TEACHING & LEARNING ANTIRACISM PROGRAM OVERVIEW
CORE COMPETENCIES Learning and Leading
INITIATIVE
Taking initiative means that students direct their own learning and guide their own experiences. They actively and intentionally choose a particular task, activity, or path and are able to move beyond essentialism. Curiosity fuels their initial goals. They take time to reflect. Their reflections as well as their awareness of their positionality inform their approach, their strategies, and their adjustments along the way.
AGILITY
Students demonstrate their agility through their capacity to sit with dissonance and embrace ambiguity. They can engage in creative and flexible problem-strategizing both independently and collaboratively.
PURPOSE
Driven by a commitment to effect change in an equitable and just way, students value, seek, and understand multiple and competing perspectives. Through their capacity for empathy and collaboration, they actively and intentionally engage in diverse spaces.
LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES Confident and Compassionate Leadership
CURIOSITY
I seek out and explore new and original questions about the world. I actively seek answers to these questions.
PURPOSEFUL REFLECTION
I regularly reflect on what I gained from a learning experience, what I contributed, and what could have made it better. I am conscious of my lack of knowledge, personal concerns, and socially constructed beliefs.
EMBRACING AMBIGUITY
I am excited by new, different, and challenging situations because I know I have the potential to learn something new.
PROBLEM STRATEGIZING
When I try to find a solution to a problem or meet a challenge, I can identify multiple facets of the problem, examine it through various lenses (ethical, cultural, social, political, racial, economic, etc.) and I can prioritize key aspects on which to focus.
EMPATHY
I have developed connections and relationships with people who have different experiences and perspectives. I am open to learning more about their ideas and suggestions for strategies. I understand that the problem I understand that the problem I care about is connected to larger issues and many interrelated parts. I recognize that contradictory beliefs, ideas and actions can all be valid.
COLLABORATION
When working on a shared task, I take responsibility to create group norms and systems that ensure everyone feels comfortable. I take responsibility for the functioning of the group by setting expectations and practicing strategies for helping everyone feel valued and comfortable — and for navigating disagreements or discomfort that inevitably arises.
ANTIRACISM COMPETENCIES Leading with an Antiracist Purpose
UNDERSTANDING POSITIONALITY: Understanding that an individual's "location" within a community (i.e. their rank and status) is impacted by social and organizational frameworks.
VALUING MULTIPLE NARRATIVES: Valuing multiplicity of life stories, perspectives, and experiences, even when those narratives compete.
SITTING WITH DISSONANCE: Valuing discomfort and ambiguity that result from seemingly inconsistent thoughts, values, and beliefs.
DISRUPTING BIAS: Taking action to disrupt the relationship between our pervasive biases and societal stereotypes that lead to discrimination and inequitable outcomes.
COMMITTING TO REWIRE: Habituating knowledge into new practice, or changing habits to align with learning.
GLOSSARY TERMINOLOGY
These are working defnitions that will evolve over time. As such, they should be internalized rather than memorized. By actively engaging with this language, you keep it vibrant and useful while contributing to our shared understanding of these meaningful terms. Sources include Blink Consulting and Blink’s sources cited inline.
ANTIRACISM
The active, non-neutral design, practice and demonstration of confronting racial inequities, through: (1) Lifelong learning, action & critical self-refection on race; (2) Recognizing and challenging racist power imbalances in interpersonal, community and institutional interactions; and (3) Institutional accountability for racial equity and inclusion throughout the community in micro, mezzo and macro practice and outcomes (Chavez, Tervalon, & Murray-Garcia, 2012; Kendi, 2019)
ANTIRACIST
“Essentially, to be anti-racist is to admit when we’re being racist” (Kendi).
ASSIMILATIONIST
A person whose mindset expects others to conform to their social and cultural norms.
AUTHENTICITY
Engaging with rewiring from a place of curiosity, bringing an intentional practice of refection and, when necessary, repair.
CAPITAL: SOCIAL, CULTURAL, ECONOMIC
“In The Forms of Capital (1986), Bourdieu distinguishes between three types of capital: 1) Economic Capital: command over economic resources (cash, assets); 2) Social Capital: resources based on group membership, relationships, networks of infuence and support. 3) Cultural Capital: forms of knowledge, skills, education, and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society.
CORE CULTURAL IDENTIFIERS
Race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, ability, socioeconomic status, class, learning style and ability, family makeup. Why are some identifers “core”? Because differences within those aspects of identity correlate with group-level disparities of status, privilege, opportunity, and access to resources within a community.
ESSENTIALISM
Thinking that is rooted in the belief that things and people are what they seem. This thinking presumes that people can be categorized into intrinsic and enduringly different groups.
ETHNICITY
A socially constructed aspect of identity based on shared ancestry, region, appearance, and cultural artifacts (such as language, religion, food, and clothing). Ethnic identity can refer to ancestral or current culture.
ETHNOCENTRISM
Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one’s own culture. Within a school environment this can be perceived as the dominant culture.
ETHNORACIAL IDENTITY
At its simplest, the connection between race and ethnicity, whether accurate or not (ex. the assumption that all Irish people are White). This is also an example of intersectionality.
INTERSECTIONALITY
Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) is the acknowledgment that social identities “intersect” and overlap, and, therefore, the dynamics of those identities—including status, access, privileges and disadvantages—do as well. One’s experiences and ability to thrive are not defned by just one aspect of identity, but shaped by the interconnectedness of them all.
PERFORMANCE
Moving through the motions of actions without inhabiting the mindset necessary to shift norms and culture.
POSITIONALITY
Positionality describes how how an individual’s “location” and “capital” within a community (i.e. their rank and status) is impacted by social and organizational frameworks. These structures provide partial, biased knowledge about individuals and communities.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
Process of internalizing antiracist competencies and habituating new mindsets and actions.
PRIVILEGE
Unearned social advantage in the form of entitlement to resources and opportunities; preferential treatment; or immunity from stigma or expectation that is automatically activated for members of a particular identity group. (see: The Right Hand of Privilege” by Steven Jones)
RACE
A socially constructed aspect of identity that, like gender, is based on perceptions of phenotype and parameters of social context. (Blink)
RACISM
Racial discrimination that has structural, systemic, and cultural backing within the framework of White Supremacy Culture.
REVERSE RACISM
A misnomer, “reverse racism” usually refers to a situation in which racism is not working as expected to protect/advantage and oppress/ disadvantage.
REWIRING*
Habituating knowledge into new practice, or changing habits to align with learning because “knowing is [only] half the battle” (GI Joe)
SITUATIONAL ADVANTAGE
Within systemic racism, there are exceptions when Whiteness does not immunize or priviledge a White person and/or actively disadvantage a person of color—for example, preferring to hire a candidate of color when White employees are well-represented by design in hiring and retention.
UNINTENDED ACCESS
Within systemic racism, there may be unintended aspects of the design that may permit some people of color to thrive to some extent. For example, see Latinx/Hispanic and Asian (except for Pacifc Islander) undergraduate enrollment in the UC system.
WHITE SUPREMACY
A racist campaign that normalizes and privileges Whiteness while marginalizing and oppressing people who are not identifed as White through institutional structures, systems, and cultural norms (Okun).
*Concept attributed to Professor Laurie Santos, Yale University