Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id f114Gq922811; Wed, 31 Jan 2001 23:16:52 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 23:16:52 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <008c01c08c05$ad330120$23bffea9@hppav> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Mary Ann Corley" <macorley1@earthlink.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:386] More on the construct of race--x-posted from the womenlit list X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 Status: O Content-Length: 4153 Lines: 94 Again, as promised, at the end of the day, I am collapsing into one message the dialogue that has been taking place on the nifl-womenlit listserv on the subject of 'race.' Daphne Greenberg ended the day's exchange with the following question: I wonder how this gets further complicated when we look at how race and gender intersect, and then what implications this all has for the literacy classroom? Let's hear from some of you-what are your thoughts on the subject? Feel free to join the discussion. -Mary Ann Corley Director, National Center for Literacy and Social Justice macorley1@earthlink.net ****************************************** Daphne Greenberg wrote: . . . I definitely associate more with my ethnicity than I do with my skin color. However, I also know that people first see my skin color before they know my ethnicity. By seeing my color, they make immediate unconscious and conscious decisions and judgments about me. Therefore, I think that frank discussions on race, at least in our society, is critical and essential. Perhaps one day we can move beyond race, but before we do so, I think that we first have to label it and fully discuss what race means in our culture. ------------------------------------ Andrea Wilder wrote: I am with you as long as we put "race" in parentheses. There is no white "race." There is white skin color. Table the word "race" and make it clear that you are tabling it when it comes up. Or, you could discuss "race" as a code word that stands for the relations between people with black skin and those with white skin in this culture, the slaves and lower caste people and the owners or higher caste people. That's really what it stands for. That's how the Irish and the Jews became white--got more money, moved out of a lower caste. The only way we can get rid of "race" is when people with black skin get more money. -------------------------------------- Daphne Greenberg responded: It has got to be more complicated than obtaining money. Unless, it is a critical mass that needs to earn money in order for their group to become "White". Also, Jews who are Black are not considered "White." ----------------------------------- Andrea Wilder wrote: Black Jews in my minyan are considered white by fellow Jews. Yes, I think it is a critical mass that needs to have money. Money = power. . . ----------------------------------- Sue Taylor wrote: What seems to be happening here is that white has become the composite political term for 'other', that is, other than black. For a long time 'black' has been taken to mean any one who is not white, irrespective of ethnic group, religion and so on and your discussion indicates the same thing is happening to 'white'. This kind of reasoning does not appear to have hit the UK yet, but I am sure it will in due course. I do have some problems with the assumption that individuals who have money are no longer victims of oppression. And again I do not believe that everyone who is black or poor (white poor or black poor) is oppressed. Poor people can oppress other poor people and so on. This discussion is about how we read someone's identity. To add a controversial note: the recent murder of a young black African boy Damiola Taylor exposed a rift between different black communities in the UK. To some people it came as quite a surprise that there wasn't this homogenous black grouping. In fact it is no more possible to have a reductionist categorization of black than it is of white. ------------------------------- Andrea Wilder responded: . . . There are a lot of variables that we didn't control for in the discussion, and if it became reductionist, it was, to perhaps the most salient fracture in our society. I worked once for a Jewish Cuban principal who called me "white." I am, he is also, so there is sociology at work. For me, as a white person, to step over a line and look at differences within the black community, in public, is almost forbidden at this time, though of course I am aware of them. I can only ask questions. It is a most difficult subject and one that requires great respect.
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