The “N-Word” and White Anti-Racist Pedagogy (Part Two)
Yesterday I put up a post about the challenges of teaching the history of race as a white professor in classrooms that are mostly populated by students of color. In it, I noted that white people — particularly white progressives — are given far more guidance and encouragement about listening when other people speak about race than about speaking up themselves. When a white professor is put in the position of teaching people of color about race, it can be uncomfortable, even scary.
I closed yesterday’s post with a promise that I’d talk more today about my own classroom experience, and I’d like to start by telling a story out of history.
George Wallace is best remembered today as a fierce segregationist. A four-time governor of Alabama and two-time presidential candidate, Wallace defined white opposition to racial integration for many Americans in the sixties. It was Wallace who, in his first gubernatorial inaugural address in 1963, coined the phrase “segregation
