The Importance of Culture

Jackie HuntoonDecember 13, 2015

Why Should We Care?

Aleah Hordges, WLUC-TV6

Share thoughts with people around you (anonymously).

University of MissouriThe University of Missouri system president emerged from a fundraiser on Friday night … For weeks, he had sidestepped questions about a string of racist incidents on campus.

When surrounded by protesters at a homecoming parade, he had driven off. Now a group of African American students were waiting for him. Spurred on by the hunger strike of a fellow student, the small crowd peppered Wolfe with questions. As the head of their university, did he even know what systematic oppression was?

“I will give you an answer, and I’m sure it will be a wrong answer,” Wolfe said.

“You gonna Google it?” one of the students asked sarcastically.

“I will give you an answer, and I’m sure it will be a wrong answer,” Wolfe repeated.

“Systematic oppression is when you don’t believe that you have the equal opportunity for success ….”

November 09, 2015, By Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post

So, What is Systematic Oppression?Joe Feagin (2006) Systemic Racism A Theory of Oppression – oppression manifested in all major societal institutions. “The white founders’ vision of a ‘nation of equals,’ stated eloquently by Virginia slaveholders like Thomas Jefferson was fatally flawed at its beginning by whites’ oppression of black Americans in the bloody and profitable arrangements of slavery. The country has never recovered from being founded in this extensive white-on-black oppression. …substantial aspects of this racial oppression persist to the present day in a contemporary guise—in the form Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once called ‘slavery unwilling to die.’” (p xi-xii)

Economics and RaceFifty years later, that gulf hasn’t changed much. By some measures it has widened.

In 2011, the median income for black households was about fifty-nine per cent of the median income for white households, up slightly from fifty-five per cent in 1967...

But when you consider wealth—that is, everything a family owns, including a home and retirement savings—the difference seems to have grown … the median black household had about seven per cent of the wealth of its white counterpart in 2011, down from nine per cent in 1984, when a Census survey first began tracking this sort of data.

Race and Poverty, Fifty Years After the March, by Vauhini Vara, August 27, 2013, The New Yorker

…early in his speech, Martin Luther King, Jr., lamented that black Americans lived “on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”

Economics and EducationMany school systems remain "fundamentally separate and unequal," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday, with 23 states spending more per pupil in affluent school districts than they do in high-poverty districts.

What's more, Duncan said on a call with reporters, the inequality may be getting worse.

Huffington Post, 03/13/2015

What Happens at College?

Feelings of “onlyness” and of being misunderstood, insulted, ignored

Shaun R. Harper, in an interview with Inside Higher Ed, said that the interviews he conducts, frequently not at places experiencing the attention and protests of recent weeks, end with students and interviewers in tears, talking about isolation, stereotypes and a lack of inclusiveness.

From Inside Higher Ed, November 16, 2015, By Scott Jaschik

Should we Change?

• Moral imperative/social justice

• Role of colleges and universities (particularly publics) in society

• Economic benefits of diversity

What Do We Need to Do?

For a Start, Address:1. Isolation2. Stereotypes3. Inclusion

Activity:• Work with a partner or group to

identify at least 5 actions*you* can take (are taking) to reduce the likelihood that a student might feel isolated in your department.• Be prepared to share some of

your ideas with the whole group.

Stereotypes – If Black People Said the Stuff White People Say

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1zLzWtULig

Why do Stereotypes Matter?

Stereotype Threat Imposter Syndrome

Cognitive Load

A Look at Cognitive Load due to Stereotyping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTYMSulvnyw

Building Inclusion

Remember that everyone is an individual as well as a member of multiple “groups”

Be aware of implicit biasesBe alert for microagressions

Be willing to listen and change

Model inclusive behavior and speak up (gently, politely) when others fail to do so

Social Tuning

November 11, 2015, About Stacey Sinclair, associate professor of psychology and African American studies, Princeton Alumni Weekly

…in situations where people feel uncertain or want to be liked; they unconsciously shift their behavior to match the values of the surrounding group.

“Prejudice and egalitarianism are both contagious.”

Handout

• “America is the land of opportunity”

Microaggression Activity

• Pick a version (Version A or Version B). • Work with a partner or group to match statements from Column A

(on the left) with their possible interpretations in Column B (on the right). • Be prepared to share some examples with the whole group.

Post-Activity Questions

• Can you think of a situation in which you were subjected to a microagression? How did it make you feel?

• Can you think of a situation in which you were the perpetrator of a microagression? How did it make you feel?

• When people discuss microaggressions, a common response is that they are “innocent acts” and that the person who experiences them should “let go of the incident” and “not make a big deal out of it.” Do you agree?

• Do you think that the impact of subtle prejudice, such as microaggressions, may be more harmful than the impact of blatant discrimination?

Implicit Bias Activity

The following four slides are pictures of people. We will go through the slides one-by-one and then look at all four people at the same time.

• Jot down your initial thoughts when we look at each person’s picture on its own.

• When we get to the end and look at all four people together, use your notes to come up with a short story about one person (or more if there is time).

• Be prepared to share your responses with others and/or the whole group.

Thank you

References for Handouts

• Awareness Harmony Acceptance Advocates - Breaking the Prejudice Habit

• http://breakingprejudice.org/teaching/group-activities/

• University of California (www.ucop.edu)

• http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/seminars/Tool_Recognizing_Microaggressions.pdf

One More FAST/GREAT Look at Stereotype Threat in Academic Settings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOLdxZC3Yp8