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February 2008 > Events
Race, Culture and Equity Initiative Off to Auspicious Start
Large numbers of students, faculty and guests crossed campus at the start of the spring semester for presentations that addressed race and racism in education and society, part of the new Race, Culture and Equity Initiative organized by GSE faculty.
A crowd of more than 300 visited UC Berkeley’s Alumni House on January 24 to hear Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies Michael Omi discuss the inherent contradictions of a colorblind society. One week later, CSU-Montery Professor Emerita Christine Sleeter addressed ways in which racism becomes institutionalized in education and what can be done about it.
Citing historical examples — from Germany’s eugenics movement to California’s “Racial Privacy Initiative” — and sprinkling in provocative quotes — from Seinfeld’s Michael Richards, former Virginia Governor George Allen, radio personality Don Imus and others.
“New patterns of racialization are emerging that present a set of contradictions on the reigning ideology of color blindness, which are threatening to destabilize color blindness as a hegemonic common sense,” said Omi. “When do we want to notice race? When do we want to be color conscious and when do we want to be color blind?”
The recipient of UC Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award and co-author of the book, Racial Formation in the United States, Omi remarked that he found it interesting that after decades of touting color blindness as the only appropriate guide to policymaking, some political conservatives are now saying that being color conscious in policies and practices is the way to go, especially when it comes to racial and ethnic profiling to try and identify terrorist suspects.
Through illustrations and episodes, Omi suggested that new patterns and developments in racialization are emerging that may serve to destabilize the kind of color ideology of color blindness. And he was clear about what to do about it:
“Those of us challenging racial inequality need to specify with a greater clarity and consistency when, where and under what circumstances we want to be color blind and when we want to be color conscious.”
During the second presentation, Sleeter described a framework for understanding racism in schools at the individual and institutional levels.
“We have a paradox in which race is a social construction, but it has material consequences,” said Sleeter, whose research focuses on antiracist multicultural education and multicultural teacher education.
Sleeter examined the achievement gap as a material consequence of institutional racism by considering institutional barriers within schools, such as curriculum and tracking, grouping and expectations. She then offered two examples of active efforts to address racism in education: Te Kotahitanga in New Zealand, and the Social Justice Education Project from the Mexican American/Raza Studies Department in Tucson, Arizona.
The following morning, Sleeter met with GSE faculty to explore the substance and pragmatic implications of her work for the GSE.
According to professor Bruce Fuller, who co-chairs the initiative planning committee with associate professor, Patricia Baquedano-López, the talks and follow-up meeting with Sleeter were a good start in “increasing understanding and moving the big ideas to action in our classes.”
Other members of the planning committee are School of Education faculty Zeus Leonardo, Dan Perlstein, Alan Schoenfeld and Ingrid Seyer-Ochi.
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