My commitment to #DecolonizeEd: Conference remarks by NYU CSS Director, Natalie McCabe Zwerger

Decolonizing Education. It brought you here today. It prompted you to wake up early on a Saturday when you have other commitments and obligations. It will prompt you to engage with other educators today on why and how we must shift the way we teach, think, and act with even our youngest babies. Decolonizing Education […]

Dear white folks, how will we march on?

On Saturday, January 28th, 2017, Shaun King, writer and civil rights activist, wrote this on Facebook, “Today has been, without a doubt, one of the most despicably inhumane days in my lifetime as an American citizen. Grievously inhumane. This day will go down in history as a deeply unethical, unnecessary, unconstitutional day of pain and […]

Shock and awe: Two emotions. Neither of which we should feel after last night

Van Jones categorized it as a whitelash. Jay Smooth tells us hate won. For those of you who are writing on Facebook: “How could America do this? How could this happen?” #wakeup. This has been happening. Generations of “America’s racially antagonistic foundation, history, present, zeitgeist, and legacy” (Young, 2016) have brought us to this moment. […]

Race Conversations in White Spaces: The End and the Beginning

A recent Pew research study found that 67% of white social media users do not post or share posts about race or racial issues on their timelines (Anderson and Hitlin, 2016). Rather, white social media users are more likely to see posts related to race and race relations, but the social media interaction often ends […]

“Not a Moment but a Movement”: Deconstructing the Myths Behind Black Lives Matter

“They’re afraid of the truth” was the statement uttered by former President Bill Clinton in his condemnation of Black Lives Matter protesters at a recent campaign rally for his wife, Secretary Hillary Clinton. A statement which so ironically and poignantly captured what critics of his 1994 Crime Bill have been claiming for the past 20 […]

Not everything you see can be yours to take: From recolonizing to decolonizing

“Otherness has been part of my identity for as long as I can remember. Growing up in a predominantly White town with little to no diversity outside of myself and my family gave me pause as to who I was meant to be as a person. I grew up believing that White was right and […]

Decentering Whiteness: Dismantling privilege in the interest of racial justice

We were having a lively debate with a colleague the other day about whether systems of oppression continue to thrive because of individuals with malintent or if there is something beyond the individual at play- a more insidious normalcy and embeddedness that essentially sustains systems of oppression with or without individual action. We were arguing […]

The coddling of white privilege: Defenses used to protect against student activists

To coddle means “to treat in an overprotective way.” You could imagine things or people who might need coddling. They are delicate. Fragile. In need of protection. Of guarding. Of defense, if you will. They are, by implication, incapable of handling circumstances in this moment on their own. In the September 2015 issue of The […]

“It’s not about race.” For who?

The conversation about the impact of race is tense and uncomfortable, if it happens at all. On this day, it was not happening at any level of depth. Presenting to a rural middle school staff on culturally responsive education, we were provoking folks to consider how their own cultural lens might be influencing cross-racial and […]

Everyday Race Blog

Moving the conversation about race forward into action.

White privilege