Readings Pt. 1 – Lived Experience
The readings in this course have been focused largely on highlighting and analyzing the systems of power and oppression which operate as invisible causes, yet openly and visibly in terms of consequence and the perpetuated conditions which characterize the lived experiences of underrepresented groups. As Rothenberg and Hsu Accomando state in their book Race, Class, and Gender in the United Sates, “How we define a problem affects how we imagine solutions and how we try to implement them… Only when we appreciate the subtle and complex factors that combine to create a society in which wealth, privilege, and opportunity are unequally apportioned will we be able to formulate viable proposals for bringing about social justice.”
People who actively decide to walk through the doors of an organization with which they are unfamiliar come with their own hopes, apprehensions, cultural beliefs, fears of judgment – much of which are legitimately based upon a self-awareness of themselves in spaces where they have historically lacked power. This also applies to those who choose NOT to walk through the doors of an organization or are reluctant to work in partnership without a relationship having been mindfully built.
Consider Cottom’s “When You Forget to Whistle Vivaldi” and the burden placed on a member of a marginalized group to signal that one is not a threat to others of the dominant group – a burden that requires one’s own vigilance and hyperawareness of the negative beliefs about the group to which they belong and the consequent internalization of those harmful perceptions.
1. Tressie McMillan Cottom: “When You Forget to Whistle Vivaldi”
This next selection of readings highlights what happens when a dominant group believes that everyone walks through life the same as they do. Diversity of thought may sound like an enlightened pursuit, but it actually seeks to nullify the value of lived experience – experiences which actually do shape how we think and the extent to which those thoughts allow us to be broad-minded and anticipatory of situations, encounters, risks, and very real dangers to human life.
2. Rebekah Bastian: “Why We Need To Stop Talking About Diversity Of Thought”
- 4. Sidney Fussell: “Why Can’t This Soap Dispenser Identify Dark Skin?”
- 5. Thaddeus L. Johnson, Natasha N. Johnson: “Police Facial Recognition Technology Can’t Tell Black People Apart AI-powered facial recognition will lead to increased racial profiling”
The following three readings demonstrate Rothenberg and Hsu Accomando’s call to action:“We will have to learn to pay close attention to our own attitudes and behaviors. We will have to reevaluate every institution in society and critically appraise the ways in which each privileges some people and disadvantages others…In short, we must scrutinize every aspect of our personal, economic, political, and social life with a view to asking whose interests are served and whose rights are denied when the world is so organized.”
6. Kristin J. Anderson and Christina Hsu Accomando: “The Pitfalls of Ally Performance: Why Coalition Work Is More Effective Than Ally Theater”
- 7. Mamta Motwani Accapadi: “When White Women Cry: How White Women’s Tears Oppress Women of Color”
- 8. Karen L. Dace: “The Whiteness of Truth and the Presumption of Innocence”