Privilege, Power, Difference & Teaching for Social Justice

In Privilege, Power, and Difference, sociologist Allan G. Johnson argues that the ongoing issue of difference and inequity in our society is due to society's inability to confront them both individually and collectively. Some of the key quotes that stood out to me in this reading are: 

• "The purpose is to change how we think so we can change how we act, and by changing how we participate in the world, become part of the complex dynamic through which the world itself will change" (Johnson, Introduction).

Shifting one's mindset is the first step in bringing about impactful change on an individual level to inspire societal change.

• "...if we dispense with the words [racism, white, white racism] we make it impossible to talk about what's really going on and what it has to do with us. And if we can't do that, then we can't see what the problems are or how we might make ourselves part of the solution to them..." (Johnson 2).

Our society consistently fails to address the elephants in the room. We act as if we do not speak about specific issues; they will simply disappear, which, as time tells us, is not the case. In the rare instances in which issues of inequality are discussed, we beat around the bush, acting as though terms like sexism, transphobia, and racism are akin to how characters in the Harry Potter series behave about who that shall not be named.

• "...you can't deal with a problem if you don't name it; once you name it, you can think, talk, and write about it. You can make sense of it by seeing how it's connected to other things that explain it and point toward solutions," (Johnson 11).

This quote is reminiscent of the Take a Stand activity we engaged in during Tuesday's class. During the activity, there were several moments where we, as a collective and as individuals, were forced to engage in difficult conversations where we had to sit with and name what we were feeling and why exactly we felt uncomfortable or defensive. Naming our discomfort and identifying why we felt the way we did was powerful and an excellent opportunity for self-reflection and communal understanding.

The article titled Teaching for Social Justice argues that "schools and classrooms should be laboratories for a more just society than the one we currently live in." Some of the key quotes that stood out to me in this reading are:

• "Too many schools fail to confront the racial, class, and gender inequities woven into our social fabric. Teachers are simultaneously perpetrators and victims, with little control over planning time, class size, or broader school policies," (Teaching for Social Justice).

• "...for too long teachers have been preached at by theoreticians, well removed from classrooms, who are short on jargon and short on specific examples...critical teaching requires vision, support, and resources, not magic" (Teaching for Social Justice).

• "...a social justice curriculum must strive to include the lives of all those in our society, especially the marginalized and dominated" (Teaching for Social Justice).