Unteachable Moments

• Race: Some Teachable and Unteachable Moments by Heidi Tolentino left me with mixed feelings for both Carlen and Jessie.  On one hand, I get Carlen’s point that Jessie would not know what it is like to be Back. Can a white person understand the Black Experience?  How is Jessie to understand what Carlen has experienced when there is so much pain and hurt that Carlen cannot express herself.  And is it up to Carlen to have to open up and teach Jessie? What does Jessie do? Is it her right to request this information from Carlen? Or should she wait until someone else is willing to open up? How will Jessie or any white person know about the Black experience?

• So what did Carlen want from Jessie and the other students? Clearly, she does not want to be the voice to represent the “whole” Black Experience, but she wants to be understood and unapologetically Black. 

• It was quite admirable that Jessie wanted to take the test within the 10 minute time span.  I am curious about the test myself. It would have been a great discussion for students to analyze the tricky questions on the test.  Taking the test would not have given Jessie the full experience of what it means to be Black as Carlen knows it, but it would have given her a glimpse into understanding history.  Perhaps through thoughtful conversations and discussions students may have been able to come to some conclusions of how this test was used as a tool. 

• In Pyschology Today, the author Monnica T. Wiiliams writes about the layers of pain, mistrust and taboos that keep people divided along the racial lines.  As we have read, this is true of Carlen and Jessie.  These conversations are difficult and uncomfortable to have especially in a classroom where you are in the minority.  I am sure Carlen did not feel safe to open up and share her true feelings being that she was outnumbered.  

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culturally-speaking/201408/can-white-person-understand-the-black-experience

• I did not think it was fair for the teacher to have asked to read Carlen’s letter aloud to the class.  i believe that by her doing so, she put Carlen on the spot in front of her whole class.  The letter was a way for her to reflect on her feelings about what had transpired in class.  She used her student Carlen as a teachable moment, because she was not prepared to discuss such a sensitive topic with her students.  She's making Carlen do the hard work.  

Identity

In this blog, I chose to respond to the readings entitled  Identities and Social Location: Who am I? Who are my people? written by the authors Kirk, G & Okawaza-Rey, M. The argument these authors presented in their article has to do with identity formation.  According to these authors, they argue that identity is fluid and changes over a lifetime, although it may appear to fixed at different points in time.  Because of the identity information taken in about oneself such as Who am I?, Who do I want to be?, Who do others think I am and want me to be?, What does society say I am; the set of complex decisions interplay in such a way that overtime the experiences may cause you to answer these questions differently depending where you are in your journey. For instance, the authors identify four different levels of identity, such as, micro, meso, macro, and global.  The scenarios or experiences portrayed at each level may have a significant impact on one's identity formation.  "At the micro level, individuals usually feel the most comfortable as themselves. At this level we define ourselves and structure our daily activities according to our own preferences."  For instance, on the micro level being myself would imply that I identify as a woman, heterosexual, working middle class first generation American. "It is at the meso level-at school, in the workplace, or on the street-that people most frequently as "Who are you?" or "Where are you from?" in an attempt to categorize us and determine their relationship to us. It is here that people experience the complexities, conflicts and contradictions of multiple identities..." I can definitely relate to this quote.  In my personal experience, growing up within the community it was so much easier to navigate through life with my identity intact.  As I knew and those closest to me from home and church community know who I was.  I did not feel the need to "identify" or "justify" my identity.  It was not until I started school where and when my identity became a question.  The challenge was mainly, because my appearance or my genotype did not match the icons or media images portrayed on television. The next levels of identity as purported by the authors are on the macro and global levels. These two levels are related to the social categories, classifications and structural inequality. "Classifying and labeling human beings, often according to real or assumed physical, biological, or genetic differences, is a way to distinguish who is included and who is excluded from a group, to ascribe particular characteristics, to prescribe social roles, and to assign status, power and privilege. "  The authors continue to state that "people are to know their places."  This is the most significant point in identity formation. As it has been decided who you are based on a number of classification system which has been predetermined by the powers that be.  These powers are to ensure control over the masses of people through maintaining a system of structure.

In this link below, the author of the thesis addresses structural system of inequality on a global level as it relates to world politics. The second link is an image of caged birds with an open door who have not flown away.  Why don't the caged birds fly?  I think its an interesting image of structural inequality as it relates to the conditioning of the system and how we define ourselves.

http://pages.ucsd.edu/~ehafner/pdfs/io_networks.pdf
http://www.projectlinkedfate.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CagedBirds.jpg