Critiquing Racial Literacy: Presenting a Continuum of Racial Literacies

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Entanglements, Critiques, and Cultural Relevance (Table 1)

Abstract

Drawing from education literature that uses racial literacy, the presenter argues that some conceptual norms hinder scholars’ attempts to reveal the dominance of race-evasiveness, however unintentionally, for two reasons. First, describing people as racially literate or illiterate implies that those who adopt race-evasive or racist ideologies are not interpreting racial ideas, which overlooks that all people who live in a racist society engage in literacy practices that make meaning of race. Second, construing racial literacy strictly as antiracist obscures that making meaning of race can be done through hegemonic ideologies. This accepted conceptualization may stymie useful analyses of hegemonic ideologies that predominate in U.S. society, schools, and curriculum. The speaker presents a continuum of racial literacies and discusses critical-racial consciousness.

Author

• Laura Carolina Chavez-Moreno, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author