Combating the “Too Sensitive” Argument: A Demonstration That Captures the Complexity of Microaggressions

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-243
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Eisen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Examination ◽  
Student Resistance ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Classroom Discussions ◽  
Cumulative Impact ◽  
Colorblind Ideology ◽  
Student Reflections

Colorblind ideology provides individuals with numerous ways to minimize racism. This poses a challenge for instructors who teach about race and racism as students deploy this ideology to derail classroom discussions. Student resistance may be amplified when discussing microaggressions because students often characterize focusing on microaggressions as being “too sensitive” or trying to see racism where it does not exist. This article details a demonstration that attempts to move students past the too-sensitive argument so they can understand the complexity of microaggressions. An analysis of anonymous student reflections shows that the activity successfully conveys the cumulative impact of microaggressions, demonstrates how racism is embedded in everyday interactions, and encourages students to reflect on their own role in perpetuating and ending racism. In short, the demonstration helped students understand the structural and cumulative nature of microaggressions by combating the too-sensitive argument and encouraging a critical examination of racism.

Can the Subaltern Play and Speak or Just be Played With?

2009 ◽  
pp. 938-955
Author(s):  
David J. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Video Game ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Racial Discourse ◽  
Post Civil Rights ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter examines and responds to the silencing, resistance to any intrusion of questions about race and racism, and overall erasure of race from the debates and broader discourse concerning video game culture. It not only provides insight into the nature and logics guiding claims of colorblindness, but also connects the ideologies and culture of denial to the broader racial discourse of post-civil rights America. Hoping to inspire debate and transformative knowledge sharing, this chapter additionally offers a textually-based racial analysis of Outlaw Volleyball as an example of the type of critical examination required to move beyond a culture that often reduces bodies and voices of people of color to objects of gaze, ridicule, and consumption while denying any sorts of criticism and questions regarding the racial meaning and texts evident within much of today’s gaming.

The Fifth Frame of Colorblind Ideology: Maintaining the Comforts of Colorblindness in the Context of White Fragility

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 912-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uma M. Jayakumar ◽  
Annie S. Adamian
Keyword(s):  
Historically Black ◽  
White Students ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Black Colleges ◽  
Historically Black Colleges ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Four Frames ◽  
Colorblind Ideology ◽  
Black Colleges And Universities

In the context of newly emerging racial backlash with implications for colorblind ideology, the authors explore understandings of race and racism among white students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). They build on Bonilla-Silva’s four frames of colorblind ideology and describe a fifth—the disconnected power-analysis frame. Interviews with 18 white students across three HBCUs revealed that this frame allows students with a limited but growing awareness of racial inequality to more strategically engage with and benefit from an environment where race is salient, while preserving white privilege in the process. The findings underscore the enduring significance of colorblind frames and the need for continued vigilance in naming covert race-coded language that perpetuates white supremacy.

scholarly journals The Shaping of Postcollege Colorblind Orientation Among Whites: Residential Segregation and Campus Diversity Experiences

2015 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uma M. Jayakumar
Keyword(s):  
White Students ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Cumulative Impact ◽  
Diversity Experiences ◽  
Campus Diversity ◽  
Racial Context ◽  
Colorblind Ideology ◽  
White Habitus ◽  
White Adults

In this article, Uma M. Jayakumar investigates the cumulative impact of experiences with segregation or racial diversity prior to and during college on colorblind ideological orientation among white adults. An analysis of longitudinal data spanning ten years reveals that, for whites from segregated and diverse childhood neighborhoods, some experiences in college may increase colorblind thinking, while others may facilitate a greater understanding of the racial context of US society. Segregated white environments, or white habitus, before, during, and after college are associated with whites' colorblind ideological orientations, with negative implications for racial justice. Campus racial diversity experiences can play a role in diminishing the influence of white habitus but are not necessarily doing so. In other words, the challenges of addressing colorblind orientation are greater for white students from segregated neighborhoods and high schools who also tend to choose segregated white campus environments and are less likely to engage across race lines while in college. This study speaks to the need for more direct interventions addressing colorblind ideology among white college students. The findings suggest that racial diversity and integration are potentially disruptive but insufficient conditions for unlearning harmful colorblind frames.

“That Sure is Racist”: Classroom Race Talk as Resistance

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (7) ◽  
pp. 1039-1065
Author(s):  
Teresa Sosa
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Student Resistance ◽  
Classroom Discussions ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into

This work analyzed three grade 9 English Language Arts classroom discussions and contributions by Black youth as resistance acts. Using a framework of resistance based on an indigenous understanding of progress provided insight into how student resistance emerged in language as metaphor and stories. Thematic analysis of the three classroom discussions indicate student resistance is captured in the naming of what is often left silent or often silenced. Through transgressing evasion and silence, students’ counter stories and experiences shared in the classroom named social realities inscribed in their day-to-day experiences, as well as how schools are complicit in silencing the lives and history of Black and indigenous people. This work demonstrates the importance of situating resistance as counter narratives that work to reconfigure interpretations of personal and social identities situated more completely within embodied experiences.

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