ABSTRACT
Navigating the contours of race and racism in the classroom can be very daunting and challenging. This is because any such discussion ultimately involves an examination of the history of racism in modernity and the institutional enactment of racial injustice against people of color in contemporary society. And such discussions can be very unsettling and uncomfortable, both for White students and for students of color. For White students—or, at least, some of them—talk of racial injustice is seen as an indictment of Whites generally and they themselves personally. Some White students have considerable difficulty accepting the brutal fact of White racism and White racial privilege, and how their lives are (in)directly implicated in it. And, for students of color, especially Blacks, such discussions confirm and validate their beliefs about the ubiquity and all-pervasiveness of racial injustice to which they are subject, directly or indirectly, as a lived reality, and for which they are always demanding some form of rectification. How then does one teach about such a sensitive topic of race and racism without alienating White students, on the one hand, and without negating, invalidating, or minimizing the experiences of students of color, on the other hand?
