Talking to Others:
Talking About (Different Types of) Racism
This lesson in action:
Lesson Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Describe four different ways that racism shows up in our lives and society
Learning Standards
- LfJ 12. Students will recognize unfairness on the individual level (e.g. biased speech) and injustice at the institutional or systemic level (e.g. discrimination).
- LfJ 14. Students will recognize that power and privilege influence relationships on interpersonal, intergroup, and institutional levels and consider how they have been affected by these dynamics.
Learning Activities: If you have 15 minutes
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Greeting:
If someone could predict your future, would you want yours predicted? Why or why not?
Reading:
“We are better able to resist the negative impact of oppressive messages when we see them coming than when they are invisible to us.” – Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, 2017
Ask Students:
- What does this quotation get you thinking about?
Initiative:
Use slides 8-12 to define the levels of racism for your students.
Ask Students:
- Can you think of other examples of each of these types of racism?
Learning Activitiesm (continued): If you have 45 minutes
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Initiative:
Explain to your students that Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones at the Harvard School of Public Health wrote a famous article where she used a story called the Gardener’s Tale to explain how these different types of racism work.
You might decide to read this article with your students:
You might decide to show this YouTube video telling the Gardener’s Tale:
Ask Students:
- Describe how this story illustrates one of the levels of racism.
Learning Activities (continued): If you have 2 hours
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Ask Students:
- What could the gardener do to make the garden more fair?
- What does that mean for real life?
- How well (or not well) do you think this story captures the way racism works in our society?
- Why do you think many people are so reluctant to talk about racism and how it works in our society?
Debrief:
- What did you like about today’s lesson?
- Did you learn anything new about yourself or anyone else?
- What could make it better?