Sharing a Story of Social Identity and Power
The first of my five major assignments, the Learning Narrative essay, is introduced in a series of scaffolded steps over the first three weeks of the semester. This assignment invites students to
write about a formative experience you’ve had with race and/or racism or with power or marginalization connected to another identity group you belong to. Consider how you reacted, how you’ve changed since then, how you see it now… This experience may be direct (experienced) or indirect (witnessed).
To analyze your experience, draw on some of the conceptual tools and terms you acquire in class, such as: explicit vs. implicit bias; stereotypes; privilege; individual, interpersonal, institutional and structural racism, the stages of racial identity development…
Students frequently request a model of the thing they’re being asked to write. So we read some similar stories, in the New York Times’s “First Encounters with Racism,” then do a discussion jigsaw, in which students meet first with classmates who’ve read the same story, then with mixed groups who’ve read different narratives. The Times offers a teaching guide with helpful questions, but the following are always central: how did the narrator react? How were they affected by this incident? How do they see it today? How is this story like/unlike your own experience?
The challenges of this assignment are numerous. Students may lack familiarity with key terms, or differ on their definitions. White students from homogeneous backgrounds may state that they have no experience of racism, bias or discrimination. They may feel reluctant to speak and risk being classed with the “oppressor,” or they may default to safe platitudes like, “I was raised not to see color.” International students may feel insufficiently familiar with U.S. history and current events to share thoughts. And BIPOC students, generally in the minority in the classroom, may need time to trust a white instructor and classmates with painful experiences.
We approach these challenges with scaffolding, building both knowledge and community. Groups of 3-4 students study key anti-racist vocabulary like that in the Assignment Explanation, using open-source tools like the United Way 21-Day Equity Challenge. Each team decides together what knowledge from their source Is most important and how to teach it to their classmates. They also prepare and lead discussion of their concepts.
Try it now. Visit the United Way 21-Day Equity Challenge, and read the introduction (Day 0) and one subsequent day. Try out the reading, viewing, listening and reflection activities offered. What are your takeaways? How might this resource be useful in your teaching?
While this is going on, we begin tracing the connections between these concepts and our own lives. In class, we complete together an Identities Chart like that offered in MSU’s Anti-Racist Pathway (spring 2021).
| Groups you belong to (write below) | Group with more social power (X if true) | Group with less social power (X if true) | You think about this identity a lot (X if true) | You don’t think about this identity much (X if true) | |
| Race | |||||
| Ethnicity | |||||
| Sex assigned at birth | |||||
| Gender identity | |||||
| Sexual & romantic identity | |||||
| Religious beliefs | |||||
| Socioeconomic Class | |||||
| Body size | |||||
| Disability/ability | |||||
| Age | |||||
| Citizenship | |||||
| Relationship with land | |||||
| Education | |||||
| Additional identities |
Students will have questions about some of these categories, so I offer them examples of social identities:
These charts are private; no one is asked to share them. But we keep them handy as we move on to a second infographic, the Wheel of Power and Privilege.
Now discussion begins. Does everyone agree with the placement of the various social identities on the wheel? No, says one young man, thin males have less power than average-sized ones, not more. Does anything on this Wheel surprise you? Or, on the contrary, does anything confirm something you had suspected to be true? Yes, says a young woman. I’ve always thought that gay men held more power than lesbians, judging by their greater visibility in the media, especially television.
We go on to write a paragraph about our identities and their relative power – selecting those identities that we would be willing to write about and share with the class. At this point, students begin to see new possibilities for social identities. They may still choose to write about race. Or they may choose gender, or body size, or a non-citizen status. Or perhaps an “invisible disability,” like ADHD or social anxiety. As students uncover those aspects of their identity and those parts of their experience that they are ready to share, community is being built.
Try it now. Complete the Identities Chart for yourself, then compare it to the Wheel of Power and Privilege. What surprises you? What confirms your existing perspective? What would you be interested in investigating, reflecting on and learning more about?