The North Star staff is currently working through a diversity and inclusion curriculum through the guidance of one of our parents who does this work professionally. One of the resources presented to us this month was a podcast series released in 2017: Scene on Radio – Seeing Whiteness by John Biewen. If, like me, this series is news to you, I strongly urge you to listen to it. Biewen is a wonderful storyteller, and he has a keen sense for building a narrative. Each episode includes a reflective dialogue with his friend and colleague, Chenjerai Kumanyika, and together they are thoughtful, witty, and challenging.
The 14-part series opens with a few episodes about the invention of whiteness as a concept in colonial America in the 1600s. I have taught this material before: how slave traders and slaveholders invented whiteness to divide and conquer the lower economic classes they relied on for their economic success. The history includes the complicity of those in the North who benefitted from this arrangement. The series then shifts to some history of the conquest of Native Americans in Minnesota, where Biewen grew up, and how his familiar community has an unspoken and mostly untaught “secret.” The second half of the series moves on to some science, economics, and Supreme Court cases involving the concept of race in the United States. As much as I have studies these issues, I had never heard about the two court cases of the 1920s profiled here, featuring Bhagat Singh Thind and Takao Ozawa. That episode on its own is worth your time. One episode I found particularly entertaining was a personal story about Biewen’s friend, a professional photographer, who created an exhibit about her White friends. The provocative reversal of the lens generated controversy, and I am still thinking about the implications of that exhibit.
What is the conclusion? A few major ideas:
- Let’s abandon the idea of “good white people”. It’s sort of like the idea of “make
- America great.”
- Racism isn’t about our personal animosities or our unintended hurtful actions.
- Racism is a system generated to maintain power for a specific group of people.
- Let us (white people) learn how to see examples of this system and fight to dismantle
- these advantages.
- Let us do so with some sense of responsibility, not guilt.
- More: if you have listened to the series, please add your takeaways in the comments.
As a teacher and a person interested in race relations, it’s rare to encounter such a treasure – new information coherently and profoundly presented. Go listen, and I’m modestly jealous that you have 14 fresh episodes in front of you!
As an introduction, an extra, or in case you don’t have time for 14 episodes, here is John Biewen’s Ted Talk.
