For many people, especially young students, perspectives on race are deeply ingrained based on a number of factors that include one's own race, economic status and the stories and messages they heard as they grew up. We bring this background to the situations we encounter, whether these are personal experiences or stories from news sources and social media.
Sr. Tracy Kemme takes on a controversial incident in which a group of students – mostly white like herself – responded to an emotionally charged encounter. Three disparate cultural perspectives converged in a public place, with cameras there to capture it all and share it in viral videos. She notes that while regardless of how a person assesses that moment, it raises deeply rooted issues.
Her introspection as a young white woman from a privileged background is a strong witness to readers of any background to question personal, historical and societal factors that impact their perspective on race. As Sr. Kemme herself experienced in her youth, group discussions about race can be challenging, but worthy ways to stretch learners.
Invite students to think about ways they learned the truth about common childhood myths, such as the jolly man who delivers gifts with the help of reindeer, the rabbit who scatters colored eggs or the large bird who transports babies. Encourage them to share appropriate details such as:
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Who enlightened them about reality
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How old they were at the time
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How they felt when they discovered a belief was untrue
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How they felt about the people who’d shared the myth, or the person who revealed the truth
Explain that, as we mature and experience new realities, they challenge some of our long-held beliefs. Sometimes we feel embarrassed, upset or even ashamed about our past understandings, but the new knowledge leads to new growth.
Ask students to privately write down a few personal assumptions about people of other races that they have struggled with or have discovered to be untrue.
Explain to students that they'll be invited to share an item from their list, and then others will be invited to comment about that student's revelation within these simple guidelines:
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They must focus on the belief or assumption, not the student who voiced it
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Their comments must include their own thoughts on the same topic
Begin by sharing an item from your own list to model the exercise and to give students an opportunity to respond respectfully. Affirm students who share for their honesty and vulnerability. Encourage students to share, but don't require them to.
Conclude by acknowledging how hard it is to be candid about race and other difficult issues. Admit that a lot of troubling thoughts might remain unspoken and remind students that they’re welcome to raise other concerns in this setting in the future.
Invite students to pray together the peace prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O divine master, grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
to be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life
Amen.
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