#Whyte folx how to

When you literally know nothing, having a vague reference is still better than nothing. While some people complain that google can give you the wrong answer or doesn’t explain nuance, those are just excuses.

Sparing you my entire web history, here is a short list of terms I googled within my first year: When someone mentioned an issue I knew nothing about, I googled it. As we slugged through our homework, essays, and more than a few happy hours, we learned about each other’s identities, experiences, families, life aspirations, and research. I was no longer surrounded by only white people. In an attempt to be anywhere but Iowa, I applied to graduate programs across the country and moved to Ohio for a MA Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. As I learned more and more about LGBTQIA+ identities after college, my world opened up. My own feminist beliefs grew and developed over time, as I learned more about my own white privileges and came to terms with my queer identities. I started with women’s rights and a sixth grade project on women’s suffrage in the 1920s and continued through my Women’s Studies classes in undergrad, primarily taught by second wave feminists who did not think outside of the gender binary. But, I didn’t let that stop me and my passion for equity from going on my lifelong mission of eliminating barriers to education and employment, especially for LGBTQIA+ people in Midwestern and rural locations. Why would I as a white person in this environment know anything about navigating diversity? Truth be told, I didn’t know very much when I entered this profession five years ago. I’m talking about being part of a family who can no longer discuss politics around the dinner table, not that we often gather, because of the work I have done in recognizing my white privilege and helping other white folx recognize theirs.

I’m also talking about northwest Iowa where our Congressional Representative (Steve King) thinks it is okay to have a mini confederate flag on his desk and receives no voter backlash for doing so.

#Whyte folx how to

Why would an institution built by and for white men, traditionally, know how to welcome and include those it kept out for so many years?Ī similar question I have for myself is why would I know how to welcome and include people who don’t look like me when I’ve been trained from birth to exclude them? I’m talking about growing up in a small, rural community of 99% white people, where all my doctors, teachers, TV characters–practically everyone–looked like me. Centre also has a history of being the result of gender-segregated institutions merging. Where I work, Centre College, for example, is a predominantly white institution which only began admitting black students 50 years ago despite celebrating its 200 th birthday this year. So, I’m going to discuss my map for navigating my own whiteness in equity, diversity, and inclusion work in hopes that you can build your own. The reason an entire field of diversity and inclusion exists is because no one knows how to do it well, not even me. I’m not talking about raising teenagers with mental health disorders as the mothers in Dear Evan Hansen did. “Does anybody have a map? Anybody maybe happen to know how the hell to do this? I don’t know if you can tell, but this is my just pretending to know.” –from “Waving Through a Window” by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul