Race Dialogues

All too often, race discourse in the United States devolves into shouting matches, silence, or violence, all of which are mirrored in today’s classrooms. This book will help individuals develop the skills needed to facilitate difficult dialogues across race in high school and college classrooms, in teacher professional learning communities, and beyond. The authors codify best practices in race dialogue facilitation by drawing on decades of research and examples from their own practices. They share their mistakes and hard-earned lessons to help readers avoid common pitfalls. Through their concrete lesson plans and hands-on material, both experienced and novice facilitators can immediately use this inclusive and wide-ranging curriculum in a variety of classrooms, work spaces, and organizations with diverse participants. “Race Dialogues: A Facilitator?s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom is a scholarly, timely, and urgently needed book. While there is other literature on facilitation of intergroup dialogues, none are so deeply and effectively focused on race—the elephant in the room.” —From the foreword by Patricia Gurin, Nancy Cantor Distinguished University Professor and Emeritus Research Director, University of Michigan “This brilliant book is a gold mine of wisdom and resources for teachers, facilitators, and student dialogue leaders. It summarizes, explains, and elaborates upon everything I have ever been taught about what makes for great facilitation. With experience and compassion, the authors have written a clear, user-friendly guide to facilitation of race dialogue for both youth and adults. I will recommend this book to every facilitator and teacher I train or hire.” —Ali Michael, director of the Race Institute for K–12 Educators and author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education

Turn Uncomfortable Conversations into Meaningful Dialogue If you believe that talking about race is impolite, or that "colorblindness" is the preferred approach, you must read this book. Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence debunks the most pervasive myths using evidence, easy-to-understand examples, and practical tools. This significant work answers all your questions about discussing race by covering: Characteristics of typical, unproductive conversations on race Tacit and explicit social rules related to talking about racial issues Race-specific difficulties and misconceptions regarding race talk Concrete advice for educators and parents on approaching race in a new way "His insistence on the need to press through resistance to have difficult conversations about race is a helpful corrective for a society that prefers to remain silent about these issues." —Christopher Wells, Vice President for Student Life at DePauw University "In a Canadian context, the work of Dr. Derald Wing Sue in Race Talk: and the Conspiracy of Silence is the type of material needed to engage a populace that is often described as 'Too Polite.' The accessible material lets individuals engage in difficult conversations about race and racism in ways that make the uncomfortable topics less threatening, resulting in a true 'dialogue' rather than a debate." —Darrell Bowden, M Ed. Education and Awareness Coordinator, Ryerson University "He offers those of us who work in the Diversity and Inclusion space practical tools for generating productive dialogues that transcend the limiting constraints of assumptions about race and identity." —Rania Sanford, Ed.D. Associate Chancellor for Strategic Affairs and Diversity, Stanford University "Sue's book is a must-read for any parent, teacher, professor, practioner, trainer, and facilitator who seeks to learn, understand, and advance difficult dialogues about issues of race in classrooms, workplaces, and boardrooms. It is a book of empowerment for activists, allies, or advocates who want to be instruments of change and to help move America from silence and inaction to discussion, engagement, and action on issues of difference and diversity. Integrating real life examples of difficult dialogues that incorporate the range of human emotions, Sue provides a masterful illustration of the complexities of dialogues about race in America. More importantly, he provides a toolkit for those who seek to undertake the courageous journey of understanding and facilitating difficult conversations about race." —Menah Pratt-Clarke, JD, PhD, Associate Provost for Diversity, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

"Race and racism are so prevalent in US culture, that few stop to reflect upon what race is, why it was created, and how deeply ingrained race has become in American Christianity. It has left American churches segregated in the pews and divided in faith. Can this damage be repaired? Dialogues on race explores that very question. With seven essays from leading Christian thinkers, Dialogues on race asks penetrating questions about how the church in the US got to this point, and how, or if, white supremacy can be expelled from American Christianity. Dialogues On is an adult small group resource that encourages honest talk about difficult topics. In a time when so many conversations end in conflict, these resources equip readers to share their ideas, listen well, learn from other viewpoints, and develop action plans to bring hope and healing out of the church and into the world." -- Back cover.

It is a perennial question: how should Americans deal with racial and ethnic diversity? More than 400 communities across the country have attempted to answer it by organizing discussions among diverse volunteers in an attempt to improve race relations. In Talking about Race, Katherine Cramer Walsh takes an eye-opening look at this strategy to reveal the reasons behind the method and the effects it has in the cities and towns that undertake it. With extensive observations of community dialogues, interviews with the discussants, and sophisticated analysis of national data, Walsh shows that while meeting organizers usually aim to establish common ground, participants tend to leave their discussions with a heightened awareness of differences in perspective and experience. Drawing readers into these intense conversations between ordinary Americans working to deal with diversity and figure out the meaning of citizenship in our society, she challenges many preconceptions about intergroup relations and organized public talk. Finally disputing the conventional wisdom that unity is the only way forward, Walsh prescribes a practical politics of difference that compels us to reassess the place of face-to-face discussion in civic life and the critical role of conflict in deliberative democracy.

We are living in a world where power abuse has become the new norm, as well as the biggest, silent driver of persistent inequalities, racism and human rights violations. The COVID-19 socio-economic consequences can only be compared with those that followed World War II. As humanity is getting to grips with them, this timely book challenges current thinking, while creating a much needed normative and practical framework for revealing and challenging the power structures that feed our subconscious feelings of despair and defeatism. Structured around the four concepts of power, race, justice and restorative justice, the book uses empirical new data and normative analysis to reconstruct the way we prevent power abuse and harm at the inter-personal, inter-community and international levels. This book offers new lenses, which allow us to view power, race and justice in a modern reality where communities have been silenced, but through restorative justice are gaining voice. The book is enriched with case studies written by survivors, practitioners and those with direct experiences of power abuse and inequality. Through robust research methodologies, Gavrielides’s new monograph reveals new forms of slavery, while creating a new, philosophical framework for restorative punishment through the acknowledgement of pain and the use of catharsis for internal transformation and individual empowerment. This is a powerful and timely book that generates much needed hope. Through a multi-disciplinary dialogue that uses philosophy and critical theory, social sciences, criminology, law, psychology and human rights, the book opens new avenues for practitioners, researchers and policy makers internationally.

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a revelatory examination of race in America Protests against racial injustice and white supremacy have galvanized millions around the world. The stakes for transformative conversations about race could not be higher. Still, the task ahead seems daunting, and it’s hard to know where to start. How do you tell your boss her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law hang up on you when you had questions about police reform? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend? In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the model minority myth in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race, and about how racism infects every aspect of American life. "Simply put: Ijeoma Oluo is a necessary voice and intellectual for these times, and any time, truth be told." ―Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair

This edited collection advances the call for continued multicultural dialogues within education. Dialogue and education are the two most essential tools that can help tackle some of the biggest problems we are facing across the globe, including fanaticism, chauvinistic nationalism, religious fundamentalism and racism. The contributors to this book explore the necessity of sustained dialogue within the wider social and political sciences alongside in national and international politics, where more multicultural voices need to be heard in order to make progress. The book builds on existing evidence and literature to advocate in favour of this movement, and highlights how important and significant multiculturalism and multicultural education remains. It will be essential reading for students and academics working in the fields of education and sociology, particularly those with an interest in social justice and multiculturalism.

All too often, race discourse in the United States devolves into shouting matches, silence, or violence, all of which are mirrored in today’s classrooms. This book will help individuals develop the skills needed to facilitate difficult dialogues across race in high school and college classrooms, in teacher professional learning communities, and beyond. The authors codify best practices in race dialogue facilitation by drawing on decades of research and examples from their own practices. They share their mistakes and hard-earned lessons to help readers avoid common pitfalls. Through their concrete lesson plans and hands-on material, both experienced and novice facilitators can immediately use this inclusive and wide-ranging curriculum in a variety of classrooms, work spaces, and organizations with diverse participants. “Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom is a scholarly, timely, and urgently needed book. While there is other literature on facilitation of intergroup dialogues, none are so deeply and effectively focused on race—the elephant in the room.” —From the foreword by Patricia Gurin, Nancy Cantor Distinguished University Professor and Emeritus Research Director, University of Michigan “This brilliant book is a gold mine of wisdom and resources for teachers, facilitators, and student dialogue leaders. It summarizes, explains, and elaborates upon everything I have ever been taught about what makes for great facilitation. With experience and compassion, the authors have written a clear, user-friendly guide to facilitation of race dialogue for both youth and adults. I will recommend this book to every facilitator and teacher I train or hire.” —Ali Michael, director of the Race Institute for K–12 Educators and author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education