The Department of Anthropology has recently created a Diversity Initiative - a group of staff, graduate students, and faculty - who meet regularly to work on issues related to diversity and inclusion in the Department of Anthropology.
One of the aims of the Initiative is to increase dialogue in our Department on these issues. In order to achieve this, we are instituting a regular Happy Hour discussion at Adele's on a variety of topics where diversity and inclusion are central themes. Rather than academic discourses, we would like to focus on topics and issues in popular media, as a way to broaden our thinking and discussion on what diversity means, how to be more inclusive in our thinking, and how to apply what we learn to our everyday lives. These discussions are intended to be a safe space to talk and exchange ideas, and we invite everyone in the department to attend.
Our next Diversity Initiative Happy Hour will be on Wednesday, May 11 from 3-5 p.m. at Adele's. Please feel free to join us at any time during this window. Adele's serves a basic HH menu including: $2 beers, $2-4 appetizers, and non-alcoholic drinks.
Our topic for discussion will be: What Does It Mean to Be White?
Discussions on race and racism tend to focus on racial identities for people of color. It is not often that white folks are reflective about our identity, what it means, and what part we play in structures of racism. This happy hour will give us an opportunity to unpack what it means to be white, particularly in the United States. Below are some materials to provide context and spark thoughts/opinions/discussion.
Preview YouTube video I Am NOT Black, You are NOT White.I Am NOT Black, You are NOT White.
White Privilege Conference:
http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/white_privilege.html
#wpcsowhite
Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies from Paul Kivel, who wrote Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Social Justice:
http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/kivel3.pdf
Talk by law professor, Jacqueline Battalora on the creation of whiteness by a 1681 Maryland ant-miscegniation law:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riVAuC0dnP4
Sociologist Tamara K. Nopper: White Anti-Racism is an Oxymoron
Sociologist Golash-Boza: It Is Not a Privilege to Live in a Racist Society"
MTV documentary "White People" - specifically asking young millennials what they think it means to be white:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mtv-white-people_us_55a6b116e4b04740a3dec084
http://www.lookdifferent.org/videos/113-white-people
Opinion piece from Seattle Times, What does it mean to be white?
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/guest-what-does-it-mean-to-be-white/
White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the uncomfortability of race:
http://qz.com/674352/larry-wilmore-proved-just-how-uncomfortable-white-people-still-are-with-race/
An exercise developed by Dr. Tony Whitehead for an honor’s class and now being used in a course for senior residents in Reston, titled Human Difference, Cultural Understanding, and Social Healing, that explores concepts of multiple selves and the core self:
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/542d69f6e4b0a8f6e9b48384/t/57224d…
Decolonizing Anthropology Series via Savage Minds (blog) that features some great folks in both archaeology and cultural anthropology.
Lynn Bolles' piece on Black feminist intellectual thought in anthropology.
Jafari Allen and Ryan Jobson’s work in Current Anthropology titled, “The Decolonizing Generation: (Race and) Theory in Anthropology since the Eighties.”
2015 piece in Savage Minds (blog) on anthropology, misrecognition, and the racial politics of crisis.
Color, Community and Citizenship in an Aspiringly “Post-Racial” Democracy by John Jackson, Jr. when he gave the 2014 UMD Baha’i Chair Lecture (video).
