learntoquestion ltq discussions

Read:

From Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi, Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, and Identity (2019).

• “ A Brief History of Whiteness,” pp. 8-10 (the reading can be found here--scroll down to pages 8-10)
• “Chapter 1: Race Impact Everything,”pp. 11-50. This chapter can be found here.

Some background:

We’re going to take a look at what I think is an uber-cool book by two women, Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi, who graduated from high school in Princeton, New Jersey, and took a gap year to write it.

The book is called Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, and Identity and it was published just before the pandemic, in 2019. The women who wrote it became interested in exploring this topic in depth after the murder of Eric Garner in 2014 and a discussion that followed in their 10th grade history class. At first, they formed a club--called CHOOSE--as a way to explore racial literacy. As a professor they consulted described it, “racial literacy is developing a historical + sociological tool kit to understand how we got here and how it could’ve been/CAN BE otherwise.” And they began collecting stories...and stories….and stories, mostly from folks in New Jersey and New York.

One of the results was this book, first published as a textbook called The Classroom Index, which got considerable buzz thanks to Teen Vogue and a boatload of social media. That motivated the two to fundraise to support taking a year off without working pre-college to travel across the United States--from Anchorage, Alaska to Charlottesville, Virginia--and get….more stories.

In the introduction to the book, Priya + Winona let us inside their thinking:

“Our heads throb and our hearts hurt when we think about the stories we have heard. Many are tragic. Many are hopeful. Most detail lives we have never imagined and still cannot imagine.

The stories leave us feeling disturbed. Touched. Tired. Energized. Sad. Optimistic. Angry. Compassionate. More than anything, they leave us urgently wanting to make sure these stories are heard. As we have traveled, we have learned that racial literacy never stops. We--including the two of us--can all learn more about who we are.”

<b>The post: </b>

We will look at more parts of this book in class on Wednesday. But for this post, I ask you to address the following:

Winona + Priya state that “race and racism inescapably impact everything around us. Even the very existence of the United States demanded their presence.” (12) They go on to say “race is a cancer that impacts every part of our lives.” (13) Their inquiry + book starts from the notion that this is true and proceeds from that assumption.

2. Do you agree with Winona + Priya’s assumptions or do you want to challenge some part of what they believe about the role of race? Why or why not?
3. Identify one (1) first-person account from this first chapter in the book that says something that, in your view, is important about race and identity. Identify the person you select and share with us

(a) a brief summary of what each person said and

(b) why you think it’s important/significant/noteworthy (your choice).

3. IMO, among the cool things about this book are the eye-opening factoids/information details that appear in the margins, as if they are footnotes OR side-references, OR commentary. Select at least 2 of those and lift them up in the post by

(a) VERY briefly summarizing the factoid/information and

(b) why you think more people should know about this.

4. If you like or dislike this book ….so far….say so! Tell us why you feel the way you do about it.

Be sure to divide your post into paragraphs. Paragraphs are your friend and they make your post much more readable. Thank you in advance for making this reader-friendly.

The interesting thing is before I read Chapter 1 of the book, I skimmed over the questions and actually disagreed with calling race a “cancer” because it has such a negative connotation behind it. My race can impact who I am, but it’s also a part of who I am. Then, I read the chapter and now I agree with what Winona and Priya are saying. What I was thinking of before was my ethnicity, my culture, and how that’s what defines me. Race itself is a social construct because it’s a human-invented classification system. It’s based on phenotypes, so when a person looks “racially ambiguous”, there’s no real way to tell which “race category” they fit into.

One person’s commentary that I found really interesting is Liz’s. She talks about how traveling alone as a black woman is really exhausting, especially when people treat her as something “exotic”. However, when she went to East and South Africa, she felt a sense of belonging, because no one was gawking at her and no one was asking to take pictures. This really goes to show how Europeans/white people outside America pride themselves in being better than Americans, but in reality, they treat black people with such subtle microaggressions that they themselves don’t even notice it.

At the bottom of Liz’s commentary, the footnotes stated that most hotels don’t offer shampoo that work with Black hair and that was so crazy to me because I haven’t noticed that at all. I have straight hair and usually I don’t think twice about using hotel shampoo. Yet, black people and people with non-straight hair have to worry about this problem every time they travel. This is definitely something that needs more attention because it’s such a small detail, but it matters a lot. Another footnote that really striked me was a quote on Justin E.’s commentary. It says, “biologically, it is likely that a woman from the Congo would have more in common with a woman from Germany than she would with a woman from Botswana”. This further proves the idea that race is not biological, but is based on looks.

My opinion on the book so far is pretty good. I like how there’s different perspectives and opinions rather than just one person speaking. They even included people who are previously racist in the past and are trying to do better.

1. I do agree with their presumption. I believe that race is so integrated in everyone’s day to day lives and whether some of us are aware of it or not, it is constantly working through our unconscious brains. Similarly to our discussion of stereotypes in class, we are constantly digesting information about race from a young age which shapes a large part of our behavior towards different groups of people, and being reflective of that can be extremely difficult when the actions become so innate.

2. I thought that what Justin said was very important to how we see race and identity. He talked about his experience of being black in America and the contrast to how people see him in Senegal. He said that in West Africa, the slave trade was something that was looked at as history but not something that defined West African identity, while in the United States, black people are almost entirely introduced in history through slavery. I think that this is an extremely noteworthy point to reflect on because even BLS, a school that may seem much more progressive than schools in other parts of the country, still has a curriculum extremely centered around a white perspective on history. The point Justin made about defining black people’s identity in history through this white lens is very discernable in the history classes that I’ve personally taken.

3. One of the factoids that stood out to me was the fact that American immigration laws banned females from China to prevent Chinese-American families from obtaining citizenship through children being born in the country. I think more people should know about this because it demonstrates the white exclusivity of America and actual legislation that tried protecting those white values. I personally did not know that this was actually legislated, and although I can’t say I am surprised, it is another example of how central race is to the United States (and the world now that things are so globalized).

4. I really like this book so far. Hearing the different perspectives and getting the historical facts in the margins makes it a fascinating read that is very thought-provoking and important to reflect on.

I think that Priya and Winona make very valid statements about race. I agree that race and racism influences everything and impacts everyone, however, like autumnpeaches, I disagree with race being a cancer. I understand what they are saying here and I also believe that our heavy focus on race fuels racism and the persecution of certain groups of people. But I also think that the way race influences people and our culture as Americans can be beautiful. With race being a part of everything we do, we can choose to focus on the harm it could bring or the contributions people of all races have made to create our country.

Vic’s story stood out to me because she mentioned the stereotype of the “safe” person of color and the false notion that it is up to minorities to defend themselves. She talks about how her experience was better because she knew “how to be respectable”, but that as she got older she realized respectability wouldn’t get her anywhere when it came to racism. I’ve been seeing a lot of videos on social media recently about how there has been more POC representation in movies (specifically cartoon movies), but that they are always portrayed as the sidekick or some kind of animal (Ex: Sebastian the Crab, the Princess and the Frog, Spies in Disguise). There was also a lot of this in the Disney shows I watched growing up. One example I can think of is Jesse. The main character is a white woman who helps take care of four children, two of whom are POC, that provide comedic relief (often with their Hollywood stereotypical accents or by not being able to understand American societal norms). It's sad that the media acknowledges that these problems are present but chooses not to make change.

The first fact that caught my attention was in Justin’s story that discussed how much genetic and physical diversity there is in Sub-Saharan Africa and how African people as a whole have been victimized by the false belief that all people from Africa are the same. I think more people should know about this because there is so much racism based on false information. The factoid states, “it is likely that a woman from the Congo would have more in common with a woman from Germany than she would with a woman from Botswana”. It also points out that the ineducation of people on facts like this made for harmful things such as the eugenics movement. I think that racism and education are heavily linked, and I feel that our world would be a lot more accepting if there wasn’t so much false information. On the internet, you can find anything if you look hard enough.

The second piece of information I found interesting was, “Have you noticed how most hotels don’t offer shampoos that work with Black hair?”. I am upset that I have never noticed this, and even more upset now that I do. Thinking back, I have never been to a hotel that has offered products meant for anyone except white people. I feel that when most people think about racism, we think about violent hate crimes and not about “small” daily injustices.

I like this book so far, especially that it brings up the “yes, but..” thing. I have definitely heard this before, even when discussing feminism, which links to the connections between sexism, racism, and capitalism that a few people talked about. I’ve seen online or heard things along the lines of “yes, but that was your ancestors, not you”, or “yes, but men also face challenges”. I think this book does a great job at confronting the real world problems people live with that have become normalized.

I agree with Winona + Priya’s assumptions, especially their commentary on the origin of race. So much of our history in the US and the broader scope of the world is built around this construct of race that it has become intertwined with the basis of our society. I think that the idea of nationalism as the creation of a people ‘within artificially created borders’ also pertains to the idea of race. Scientifically, humans are classified by their phenotypes which are completely individual from person to person. Race was constructed as a means of classification by someone’s phenotypes for the purpose of creating generalizations about a group of people who share traits/look alike.

One account from chapter 1 that I found very interesting was Jennifer’s. I found her history with discrimination very interesting because it was very contradictory. She discriminated against her Black classmates because of the ideas that she was taught at home, but was later discriminated against by her White classmates in high school. This reversal of the narrative is interesting because it seems that both of these situations are due to the environment in which the perpetrators were raised and formed their ideas in. Jennifer’s story is proof that people can grow and change, as SillyGoblinMan178 said. While this change is good, the fact that it took a reversal of the roles of perpetrator and victim for her to realize it is concerning because it isn’t often that than happens, especially to white people. While Jennifer realized what she did was wrong because she had to experience it herself, the white people who discriminated against her were not held accountable. This accountability is so important because if people aren’t held accountable, they won’t ever change the way they think and act, therefore continuing the cycle of discrimination.

One idea that was brought up which I found extremely interesting was when Melina talked about how her systemic advantages and disadvantages are intertwined with one another and can’t be separated because doing so would be denying the existence of the other. I think this is important because it helps to explain how people who face similar circumstances in some aspects will have an entirely different set of challenges if one factor is changed: their race. Because our systems are designed to benefit white people, they automatically get that added privilege whereas people of color will not, and therefore suffer more because of it. This is interesting because it approaches the complex idea of intersectionality in which those who are already disadvantaged by society are only further so based on premises out of their control.

Another fact that I read about and found important was that Black women were ‘denied rights to their own bodies’ in the name of science and progress. They were used as human test subjects against their wills in order to advance the field of gynecology. This fact is absolutely appalling to me and I cannot believe that these acts were committed and are now celebrated as scientific achievements. I think that more people should know about it because people should be educated on the dark past of these practices and be at the very least aware of the disregard for human life that made theirs easier.

So far, I am finding this book fascinating. I think it is incredibly important to learn about people’s personal experiences with identity and their experiences because if we don’t listen to what they have to say, then we are not doing our part to do better if we can’t even acknowledge the struggles of others. Hearing multiple perspectives is really important, and I think that this book does a good job of trying to include viewpoints from different people in different circumstances with different perspectives.

I definitely agree with the author's assumptions because I think that it is very smart, especially with a book of this nature, to set from the get-go the role that race places in our lives. I especially liked the part when they were explaining the incident to open the story with and said that a clearer view of America is seen with glasses of losing self ignorance and that is important and reigns true today and forever because as a country many of us don't have those glasses. I also think that, as they stated, this isn't just a new phenomenon, this racism is both embedded in our country but also the world's blueprint with colonialism and started with Chirstopher COlumbus and everything surrounding him and his exploration and the impact it had on the rest of the world. And until recently, that fact has been seemingly swept under the rug and ignored as people didn’t know or think about what atrocities he commited and the impact it left on every non-white person even today.

Someone that I thought said something important about race and identity would be Justin E. from Lawrence, Kansas. To summarize it quickly, Justin talks about an encounter that he had as a black person in America with a white person who called him a derogatory term. Being black from a young age defined him as he grew up and as he looked more into the past of black people in america. When he went to West Africa he realized a big difference. He realized that being black in America was this community that was specific to black people in a white dominated society but he also realized that race in West Africa wasn't the deal and identifier that it is in America. This is important because it shows how this country has done so much to alienate those who aren't white and make them feel like they are sticking out like a sore thumb and that this way of life is really only like this in America.

One of the side notes that I noticed as interesting was for Queen Esther from New York and something that I found interesting in her little blurb was that before she hit puberty she thought she was a boy. This to me seems important for two reasons. One of them is how people of color, specifically black people, are often portrayed as more masiculine and have more masicluine features that are considered undesirable. The second would be how gender identity and expression of gender is as important as any other part of a person's identity and oftentimes we only see people for the thing that stands out and use that one thing to define them. The other blurb that I found quite interesting was Chef Tu from California. His blurb says that he teaches inmates at San Quentin State Prison how to cook. I found this very interesting because in America we have created a prison system that is so flawed and is almost all purely about profit than anything else. It is also very focused on punishment of inmates rather than teaching them to be better and sending them back out into the world which they should be doing. This doesn't really have anything to do with race but I just found it interesting.

So far I like this book and I really like the format of it as well. I really appreciate how the authors really took the time to make this book personal. They very well could have just interviewed people, wrote down their answers and called it a day but no, they decided to put a face to the name and show how different people are. There is also a personal aspect by adding facts about them. The only thing I don't like about the book thus far would just be how long the sections are.

2. Alexa mentioned that in her new school, she was not only confused as to why she was being called white, but also why she was being called rich. This made her very aware of the connection between color and socioeconomic class. I think this is incredibly significant because it acknowledges intersectionality- something that also inescapably impacts everything around us. Trying to have a conversation about race/racism/racial identity without acknowledging it is an intersectional issue is like trying to play chess with missing pieces.