Course Delivery
Resource: Kandaswamy, Priya. (2007) "Beyond Colorblindness and Multiculturalism: Rethinking Anti-Racist Pedagogy in the University Classroom." Radical Teacher, no. 80, 6-11
Description: Kandaswamy grapples with the supposedly ‘inclusive’ practices of colorblindness and multiculturalism, explaining how each re-centers the white experience by not confronting racialized structures of power. Instead of these methods, she advocates for anti-racist teaching that decenters White experience by not ruminating on White privilege but addressing it and moving on, and to organize a course by thinking of what those “most marginalized by structures of race, gender, sexuality and capitalism would learn” in the class, even if those students are not necessarily present, since a focus on only the students already in the class can be dangerous in a predominantly white institution (11). Kandaswamy provides several examples of how she materializes these ideas in her teaching of a class on race, gender, and the politics of social welfare in the U.S., explaining the ways in which student responses across several settings (a liberal arts college, an urban state university, and a research university) reveal strategies for anti-racist teaching that dissects rather than reifies “common-sense” understandings about race and gender based in racist institutions (8). This article pushes professors who have settled into multiculturalism or colorblindness as a solution to racism beyond these frameworks into an explicit address of racialized power structures within their classrooms, offering empathy, support, and strategies along with a challenge to ultimately center students of color in anti-racist teaching.
Reflection Questions:
- Where in classroom discussions might you encounter different forms of resistance to anti-racist pedagogy, and how might you address them?
- How can you move beyond simply including sources by authors of color towards a framework that explicitly addresses racialized systems of power in your discussions?