Institutionalized Privilege Refection on Race

¶ … Institutionalized Privilege

Refection On Race Class Gender

For each, describe something you learned about the topic this semester that can be valuable

The information that surprised me most was the persistence of institutional racism in the U.S., but particularly in the twentieth century: I'd heard of segregation; knew Blacks and Latinos faced harsh conditions post-Reconstruction, and perceived significant anti-Latino hostility all around me in the media surrounding immigration, but I had no idea how legal discrimination played out in the modern factors I encounter all around me every day. This better understanding of racism and its immediate effects was a transformational perspective I have never been presented with as clearly. Particularly valuable in my development as a teacher is the better understanding how racism can take place in ways that are far more subtle and difficult to notice than children calling an other names.or not inviting for a play date. What this makes me understand more clearly as a teacher is that systems and the adult agents who operate within them, often under their own assumptions of powerlessness to do anything about existing norms and mores, can be powerful sources of transmission for attitudes and ideas children are so highly succeptible to. Understanding this perspective will help me to recognize outcomes that indicate potential racial bias and confront those programs and systems within my institution at administrative levels beyond monitoring the playground for inappropriate speech.

The second ism I found to carry the broadest insight was the discussion of class. The myth that everyone starts with the same initial factor endowments and that poverty is the result of individual lack of application seemed too general an assumption to me intuitively already, but I had never really taken the opportunity to 'peel the onion' deeper than the surface. My research and new perspective made me notice for example, that when my bank was proposing new ATM fees, these fees only applied to customers having balances lower than a certain level, who bear all the cost for those card holders with the most ability to pay. While the media and political interests spend vast sums every year to convince those not able or willing to think critically enough that the playing field is level and everyone has equal opportunity, systemic institutional fact controverts this mythology from the ATM up to the highest public service: How is a working person supposed to serve in government, if government takes forty hours a week in meetings, and each meeting requires a one-to-one hour of reading and education? This will help me be a better teacher because I see now many ways how classism is the result but also the transmission method and feedback process through which oppressed voices are prevented from changing institutions to and enable their own investment. This makes me reflect on how I can deliver coursework, for example, that does not require the newest technology, or prefer students because they display expensive consumer luxuries, for another example, because that would reinforce those questionable incentives via an institution.

2. For each of the two isms you listed above declare at least one specific action...

One of the many ways I will act to end racism in my classroom, and in my life outside school, will be to make sure I demonstrate supportive encouragement in a vocal way for children of color or any notable characteristic that is capable of becoming stigmatized by peers, because when children see adults especially in institutional roles of power modelling behavior that destigmatizes vulnerable students, they are highly receptive and thus likely to consider that model before unquestioningly adopting behaviors their parents or peers may display.

Direct action against classism will also include the other isms because my thinking now is that I want to focus as early as I can on media literacy around advertising, to dismantle if I can, students' assumptions that the products they see displayed as social objectives. Understanding that the companies who make and market these products have a vested interest in seducing us into stereotypes that few individuals can even if ever attain, will hopefully prevent future psychological damage around body image for example, and class concepts of privilege and dependence, they very likely will suffer as victims of advertising; and prevent a list of social mental and public health harms that likely cost the taxpayer or at least the medical consumer very real dollars. I will teach my students to question advertising, and the values it transmits.

3. Throughout the semester, we have looked at the effects of privilege on both "agents" and...