great book
It's been in the last few years that God's brought to my attention something I hadn't really grown up thinking much about: the issue of racism in America. I think like many white folks in Nebraska, and throughout a lot of the Midwest, I spent most of my life blissfully unaware of this thing, this wound in my country, and God's beginning to allow me to see it with new eyes. I'd already begun thinking about it before I moved to Memphis, but living here has opened my eyes even more to how painfully real a problem it is.
I came across this really amazing and enlightening book a few years ago, browsing Barnes & Noble in Pennsylvania in between selling books door-to-door. I picked it up after thumbing through it, and years later I'm giving it a more thorough reading, and I feel some of it is worth sharing. It's called, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race," by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD.
Chapter 1 begins:
Early in my teaching career, a White student I knew asked me what I would be teaching the following semester. I mentioned that I would be teaching a course on racism. She replied, with some surprise in her voice, "Oh, is there still racism?" I assured her that indeed there was and suggested that she sign up for my course. Fifteen years later, after exhaustive media coverage of events such as the Rodney King beating, the Charles Stuart and Susan Smith cases, the O.J. Simpson trial, the appeal to racial prejudices in electoral politics, and the bitter debates about affirmative action and welfare reform, it seems hard to imagine that anyone would still be unaware of the reality of racism in our society. But in fact, in almost every audience I address, there is someone who will suggest that racism is a thing of the past. There is always someone who hasn't noticed the stereotypical images of people of color in the media, who hasn't observed the housing discrimination in their community, who hasn't read the newspaper articles about documented racial bias in lending practices among well-known banks, who isn't aware of the racial tracking pattern at the local school, who hasn't seen the reports of rising incidents of racially motivated hate crimes in America - in short, someone who hasn't been paying attention to issues of race. But if you are paying attention, the legacy of racism is not hard to see, and we are all affected by it.
I came across this really amazing and enlightening book a few years ago, browsing Barnes & Noble in Pennsylvania in between selling books door-to-door. I picked it up after thumbing through it, and years later I'm giving it a more thorough reading, and I feel some of it is worth sharing. It's called, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race," by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD.
Chapter 1 begins:
Early in my teaching career, a White student I knew asked me what I would be teaching the following semester. I mentioned that I would be teaching a course on racism. She replied, with some surprise in her voice, "Oh, is there still racism?" I assured her that indeed there was and suggested that she sign up for my course. Fifteen years later, after exhaustive media coverage of events such as the Rodney King beating, the Charles Stuart and Susan Smith cases, the O.J. Simpson trial, the appeal to racial prejudices in electoral politics, and the bitter debates about affirmative action and welfare reform, it seems hard to imagine that anyone would still be unaware of the reality of racism in our society. But in fact, in almost every audience I address, there is someone who will suggest that racism is a thing of the past. There is always someone who hasn't noticed the stereotypical images of people of color in the media, who hasn't observed the housing discrimination in their community, who hasn't read the newspaper articles about documented racial bias in lending practices among well-known banks, who isn't aware of the racial tracking pattern at the local school, who hasn't seen the reports of rising incidents of racially motivated hate crimes in America - in short, someone who hasn't been paying attention to issues of race. But if you are paying attention, the legacy of racism is not hard to see, and we are all affected by it.