Race Relations

I don't know what it is about graduate school and the field of education, but for some reason this area of study has pushed me to think and rethink about a lot of things, especially race, and race identity.

Granted, I believe that it is one of the foundational goals of education programs to challenge its students beliefs and perceptions of both themselves and others, however, is this goal always met?  One thing that quickly comes to my mind with this topic of race relations is the creation of a "safe space".  As far as I know, a safe space is one in which is created and agreed on by all participants of a conversation/discussion pertaining to the agreement that all those involved will suspend judgment and be very open and truthful in the conversation at hand.  This includes but is not limited to discussions of race, gender, social class, sexuality, and political/ideological beliefs.  In my graduate program, we were at the very least invited to be a part of this process, and some, such as myself, chose to share and engage other people in this process, while others played a more passive role.  As truthfully as I can say that I myself have indeed grown and benefited from conversations like these, I must admit that the ways in which these conversations go about and are "mediated", at least in my experience, can be random, uncomfortable, misguided and misdirected.

Let me just take another moment to re-iterate that I believe in this type of dialogue, however, I have also learned, and to be quite frank, have come to the conclusion that difficult conversations such as those about race and gender, depend greatly on the people who are involved in the discussion.  Furthermore, I believe that the way in which a conversation like this is mediated by the participants also plays a crucial role as to the final "product" of the conversation.  I hate to use such a cold, business type of word but I do believe that conversations like these should have some type of take away in which all who were involved are better for having the conversation.

In relation to these type of conversations being uncomfortable, I have come to my own personal conclusion that the predecessor to these very conversations needs to be that of some type of community building exercise/prior experience.  Trying to have a conversation about race with complete strangers (I have tried this before, with very "mixed" results, in the negative way) is near impossible for the very simple reason (in hindsight, of course) that if you do not really know the people that you are engaging in a conversation with, then it is just that much easier to make an assumption about them based on, for example, their opinions expressed in the dialogue.

Secondly, with the idea of the mediation of conversations like this in mind, I believe that it has to be a  sort of shared power, one in which all those involved become aware that it is the responsibility of everyone to regulate the flow and direction of the conversation.  This can range from keeping a conversation on track (increasingly difficult to do as the educational level of the audience also goes up) to having a member of the dialogue explain something further so as to make ideas as well as intentions clear.

I assert that these extremely difficult conversations to have are at the same time paramount in terms of getting people to understand and learn from each other better.  At the same time, though, I believe that there are things like the mediation of a discussion and the "closeness" of the participants that are involved also must be taken into serious consideration as well.  Like I was told by a professor in my teacher education program, the harsh reality is that most people will instead choose the "path of least resistance".  It's definitely much easier to just not have these types of conversations, but I do believe that we as human beings can learn from and better understand each other if we are willing to "put ourselves out there sometimes".  However, as someone (especially being white, male, and middle class) who has put them-self out there and who has challenged their own privilege, at least in terms to the reactions I get sometimes, I too contemplate in taking the road more easier traveled, even though the path of greater resistance also offers greater understanding.