Words or Actions: Are you racist or biased?

Words or Actions

     When I was growing up in Amarillo, my mother surprised me with the shocking revelation that my 3^rd grade teacher was not white. Unbelieving, I marched my skinny legs back to the school to confront my teacher. “Mrs. Avery, my momma says that you’re black.” (That’s the language we used back then if you remember the 60’s.) “I told her she was lyin’ ‘bout you!” The teacher grinned, chuckled, and taught me another lesson. “Honey, your momma is right. I am black. But that doesn’t really matter in third grade, does it?”

I attended a recruiting event recently. In the back of the room, I met two timid, yet articulate and passionate women of color. They didn’t have an invitation to the event, but they took a risk to seek out those in leadership about how they could become involved in serving the organization. Of course they were welcomed, but perhaps I was reminded of our responsibility and the moral imperative to seek out and develop those who can serve the changing demographic needs of our society. 

After reflecting with a friend, she shared an analogy presented by her mother, “I am never unaware of being a woman. When I wake, I have specific garments that define my gender. There are cycles and activities only a woman enjoys.” To those who are minorities around us, surrounded by faces and cultures so unlike theirs, are they ever unaware of their differences? I'm pretty sure that some are never unaware that I am white, even if I wasn't raised to see them any differently than myself. 

Tracy Winstead, of Northside ISD in San Antonio, shared her Diamond re-certification research about Culturally Responsive Teaching last week. Brilliant. She encourages us to examine our own Cultural Reference Points to become more aware of our own - even unintentional - biases. "Some of this is voluntary until you encounter a situation where you are 'exposed' to yourself. It's not racist, but it is bias," Tracy Winstead. 

Here are the handouts to the session, bibliography included.  Ignore or forgive my notes.