Racially Motivated: Navigating Conversations Around Race in Predominantly White Classrooms

ABSTRACT

In the fall of 2021, an engaged group of NYU graduate students assembled to discuss Angie Thomas’ YA novel The Hate U Give. The class was composed of one Black student among a group of white students. On the night the group discussed The Hate U Give, the freedom of discourse broke down significantly. The white students became terrified of saying anything that could be perceived as racist, while the Black student felt resentful that she should be expected to ‘teach’ the rest of the group about being Black in America. In this article, the white professor and the single Black student in the class reflect on what factors disrupted the group from having a meaningful conversation about race. The piece aims to help both Black and white students and educators more successfully navigate difficult conversations centred around race.  

KEYWORDS:

• Racial literacy
• trauma informed pedagogy
• The Hate U Give
• stereotype threat
• white privilege
• white silence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I sometimes joke about this fact with my current students. The irony is rich.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adam Wolfsdorf

Adam Wolfsorf is an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education and a Visiting Assistant Professor in Wesleyan University’s Graduate Liberal Studies Program. He is an original founder and the Humanities Department Chair at Bay Ridge Preparatory. Wolfsdorf holds a PhD in English Education from Columbia University, where he served as the Coordinator of the INSTEP Master’s program. He has published extensively in Changing English, The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, English Education, English Journal, and The Columbia Literary Journal. Dr. Wolfsdorf has book chapters in Humanizing Grief in Higher Education (Routledge) and Deep Reading, Volume 2 (Peter Lang). Wolfsdorf has a book, Navigating Trauma in the English Classroom, with NCTE. Outside of the English classroom, Wolfsdorf has performed professionally for 25-years. He appeared in the national tours of the Broadway musicals RENT (with Neil Patrick Harris) and Grease. He fronts the nationally touring rock band, The Energy (MTV, NBC, ABC, and ESPN). Wolfsdorf received his MA in Psychology and Education from Columbia University, and holds a BA in English from Harvard University.

DaMonique Ballou

DaMonique Ballou writes personal essays and plays, studies English and theatre, and facilitates learning environments for others to question their linguistic choices and write their stories. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with a B.A. in American Studies. She used her degree to understand how theatre influences the creation of identity and culture, which led her to pursue a masters at New York University’s Program for Educational Theatre and English. As an undergrad, Ballou worked as a Writing Fellow and continues to do so as the coordinator for her alma mater’s undergraduate Writing and Speaking Programs. She’s been named an Anna Quindlen '74 Barnard College Writing Fellow, for her work as a writing fellow; is a member of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship; and in 2016-17 was a Sadie Nash ELLA Fellow, where she first started developing curricula to teach theatre.