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Readings for Diversity and Social Justice

Second Edition '.-

....

Edited by

Maurianne Adams, Warren J. Blumenfeld, Carmelita (Rosie) Castaneda,

Heather W. Hackman, Madeline L. Peters, and Ximena Zuniga

I~ ~~~:!r:n~s~~up NEW YORK AND LONDON

SECTION 1

NCEPTUAL FRAMEWO KS

Introduction

Maurianne Adams

~CJcic1.J div~rsity and so_cialjLf~ti~e c3:~e often used interchangeably to refer to social differences as well as to social inequality. These two terms are closely related but not interchangeable. When we refer to social diversity, we have in mind differences between social identity groups based on social categories such as race, gender, sexuality, and class. These differences are reflected in a group's traditions, language, style of dress, cultural practices, religious beliefs and rituals, and these are usually termed "differences" from some norm that is privileged. It is difficult to perceive oneself, one's family and group traditions, language, style of dress as part of diversity-rather, the norm shapes one's notion of the "differences" of others, who are marginalized precisely because they are different. In this sense, it is clear why diversity ("difference") profoundly shapes the advantages of some groups (those who are part of the norm) relative to the disadvantages of others (because they are "other") and maintains social inequalities that are rationalized on the basis of these differences. We also use terms such as oppression and social justice to emphasize our focus on inequality as something more than difference.

Thus, although these terms are not interchangeable, they are inextricably linked in everyday discourse in that diversity is too often used to provide an excuse or justification for inequality. It's much more comfortable to talk about diversity than inequality, although clearly we need to understand both. We need to appreciate and value social and cultural differences, if we are to envision a society that acknowledges and appreciates such differences, by de-centering the norm. At the same time, the appreciation of social diversity is a necessary but not sufficient step to understanding the inequalities experienced by peoples of marginalized social groups. It is necessary to understand injustice if we are ever to dismantle the institutions and policies that maintain injustice and to reconstruct institutions and policies based on fairness, equity, and justice. As Young suggests (in selection 5), our challenge is to appreciate social diversity while working to dismantle social inequality.

Several key assumptions inform our perspective throughout this volume, and we identify . them in this section as a cluster of four interrelated conceptual frameworks. Our core assump- tions are presented in the General Introduction, and include our awareness that social identity groups occupy unequal social locations or positions relative to each other (that is, one group's

.· privileges are directly related to another group's disadvantages). This awareness leads us to the following four concepts: (1) social group identities (such as racial and gender identities) have been used historically to justify and perpetuate the advantages of privileged groups relative to

/ the disadvantages of marginalized groups; (2) these social identities, together with their relative : inequality, have been socially constructed within specific historical conditions, although these

social constructions are often rationalized as being derived from the "facts of nature" or sustained

THE COMPLEXITY OF IDENTITY I 5

References Freire, P. (1994, 1970). Pedagogy of the Oppression (new revised edition). New York: Continuum. Hardiman, R., Jackson, B., Griffin, P. (2007). "Conceptual Foundations for Social Justice Education." In

M. Adams, L. A. Bell, P. Griffin (eds), Teaching tor Diversity and Social Justice, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge. pp. 35-66.

Young, I. M. (1990). "Introduction, Displacing the Distributive Paradigm, Five Faces of Oppression." In Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 3-65.

Young, I. M. (2001). "Equality of Whom? Social Groups and Judgments of Injustice." Journal of Political Philosophy 9 (1), 1-18.

1

The Complexity of Identity

"Who Am I?"

Beverly Daniel Tatum

The concept of identity is a complex one, shaped by individual characteristics, family dynamics, historical factors, and social and political contexts. Who am I? The answer depends in large part on who the world around me says I am. Who do my parents say I am? Who do my peers say I am? What message is reflected back to me in the faces and voices of my teachers, my neighbors, store clerks? What do I learn from the media about myself? How am I represented in the cultural images around me? Or am I missing from the picture altogether? ... What has my social context been? Was I surrounded by people like myself, or was I part of a minority in my community? Did I grow up speaking standard English at home or another language or dialect? Did I live in a rural county, an urban neighborhood, a sprawling suburb, or on a reservation?

Who I am ( or say I am) is a product of these and many other factors. Erik Erikson, the psychoanalytic theorist who coined the term identity crisis, introduced the notion that the social, cultural, and historical context is the ground in which individual identity is embed- ded. Acknowledging the complexity of identity as a concept, Erikson writes,

We deal with a process "located" in the core of the individual and yet also in the core of his communal culture . ... In psychological terms, identity formation employs a process of simultaneous reflection and observation, a process taking place on all levels of mental functioning, by which the individual judges himself in the light of what he perceives to be the way in which others judge him in comparison to themselves and to a typology significant to them.

6 I CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

WHO AM I? MULTIPLE IDENTITIES

Integrating one's past, present, and future into a cohesive, unified sense of self is a complex task that begins in adolescence and continues for a lifetime .... The salience of particular aspects of our identity varies at different moments in our lives. The process of integrating the component parts of our self-definition is indeed a lifelong journey.

Which parts of our identity capture our attention first? While there are surely idiosyn- cratic responses to this question, a classroom exercise I regularly use with my psychol- ogy students reveals a telling pattern. I ask my students to complete the sentence, "I am _____ ," using as many descriptors as they can think of in sixty seconds. All kinds of trait descriptions are used-friendly, shy, assertive, intelligent, honest, and so on-but over the years I have noticed something else. Students of color usually mention their racial or ethnic group: for instance, I am Black, Puerto Rican, Korean American. White students who have grown up in strong ethnic enclaves occasionally mention being Irish or Italian. But in general, White students rarely mention being White. When I use this exercise in coeducational settings, I notice a similar pattern in terms of gender, religion, and sexuality. Women usually mention being female, while men don't usually mention their maleness. Jewish students often say they are Jews, while mainline Protestants rarely mention their religious identification. A student who is comfortable revealing it publicly may mention being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Though I know most of my students are heterosexual, it is very unusual for anyone to include their heterosexuality on their list.

Common across these examples is that in the areas where a person is a member of the dominant or advantaged social group, the category is usually not mentioned. That element of their identity is so taken for granted by them that it goes without comment. It is taken for granted by them because it is taken for granted by the dominant culture. In Eriksonian terms, their inner experience and outer circumstance are in harmony with one another, and the image reflected by others is similar to the image within. In the absence of dissonance, this dimension of identity escapes conscious attention.

The parts of our identity that do capture our attention are those that other people notice, and that reflect back to us. The aspect of identity that is the target of others' attention, and subsequently of our own, often is that which sets us apart as exceptional or "other" in their eyes. In my life I have been perceived as both. A precocious child who began to read at age three, I stood out among my peers because of my reading ability. This "gifted" dimension of my identity was regularly commented upon by teachers and classmates alike, and quickly became part of my self-definition. But I was also distinguished by being the only Black student in the class, an "other," a fact I grew increasingly aware of as I got older.

While there may be countless ways one might be defined as exceptional, there are at least seven categories of "otherness" commonly experienced in U.S. society. People are commonly defined as other on the basis of race or ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orienta- tion, socioeconomic status, age, and physical or mental ability. Each of these categories has a form of oppression associated with it: racism, sexism, religious oppression/anti-Semitism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, and ableism, respectively. In each case, there is a group considered dominant (systematically advantaged by the society because of group member- ship) and a group considered subordinate or targeted (systematically disadvantaged). When we think about our multiple identities, most of us will find that we are both dominant and targeted at the same time. But it is the targeted identities that hold our attention and the dominant identities that often go unexamined.

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION I xxxi

must also present pathways of hope by acknowledging the role of social movements in U.S. history and the many contemporary opportunities to participate in social change.

A further innovation in this edition is the website, which provides additional resources, curricula and discussion questions, and ideas for action and application for each of the sections and suggests further avenues for exploring a number of related topics. The website is organized by section and each section website is organized by three subheaders: Further Resources (readings, internet links, films, and videos); Curriculum, Activities, Discussion Questions (materials and handouts to foster an interactive approach to course pedagogy); Action and Next Steps (examples of action projects being taken nationally by coalitions and action groups, internet links to organizations engaged with social action). The section website for "Conceptual Frameworks" provides examples of discussion and review ques- tions and exam rubrics that we can recommend for instructional use. And for instructors, especially, who want to know more about the interactive, experiential, dialogic pedagogies used by the editors of this volume in our classrooms throughout the United States, we recommend Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice (second edition, 2007) as a resource. We have incorporated some of the resources and pedagogical activities from this book and its accompanying CD-ROM into a number of the section websites.

The alphabetically organized Permission Acknowledgments at the rear of the book is the only bibliographical citation provided for all of the reading selections. Readers wanting to track citations, notes, and references that were cut from the reading selections because of space constraints will be able to use this to enable them to follow-up on the readings. We did not cut intext page references for direct quotations, although the full citations appear only in the Permission Acknowledgments at the back of the book.

We offer this book for use by different readers in many settings and situations. We use these readings in our own general education and graduate diversity classes and in graduate and undergraduate weekend seminars, in teacher education classes, and in mul- ticultural education classes on our own campuses and communities in California, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Wyoming. We know that the earlier edition has been used in many other settings-in ethnic and women's studies, history, social studies, sociology and psychology courses, in social work and management, and in centers for teaching excellence-wherever there is an interest in the broad range of human experiences that have been shaped by social difference and by privilege or disadvantage. We anticipate that these reading selections will be understood differently, as readers them- selves have had similar or dissimilar experiences. Our intention and hope is that they will provide opportunities for personal thought and reflection, empathy, connection, and discussion.

References

Adams, M., Bell, L. A., Griffin, P. (eds) (2007). Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.

Lorde, A. (1983). "There is No Hierarchy of Oppressions.'.' Interracial Books for Children Bulletin 14 (3-4), 9.

THE COMPLEXITY OF IDENTITY I 7

DOMINATION AND SUBORDINATION

Dominant groups, by definition, set the parameters within which the subordinates oper- ate. The dominant group holds the power and authority in society relative to the subordi- nates and determines how that power and authority may be acceptably used. Whether it is reflected in determining who gets the best jobs, whose history will be taught in school, or whose relationships will be validated by society, the dominant group has the greatest influence in determining the structure of the society.

The relationship of the dominants to the subordinates is often one in which the targeted group is labeled as defective or substandard in significant ways. For example, Blacks have historically been characterized as less intelligent than Whites, and women have been viewed as less emotionally stable than men. The dominant group assigns roles to the subordinate that reflect the latter's devalued status, reserving the most highly valued roles in the society for themselves. Subordinates are usually said to be innately incapable of performing the preferred roles. To the extent that those in the target group internalize the images that the dominant group reflects back to them, they may find it difficult to believe in their own ability.

The dominant group is seen as the norm for humanity .... Consequently, it remains per- fectly acceptable in many circles to tell jokes that denigrate a particular group, to exclude subordinates from one's neighborhood or work setting, or to oppose initiatives that might change the power balance.

The truth is that the dominants do not really know what the experience of the sub- ordinates is. In contrast, the subordinates are very well informed about the dominants. Even when firsthand experience is limited by social segregation, the number and variety of images of the dominant group available through television, magazines, books, and newspapers provide subordinates with plenty of information about the dominants. The dominant worldview has saturated the culture for all to learn. Even the Black or Latino child living in a segregated community can enter White homes of many kinds daily via the media. However, dominant access to information about the subordinates is often limited to stereotypical depictions of the "other." For example, there are many images of heterosexual relations on television, but very few images of gay or lesbian domestic partnerships beyond the caricatures of comedy shows. There are many images of White men and women in all forms of media, but relatively few portrayals of people of color.

In a situation of unequal power, a subordinate group has to focus on survival. It becomes very important for subordinates to become highly attuned to the dominants as a way of protecting themselves. For example, women who have been battered by men often talk about the heightened sensitivity they develop to their partners' moods. Being able to anticipate and avoid the men's rage is important to survival.

Survival sometimes means not responding to oppressive behavior directly. To do so could result in physical harm to oneself, even death ....

The use of either strategy, attending very closely to the dominants or not attending at all, is costly to members of the targeted group. "Not-learning" may mean there are needed skills that are not acquired. Attending closely to the dominant group may leave little time or energy to attend to one's self. Worse yet, the negative messages of the dominant group about the subordinates may be internalized, leading to self-doubt or, in its extreme form, self-hate. There are many examples of subordinates attempting to make themselves over in the image of the dominant group-Jewish people who want to change the Semitic look

8 I CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

of their noses, Asians who have cosmetic surgery to alter the shapes of their eyes, Blacks who seek to lighten their skin with bleaching creams, women who want to smoke and drink "like a man." Whether one succumbs to the devaluing pressures of the dominant culture or successfully resists them, the fact is that dealing with oppressive systems from the underside, regardless of the strategy, is physically and psychologically taxing.

The history of subordinate groups is filled with so-called troublemakers, yet their names are often unknown. Preserving the record of those subordinates and their dominant allies who have challenged the status quo is usually of little interest to the dominant culture, but it is of great interest to subordinates who search for an empowering reflection in the societal mirror.

Many of us are both dominant and subordinate. As Audre Lorde said, from her vantage point as a Black lesbian, "There is no hierarchy of oppressions." The thread and threat of violence runs through all of the isms. There is a need to acknowledge each other's pain, even as we attend to our own.