Overview

Class Central Tips

Anti-Racism I is an introduction to the topic of race and racism in the United States. The primary audience for this course is anyone who is interested in learning about race/racism in the US who has never taken a course in critical race or ethnic studies or affiliated fields (indeed, who may not know what the fields of critical race studies or ethnic studies are), who has never read a book about race/racism, or attended any race equity or diversity trainings on the topic of race/racism.

In this course you will learn how to:

- Use and comprehend contemporary intersectional terminology through a provided glossary
- Critically discuss “whiteness”
- Recognize the concept of White privilege that all White people have whether they want that privilege or not and to differentiate between White supremacy as a systemic concept vs. White supremacists (who are professional racists like the KKK).
- Distinguish between being not racist and being anti-racist
- Define systemic and institutional racism
- Accept the unequal history of race and racism in the United States that has created racial hierarchies that has disenfranchised Black Americans
- Share with others the true foundations of United States’s histories beginning with the acknowledgement of settler colonialism and the rewards that White people have received due to White supremacy and Black oppression.
- Talk about race and racism
- Explain why phrases like “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” are racist
- Recognize that anyone can be anti-racist--it only takes the dedication and decision to be anti-racist, to educate yourself about the history of racism in the US and then to talk in an anti-racist way and to act as an anti-racist

Course logo image credit: Liam Edwards, 06/04/2021. Available on Unsplash at https://unsplash.com/photos/x15GAQNepcQ

Syllabus

Week 1: Defining

This week you will learn various ways of defining race through definitions of whiteness. While race and racism have, in popular discourse, been understood to refer to non-white people, we start with whiteness since whiteness has been the primary ideology that dominated the formation of the United States, its laws, power structure, society, and culture. The anti-racism glossary also provides a variety of definitions related to race, racism, and anti-racism.

Week 2: Identifying

Now that you've learned to define whiteness and other terms related to race, racism, and anti-racism, this week focuses on identifying the impact of race, racism, and anti-racism. The first article contextualizes our current moment of racial crisis, along with identifying differences between being not-racist and anti-racist. The remaining readings and viewings provide historical context for systemic racism, especially anti-Black racism in the US.

Week 3: Applying

For this final week of the anti-racism course you will see how the application of these terms and concepts are tied to other overlapping oppressions and how they can be used for specific anti-racism work, such as defunding the police (and why this is not as radical as people may think it is, though in many ways to imagine an anti-racist world is a radical act) and specific actions that each of us can do to be anti-racism allies and educators.