Getting Slammed: White Depictions of Interracial Dialogues as Arenas of Violence

• In Event: “Something Doesn’t Feel White”: Racial Affect, White Dissonance, and the Possibility for Challenging Whiteness in Education

Abstract

The concept of creating “safe” spaces in which students can freely express their views is often seen as fundamental to “building the community” assumed essential for cross-racial discussions. So central is this assumption that it is presumed that without a "safe climate," the goals of the discussion cannot be achieved. For example, according to Adams et. al.'s well-known sourcebook for teaching social justice education (1997), "Establishing a safe environment in which students can discuss ideas, share feelings and experiences, and challenge themselves and each other to reevaluate opinions and beliefs is one of the primary facilitation responsibilities" (283). The guidelines that purportedly establish this safe environment commonly include: speaking for oneself (use "I" statements), and no “shame or blame.” In Beverly Tatum's classic article (1992), she explains, "Many students are reassured by the climate of safety that is created by these guidelines and find comfort in the nonblaming assumptions I outline for the class" (4). Indeed, when White participants negatively evaluate a course or workshop that examines race and racism, a common complaint is that they were “beaten up” or “attacked,” and therefore did not feel safe.

Yet “safety” is rarely defined or contextualized – and in the context of explicitly racial content, what feels safe for White students is presumed to feel safe for students of Color. Some scholars responded to the expectation that safety be a prerequisite by problematizing its very definition and questioning the fundamental premise that these spaces can or should be safe to begin with (Jones 1999, 2001; Schick 2000; Leonardo & Porter, 2010). For many students and instructors of Color the classroom is a hostile space virtually all of the time, and especially so when the topic addressed is race (Boler 2004; Crozier & Davies 2008; Ellsworth 1989; Leonardo & Porter 2010). In practice, the expectation that safety can be created in racial discussions through procedural guidelines blocks students of Color from naming the racial violence they experience on a daily basis, as well as the racial violence they experience in the discussion itself. In other words, “safety” is always most particularly White safety (Leonardo & Porter, 2010). Adding a layer of complexity, the discourse of safety that I problematize surfaces in the classroom as a primarily White middle-class female discourse.

Anderson (2003) argues that a goal of Whiteness studies is to destabilize White identity – to challenge it by exposing the mechanisms and sites of racial domination. Using Gee’s (1999) definition of meaning as situated in specific social practices and transformed (or reinstated) through those practices, I will address White concerns with safety, particularly concerns of White middle-class women, in the context of racial discussions. I argue through the framing of racial discussions as violent and unsafe spaces, Whites seek to reinstate the racial equilibrium that is destabilized by the discussion, while simultaneously rousing a collection of interrelated racial discourses that function together to protect and reproduce White supremacy. My organizing question is: How does White positioning of interracial discussions as unsafe function racially?

Author

• Robin DiAngelo, Westfield State University