The Wabash Center's Dialogue On Teaching

Episode 89 - Personal Agency Needed for Anti-Racist Work: Melanie Harris and Jennifer Harvey

July 22, 2021 The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion Season 1 Episode 89
The Wabash Center's Dialogue On Teaching
Episode 89 - Personal Agency Needed for Anti-Racist Work: Melanie Harris and Jennifer Harvey
Show Notes

This podcast was originally featured as a webinar with Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield, Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University), and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University). White America must challenge its high capacity to tolerate racism, to overlook racist acts, and to look past racist behaviors. Personal agency is required to become anti-racist. Disrupting systemic racism requires a shift in public policies as well as a rethinking of institutional norms, traditions, and procedures. These shifts require the work of dedicated people. Equally, personal agency is required to genuinely welcome persons targeted by racism. To shift personal and familial attitudes, beliefs and behaviors persons must speak out for justice. This requires education and action. Our questions for this webinar:
• If racism is so pervasive as to be like “smog in the air” (Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum) – how do we identify acts of racism?
• What does it mean to be complicit with racism?
• What kind of listening is needed to become anti-racist?
• Is there such-a-thing as “microaggression?”