"Come Get Your People!" White College Students' Conversations About Race With White Peers and Family

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: The Importance of Social Networks and Conversations in Diverse Political Contexts (Table 8)

Abstract

Though empirical literature has explored college classroom dialogues about race, few have explored conversations about race beyond the classroom. As beneficiaries of a dominant racial order, white people possess powerful leverage in disrupting white supremacy, which necessitates having conversations with others that engage a critical racial consciousness. Accordingly, this study explored white college students’ experiences having conversations about race with other white people. We blend a critical paradigm with one that centers Black folks’ cultured ways of knowing in the discernment of truth. Findings reveal how participants’ conversations and racial meaning-making were frequently shaped by their ruptures from Black humanity and relationships with People of Color (POC), shallow and limited engagements with race, and entitlement to racial comfort.

Authors

• Melvin A. Whitehead, Binghamton University - SUNY
  Presenting Author

• Michaela Reynolds
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jarvis Marlow-McCowin, Binghamton University
  Non-Presenting Author