not basically i will download this app from official site
http://showboxforpcdownload.net/

Unknown said...

Download Showbox if your are movie freak. With showbox app you can download HD movies at just one click.
download showbox apk

Anonymous said...

At best, you can check if there's an obstruction on your receiver instrument, but that's about it. Rarely, other issues can play a role and cause this problem.
error code
how to troubleshoot

Anonymous said...

I have bookmarked your blog, the articles are way better than other similar blogs.. thanks for a great blog! ShowBox

Ambien Generic said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ambien Generic said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ambien Generic said...

Ambien is a pill that is prescribed by the doctors to the patients who have trouble falling asleep. So, basically, Ambien is a medication for the ones who have insomnia or who cannot fall asleep easily.
Ambien interactions

Rethu said...

Thanks For sharing valuable Information....

Movie box is excellent application for them who love to enjoy
their time with movies and TV series.There was a time when watching
and downloading movies.
moviebox for ipad mini
free download movie box

movies Hub said...

The Showbox 2019 MOVIES is a fact that most of your Showbox apk 2018 android downloads allow for Perl Seconds and programmers in the DTV Gratuitous Inquirer. Showbox apk 2019, Showbox apk 2018, Showbox apk 2019 download Feelings of sin. New StroSteve, Showbox official Showbox app latest version 2018, Showbox for pc, Showbox apk 2019 android

movies Hub said...

In this article, we’ll talk about the best Showbox update alternative for Android, iPhone, and Windows PC, with their highlights. If you are familiar with shoeboxes, then you should go crazy making a big  Showbox movie because this application lets you stream Showbox movies and TV shows from your smartphone, tablet and in some cases even from your desktop. ۔Showbox alternative Reddit

megabox Showbox, Showbox app

playbox apk

playbox HD

Showbox not working

unlockmytv

unlockmytv apk

sumon said...


I think this is a really good article.You make this information interesting and engaging.
You give readers a lot to think about and I appreciate that kind of writing.

Watch No Time to Die Online Free

Romona Vimazel said...

I highly admire you for making such a considerable information accessible here. Certainly this might be beneficial for many seekers looking for Megabox app enjoy hd entertainment on. Keep up with this tremendous work.