Comments on: looking inward- deconstructing white privilege http://whitestudiesblackstudies.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/responsibility-of-the-oppressor/ Just another WordPress.com weblog Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:58:54 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: matthewross323 http://whitestudiesblackstudies.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/responsibility-of-the-oppressor/#comment-7 matthewross323 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:32:21 +0000 http://whitestudiesblackstudies.wordpress.com/?p=12#comment-7 Malik--I sense that you are an intelligent person. I would encourage you to do some research and review before you finish that thought. It seems that although you bring up interesting points, they seem to come from off the top of the head? Here's something that I recently read in an academic article and book. Recently I read an article by educator and scholar Dr. Barbara Applebaum. The paper is entitled, Engaging Student Disengagement: Resistance or Disagreement. In this article Applebaum focuses on the struggles social justice educators face from students who refuse to engage and substantively analyze inequities in our society on the basis that they claim to not believe they are happening. Both Applebaum’s analysis of this phenomenon in education and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s critique of the general public in Racism Without Racists, dovetail perfectly and give an enlightening perspective that all educators and social justice activists should employ. An excerpt from Applebaum’s article reads: “I will briefly focus …on the variety of discursive practices available to systemically privileged students, because such discursive practices make it difficult for a teacher (and the student) to recognize when a student refuses to engage, a refusal that involves premature dismissal of whatever the student hears….These rhetorical strategies work to obstruct engagement so that any complicity in systemic oppression can be evaded…the types of discursive strategies…are remaining silent, evading questions, resorting to the rhetoric of ignoring color, focusing on progress, victim blaming, and focusing on culture rather than race. In all these cases, although it may appear that the student is just stating an opinion, their discourse also works to redirect the conversation away from having to consider how systemically privileged students might be complicit in systemic injustice…such students often do not realize how dismissive their discourse is of the experiences of marginalized students and so they are totally bewildered when marginalized students retreat in frustration” Malik–I sense that you are an intelligent person. I would encourage you to do some research and review before you finish that thought. It seems that although you bring up interesting points, they seem to come from off the top of the head? Here’s something that I recently read in an academic article and book.

Recently I read an article by educator and scholar Dr. Barbara Applebaum. The paper is entitled, Engaging Student Disengagement: Resistance or Disagreement. In this article Applebaum focuses on the struggles social justice educators face from students who refuse to engage and substantively analyze inequities in our society on the basis that they claim to not believe they are happening. Both Applebaum’s analysis of this phenomenon in education and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s critique of the general public in Racism Without Racists, dovetail perfectly and give an enlightening perspective that all educators and social justice activists should employ. An excerpt from Applebaum’s article reads:

“I will briefly focus …on the variety of discursive practices available to systemically privileged students, because such discursive practices make it difficult for a teacher (and the student) to recognize when a student refuses to engage, a refusal that involves premature dismissal of whatever the student hears….These rhetorical strategies work to obstruct engagement so that any complicity in systemic oppression can be evaded…the types of discursive strategies…are remaining silent, evading questions, resorting to the rhetoric of ignoring color, focusing on progress, victim blaming, and focusing on culture rather than race. In all these cases, although it may appear that the student is just stating an opinion, their discourse also works to redirect the conversation away from having to consider how systemically privileged students might be complicit in systemic injustice…such students often do not realize how dismissive their discourse is of the experiences of marginalized students and so they are totally bewildered when marginalized students retreat in frustration”

]]> By: Malik http://whitestudiesblackstudies.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/responsibility-of-the-oppressor/#comment-4 Malik Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:38:10 +0000 http://whitestudiesblackstudies.wordpress.com/?p=12#comment-4 Hm. I don't know that white people spending time excoriating themselves as "oppressors" will do much to establish racial justice. We're all part of a web of mutuality, whether we realize it or not, and what affects some affects all. In fact, the advantages that white people have, as a class, over Americans of other races are very relative, and are diminishing by the day. The only people who truly profit from our racial caste system are the wealthy and powerful. Maintaining systems of segregation and subjugation is enormously costly for whites, and there is no rational reason for it, except for maintaining the false sense of superiority that is nurtured by our social institutions, precisely because it makes white people so vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. Hm. I don’t know that white people spending time excoriating themselves as “oppressors” will do much to establish racial justice. We’re all part of a web of mutuality, whether we realize it or not, and what affects some affects all. In fact, the advantages that white people have, as a class, over Americans of other races are very relative, and are diminishing by the day. The only people who truly profit from our racial caste system are the wealthy and powerful. Maintaining systems of segregation and subjugation is enormously costly for whites, and there is no rational reason for it, except for maintaining the false sense of superiority that is nurtured by our social institutions, precisely because it makes white people so vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation.

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