Module Objectives:

Reflect on our social identity development as it relates to race.
Understand how our racial socialization informs our conscious & unconscious behaviors and the way we view ourselves and others.
Consider strategies to inform the way we think and behave relevant to the racial identity of others and ourselves.

Reflection Worksheets:

Examining Racial Identities self-assessment

Addressing Racial Biases self-assessment

Reflection Resources:

Suggested Viewing:

Inside the AC360 Doll Study (Study Shows How Children View Race, Part 1)

This clip shows part 1 of research conducted by CNN, showing how children in the United States view race. Time: 05:27

Study Shows How Children View Race Bias (Study Shows How Children View Race, Part 2)

This clip shows part 2 of research conducted by CNN, showing how children in the United States view race. Time: 05:18.

I Am Not Your Asian Stereotype | Canwen Xu | TEDxBoise

Bad driver. Math wizard. Model minority. In this hilarious and insightful talk, eighteen-year-old Canwen Xu shares her Asian-American story of breaking stereotypes, reaffirming stereotypes, and driving competently on her way to buy rice. Time: 09:38

Starbucks Showed This Short Film to Its Employees To Teach Them About Racial Bias | NowThis

'Starbucks employees were shown this powerful short film about race as part of a learning session on bias.

The video was made by award-winning documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson and featured accounts from people of color on how racial biases affect their everyday life. It also included Sherrilyn Ifill who is the president and director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense. “To be welcomed as a customer means that not only do I allow you in, but it means that I’m glad you’re here. I want to serve you. I want your business, and I don’t draw distinctions between you and other customers in terms of your value,” she explained. “But it’s time we talked about what it means to not be welcomed as an American citizen.”

The film aimed to highlight how differently Black people have to view and navigate public spaces than white people do. It is especially pertinent, in light of many openly racist acts that have happened in businesses recently, including an incident in Starbucks, in which two black men were arrested for asking to use the restroom without ordering.

Discrimination shouldn’t be tolerated, and it’s up to us to make sure that it becomes a stigmatized practice, rather than a regular facet of society.'

Defining Implicit Bias and Racial Anxiety

Alexis McGill Johnson details the definitions and connections between implicit bias and racial anxiety. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Perception Institute, a national consortium of researchers, advocates, and cultural strategists turning cutting-edge mind science research on identity difference into solutions applicable to everyday individual and institutional interactions. She collaborates with social scientists on empirical research to identify the efficacy of interventions that reduce discrimination and create opportunity. She lectures and leads workshops for a wide range of public institutions and private corporations seeking to address the role of implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat

Overcoming Implicit Bias In Healthcare

Data show that bias can cause disparities in diagnosis, treatment and health outcomes, and choices made at end of life. Alexis McGill Johnson, Founder of the Perception Institute, and now President of Planned Parenthood, shares how strategies informed by neuroscience can help individuals and institutions recognize and release implicit and explicit bias. In this eye-opening talk about the impact of stereotypes on health, Alexis reminds us that the more we know each about other, the harder it is to judge, and the easier it is to feel like we belong

The Cost of Code-Switching | Chandra Arthur | TEDxOrlando

Taught from a young age to culturally code switch, Chandra Arthur discusses how learning default conformity in different settings now creates access and opportunity in her adult life as an underrepresented minority (URM) in tech. Chandra Arthur is the founder and CEO of Friendish, a fun, new app designed to help people easily make friends based on shared interests. Her commitment to assisting others in making lasting, quality friendships was born out of a personal need when she returned home from Germany after four years abroad and found it difficult to make new like-minded friends once back in the states. As a second-time startup founder, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the startup landscape.

Racelighting: An Overview

Dr. J. Luke Wood and Dr. Frank Harris II share a brief overview of racelighting - a pervasive form of gaslighting whereby People of Color question their own thoughts and actions due to systematically delivered racialized messages that make them second guess their own lived experiences [and realities] with racism” (Wood & Harris III, 2021, para. 4) Racial microaggressions are used as a means to racelight People of Color (a relationship further explicated in the next section). The most common messages reinforce assumptions that BIPOC are criminals, lesser than, and academically and/or cognitively inferior. When experiencing racelighting, People of Color may be led to second guess their experiences, feelings, capabilities, knowledge,
decision-making, recollections, and basic humanity. When racelit, People of Color begin questioning their own realities and whether they are indeed unintelligent, prone to maladaptive behaviors, of lesser worth, overly sensitive, or less capable than their peers. In addition, it should be noted that People of Color can also racelight one another. This is especially true when internalized messages about racism are accepted tacitly or even explicitly

Verna Myers: How To Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them

Our biases can be dangerous, even deadly — as we've seen in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New York. Diversity advocate Verna Myers looks closely at some of the subconscious attitudes we hold toward out-groups. She makes a plea to all people: Acknowledge your biases. Then move toward, not away from, the groups that make you uncomfortable. In a funny, impassioned, important talk, she shows us how. Time: 17:53.

How Can I Have a Positive Racial Identity? I'm White!

Ali Michael digs deep into the white psyche as she confronts the traditional narrative of what it means to be a white American. Ali discuss the racial politics of being white. Ali Michael, Ph.D., is the Director of K-12 Consulting and Professional Development at the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators. She is the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry and Education (2015, Teachers College Press): a book designed to support teachers in the long term and personal process of understanding the role that race plays in their lives and in their classrooms. She is also co-editor of Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories (2015, Stylus Press). She and her partner, Michael, live in Philadelphia and consider questions of race and education on a daily basis in the raising of their two children. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

What does it mean to be white? | Anne Rhodes | TEDxIthacaCollege

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. This talk is an investigation about what it means to be white, an inquiry into the definition, the experience, and the implications of being white. What does being white do to someone? What is the relationship between being white and ethnicity, class, or religious affiliation? What is the impact of being white on the white community? What is “whiteness”? Is it a problem? Can it be redefined?

Anne Rhodes has worked for many years doing anti-bias work in Ithaca – at Cornell, Ithaca College, with faculty, staff, and administration in area public schools, and in the community - including work on racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, ageism, and able-ism. She founded the Homophobia Educators Network, co-led a Round Two MRC Talking Circle for white allies. and helped start the White Allies Against Racism group. She is also a theater artist, writer, and Teaching Artist, supporting arts in education partnerships between cultural organizations and schools for the past 30 years across New York State, developing arts integration programs and providing professional development for teachers to integrate the arts with curriculum and promote more critical and creative thinking in young people.

Dad with mixed-race family confronts own racial bias

Frank Somerville and his wife are the proud parents of two girls: One adopted and one not. Recently, the newscaster had to confront his own issues with racial bias and is using his job as a way to educate others on racism.

White Men: Time to Discover Your Cultural Blind Spots | Michael Welp | TEDxBend

White men rarely, if ever, are required to examine their own culture. In this timely and provocative talk, Welp speaks to his own experience becoming conscious of his white male culture, bias, and privilege as key tools to effective partnership across differences.

Michael Welp, PhD. is a co-founder of White Men as Full Diversity Partners (WMFDP). For 20 years, Welp has led pioneering workshops engaging white male leaders to create cultures of full inclusion. He focuses on how to engage white men to become more passionate advocates for inclusion and how they can partner better with people of color and white women. Welp has facilitated interracial team-building with over a dozen South African corporations in his work with Outward Bound. His research on how white men learn about diversity led to founding WMFDP. Welp is the author of the recently published book, Four Days To Change: 12 Radical Habits to Overcome Bias and Thrive in a Diverse World.

Dr. Robin DiAngelo Discusses 'White Fragility'

University of Washington professor Dr. Robin DiAngelo reads from her book "White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism," which explains the phenomenon, and discusses how white people can develop their capacity to engage more constructively across race. Time: 01:23:30

Suggested Reading:

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo; foreword by Michael Eric Dyson

Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
White Like Me, Remix: Revised and Updated Edition by Tim Wise

The inspiration for the acclaimed documentary film, this deeply personal polemic reveals how racial privilege shapes the daily lives of white Americans in every realm: employment, education, housing, criminal justice, and elsewhere. Explaining in clear and convincing language why it is in everyone's best interest to fight racial inequality, Wise offers ways in which white people can challenge these unjust privileges, resist white supremacy and racism, and ultimately help to ensure the country's personal and collective well-being.
Racism in American Popular Media: From Aunt Jemima to the Frito Bandito by Brian D. Behnken; Gregory D. Smithers

This book examines how the media--including advertising, motion pictures, cartoons, and popular fiction--has used racist images and stereotypes as marketing tools that malign and debase African Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and Asian Americans in the United States. Authors Brian D. Behnken and Gregory D. Smithers examine popular depictions of people of color going back to the 1880s and details how those depictions have changed. Attention is also paid to the efforts of minorities--particularly civil rights activists--in challenging and combating racism in the popular media.

Everyday Bias: Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgements in Our Daily Lives, Updated Edition by Howard J. Ross

To be human is to be biased. From this simple truth, nationally recognized diversity expert Howard J. Ross explores the biases we each carry within us. Incorporating anecdotes from today's headlines alongside case studies from over 30 years of diversity consulting, Ross helps readers understand how unconscious bias impacts our day-to-day lives and, particularly, our daily work lives. And, he answers the question: "Is there anything we can do about it?" by providing examples of behaviors that the reader can engage in to disengage the impact of their own biases.

Suggested Websites to Review:

Reflection Exercises:

Reflecting on Examining Racial Identities

Defining Narratives - What does examining racial identities mean to you?
1. Cite specific resources (activities, articles, books, historical/contemporary events, images, infographics, personal experiences, quotes, videos, social media, etc.) that help you best articulate your consciousness (dispositions + knowledge + awareness + skills) toward examining racial identities.
2. What key insights or lessons have you gained from these resources?
Visualizing Opportunities - How do you see yourself examining racial identities?
1. What areas of opportunity can you engage personally to examine racial identities?
2. What areas of opportunity can you engage with your communities of influence to examine racial identities?
Cultivating Commitments - How can you develop your consciousness to examine racial identities?
1. What consciousness development techniques and strategies can you cultivate personally to examine racial identities?
2. What consciousness development techniques and strategies can you cultivate collectively with your communities of influence to examine racial identities?

Reflecting on Addressing Racial Biases

Defining Narratives - What does addressing racial biases mean to you?
1. Cite specific resources (activities, articles, books, historical/contemporary events, images, infographics, personal experiences, quotes, videos, social media, etc.) that help you best articulate your consciousness (dispositions + knowledge + awareness + skills) toward addressing racial biases.
2. What key insights or lessons have you gained from these resources?
Visualizing Opportunities - How do you see yourself addressing racial biases?
1. What areas of opportunity can you engage personally to address racial biases?
2. What areas of opportunity can you engage with your communities of influence to address racial biases?
Cultivating Commitments - How can you develop your consciousness to address racial biases?
1. What consciousness development techniques and strategies can you cultivate personally to address racial biases?
2. What consciousness development techniques and strategies can you cultivate collectively with your communities of influence to address racial biases?