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Centering/Burdening: A Dialogical Resource on Racism, Anti-Racism, and Pedagogy

Centering/Burdening

A Dialogical Resource on Racism, Anti-Racism, and Pedagogy
 

What happens when classes that center narratives of racial marginalization thrust students of color into the position of teaching their experiences of oppression to others? This resource features the collaborative work of a group of current and former Barnard students who came together in the summer of 2021 to examine this question. Developed during a time in which many colleges and universities have claimed anti-racism as an institutional value, this document takes the question above as a point of departure for exploring a range of issues related to belonging, care, power, and social positionality in college classrooms today.

This resource is intended to be useful to any instructor who is committed to critically evaluating, developing, and sharing practices for anti-oppressive teaching. We recommend beginning with Alex Pittman's introduction (Tensions of Anti-Racism) and concluding with the students' coda (Toward Horizontal Models of Transformation). Each of the four subsections—"Non/Belonging in the Classroom," "Student Power and Privilege," "Instructor Position and Power," and "Caring Practices in Teaching"—takes a different angle on a set of overlapping concerns and can be engaged in any order.

The authors of this resource are (in alphabetical order by last name) Elysa Caso-McHugh, Tapiwa Gambura, Rivka Keshen, Kayla Leong, Sabrina McFarland, Solace Mensah-Nahr, Ananya Natchukuri, Areej Qadeer, Mariame Sissoko, and Kylie Tangonan.

Belonging, Power, Positionality, and Care

A detail from Adrian Piper's "Everything #21." It features the phrase "Everything will be taken away" written 25 times in cursive (and partially erased) on a blackboard.

Tensions of Anti-Racism

“But how have these explicit commitments to inclusion, access, and anti-racist inquiry played out in the classroom?”

Lorna Simpson's Waterbearer (1986) is a photograph of a Black woman wearing a white shift dress. With her back to the camera, she pours water from two different vessels—a silver pitcher in her left hand and a plastic gallon bottle from her right. Below the image, a text reads, "She saw him disappear by the river, they asked her to tell what happened, only to discount her memory."

Non/Belonging in the Classroom

 “Students may feel more comfortable, empowered, or engaged as learners when they are made to feel that their participation matters even when they are not standing in as representatives of large groups of people.”

A detail from Glenn Ligon's Untitled (I Feel Most Colored...) (1992), a text-based work that features the phrase "I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background" screen-printed multiple times over a canvas. As the text repeats, the ink becomes heavier, blacking out the page until the text becomes illegible.

Student Power and Privilege

“A multipartial method of facilitation requires the instructor to actively acknowledge and address a power dynamic within the classroom…”

A screen capture from Brendan Fernandes's performance Foe (2008), in which the artist recites passages from JM Coetzee's Robinson Crusoe while a voice instructor, positioned off screen, repeatedly interrupts him to correct his pronunciation,

Instructor Position and Power

 “...sharing your experience and how it informs your approach to the class content, as well as being honest about your privileges and powers, can allow you to position yourself within the learning environment and not above it or your students.”

Danica Knezevic's Creation of a Carer (2016) is a photograph of the artist's outstretched arms and hands. Knezevic's art explores the negotiations between self and other in the context of care work.

Caring Practices in Teaching

“While students’ academic success is a prominent priority at a college campus, we claim that academic success isn’t truly possible without practicing care for everyone’s mental and physical health.”

A photograph of Pope.L's Conquest (2019), a group crawl through lower Manhattan that features both performers and audience members. Pope.L is a performance artist well-known for his "crawls," a series of durational performances that the artist describes as experiments in "giving up verticality" and which blur the lines between spectators and performers.

Coda: Toward Horizontal Models of Transformation

 “How does the work that faculty, administrators, and students are doing within their peer groups align with or build upon one another? What is each group’s role and responsibility in constructing and maintaining an anti-racist institution?