Arlene's CHALLENGE QUESTION

Do we practice what we preach? How can anthropologists move beyond "race as a social construct"/ a no "race posture" to critically empower others to contend with the legacy of race and racism and its consequences?

The AAA - RACE project: Social inequality and Social Change

The public education project of the AAA, RACE: Are We So Different? produced in conjunction with the Science Museum of Minnesota, is a museum exhibit, a website, and educational programming designed to enhance understanding of human diversity and the concept of race, past and present. The exhibit has been on tour throughout the nation. Its objective is to allow for critical dialogue about race and social inequality. The project also hopes to develop an environment where a host of individuals will commit themselves to addressing social inequities in the various locales, including but not limited to, the school, the workplace, and the public policy arena.

I became actively involved in the project given my frustration over racializing practices I observe in daily life, but more specifically, in educational institutions. I have observed that under the guise of diversity and equal access, practices continually exclude and reinforce institutional racism. These approaches are not particular to educational institutions. In the area of health and (welfare), racial profiling and the policing of bodies is also at play.

When we first started this thing, there were very few Latina/o anthropologists in the conversation. Even though I worked with a team of anthropologists and consultants who understood that the black/white paradigm in the US was much more complex in practice, much of the discussion and suggestions offered to address “Race” relied on historical and contemporaneous examples that still failed to contend with the changing face of the nation.

Often times, being one of two Latina/os seated at the table to plan for the project and to discuss a host of very thorny issues, I needed to continually form alliances to remind my colleagues of absences. However, the immigration marches, national debates, and the changing face of the Deep South as well as rural enclaves throughout the nation in many ways forced the project to consider who gets “raced” and how to represent that process differently. It is still a work in progress.

I got involved in the museum and teacher training part of it, because I am committed to getting children to think through these issues. By the time I get to engage with young people at the University, there are so many misconceptions, prejudices, and racisms at play. There is so much damage, it feels like it would take lifetime to undo the effects. And what is even more troubling is that ways of eliding the issues have been internalized to silence the discussion. (A NO RACE, NO Racism posture is affirmed even when there is evidence to the contrary.) I want children to have a language, to give voice to the possibility for the development of a consciousness that takes the consequences of RACE historically and contemporaneously into account.