The Unexamined Whiteness of Leadership

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The Unexamined Whiteness of Leadership
How Seemingly Innocent Understandings Maintain
Racial Inequality Julie McCann Director
of Licensure Oregon Teacher Standards and
Practices Julie.McCann_at_state.or.us
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The Tenth Principal

• Democracy and equityThe school should
  demonstrate non-discriminatory and inclusive
  policies, practices, and pedagogies. It should
  model democratic practices that involve all who
  are directly affected by the school. The school
  should honor diversity and build on the strength
  of its communities, deliberately and explicitly
  challenging all forms of inequity.

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Group Agreements

• Stay Engaged.
• Speak your truth.
• Experience discomfort.
• Expect and accept non-closure.
• From Courageous Conversations About Race
  Singleton and Linton

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Essential Question

• How does understanding the importance of unearned
  White privilege help White people be better
  leaders in education and the world?

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Definition
White privilege is a sociological concept that
describes advantages purportedly enjoyed by white
persons beyond that which is commonly experienced
by non-white people in those same social,
political, and economic spaces (nation,
community, workplace, income, etc.). It differs
from racism or prejudice in that a person
benefiting from white privilege may not
necessarily hold racist beliefs or prejudices
themselves. Often, the person benefiting is
unaware of his or her supposed privilege.
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Leadership is influence.
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White Spaces

• My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself
  as an oppressor as an unfairly advantaged
  person, or as a participant in a damaged culture.
  I was taught to see myself as an individual
  whose moral state depended on her individual
  moral will. (p.4)
• Peggy McIntosh

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Chalk Talk Being White in the US?
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• If white people only confront those issues on a
  cognitive basis, they will wind up as hostages to
  political correctness. They will be careful
  about what they say, but their actions will be
  rigid and self-conscious. When the process is
  emotional as well as cognitive, the state of
  being an ally becomes a matter of reclaiming
  ones own humanity. The movement to a global,
  ethnic point of view requires tremendous
  grieving. - Lillian Roybal Rose

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• Leadership for Equity means taking small steps as
  well as leading for transformation.
• How could you interrupt the status quo and
  advocate for equity when you over-hear a staff
  member making any of the following statements?

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• What white liberals must understand is that
  people of color owe us nothing.
• They dont owe us gratitude when we speak out
  against racism.
• They dont owe us a pat on the back.
• They dont owe us a goddamned
• thing . . .

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• And if all they do
• is respond to our efforts
• with a terse
• about time,
• Then thats too bad.
• Get over it!
• Tim Wise, White Like Me pp. 98

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How do you want to play YOUR Race Card?
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Transforming White Consciousnessaccording to
Cynthia Kaufman

• READ
• Inform yourself
• Dont make people of color educate you
• Watch out for your resistance to new learning
• Take the initiative to learn with others
• Read novels of people of color,
• Study sociological, political and historical
  works that take racism seriously

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Transforming White Consciousnessaccording to
Cynthia Kaufman

• Listen
• Talk with people of color about racism
• Expect their hesitation and mistrust for they are
  likely to suspect you want to affirm your own
  view of reality
• Allow your world view to be disrupted by
  different perspectives
• Ask questions and really listen for the answer

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Transforming White Consciousnessaccording to
Cynhia Kaufman

• Be Humble
• Be open to the possibility that much of what you
  take for granted as building blocks of your world
  view are likely to be shattered
• Try to get used to being in situations where you
  feel oddly and unexpectedly ignorant, exposed,
  vulnerable, and just plain uncomfortable.

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Action Oriented

• This is not knowledge for the sake of knowledge,
  this is knowledge for the sake of action.
• What action will you take?