ABSTRACT
Teaching about race and racism often presents a range of challenges and difficulties. One such challenge is the prevailing ideology of color-blind racism which Seems like “racism lite.” Nonconfrontational by nature, comfort-zone racism relies on avoiding confrontation with people or facts perceived as threatening one’s comfort zone of race. People who look, speak, and otherwise carry themselves in a way that makes them appear foreign to White comfort often face exclusion in the form of polite silence or dismissal rather than aggression. Though not unique to Minnesota, comfort-zone racism presents a particular challenge, which manifests differently for faculty with varying identities, for teaching about race and racism. Students, especially some White students, may take the existence of White privilege more seriously when it is pointed out by a professor who is like them.
