Listen to this "Seeing White" podcast: Transformation. It is the last one in a series, so hopefully it will intrigue you enough to listen to more. Also, a special highlight on Philadelphia is included in this episode.
In the “Seeing White: Transformation” podcast episode the creator, John Biewen discusses with his co-host Chenjerai Kumanyika, two main takeaways that lend to the purpose of this blog's discourse. Biewen stated that the two lessons that he learned while creating this podcast series were eloquently put as follows: “All right, lesson number one: race, as we know it, including whiteness of course, is manmade. It's not biological, nature did not make humans into distinct “races” in anything like the way we talk about them...people constructed race with a particular agenda in mind. It was not just, you know, for fun. And this is number two. Whiteness and white supremacy were invented to justify slavery and by extension other forms of exploitation.” Suzanne Plihcik furthers this notion by stating that “it’s important that we see this creation was for the upliftment of white people, primarily the white people at the top.” This utterance was innovative and very uncommon for me to hear, but refreshing to know this revolutionary idea was finally being promulgated in our scholarly discourse. To me, White scholars discussing the taboo issues of race, diversity, and equality in our global society is very influential to me as an educator because it provides me with tremendous faith in this world improving and becoming a more welcoming, peaceful, and inclusive place for people with dark skin to dwell.
Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, posed the following question to a group of people of color in this “Transformation” podcast “what would it be like if you could simply give us feedback when we step in it, as we will, and had us receive the feedback with grace, reflect, and then seek to change the behavior? What would that be like?” And I'll never forget this man of color raised his hand and said, “it would be revolutionary.” And I was just like, wow. Revolutionary. That's a really strong word for “receive it with grace, reflect, and seek to change the behavior.” That’s how difficult we are.”This part of the podcast discussion struck me and made me desire that every White American in this country and every card-carrying member of the White race worldwide hear Biewen’s Seeing white podcast and read DiAngelo’s book, White Fragility.
scroll to the bottom to click on the podcast to hear the episode
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