'Wokeness' in the wild: Observations from a college diversity class in Trumpland
Beginning next week, I’ll be handing over the reins to this blog to the students of Comm & Diversity 350 at Davidson College. They get to write about whatever they want in whatever way they want - even if they disagreed with everything I’ve posted to this date or anything I say in class. I may chime in with a post from time to time as well depending on what’s going on in the news, but when they post, you will know it’s them, not me.
When I told them I’d be doing this, I noticed some expressing hesitance, with some of them asking if they had to use their real names (yes, they do). This page is new enough that it isn’t throwing them into the deep end of the pool, as far as reaching beyond the classroom walls to deal with some of these issues. The subscriber and daily views count range from the few hundred to the few thousand. But it does give them a chance to get used to how it feels to have to explain themselves clearly and boldly knowing there might be disagreements they didn’t anticipate. It’s one thing to learn about concepts such as “whiteness” and “white privilege” and “intersectionality” and “systemic racism” in the abstract; it is quite another to have to deal with them in a practical sense with people who may or may not agree or may or may not be hostile.
So look for that. Also, look for my public presentation at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15 via this Zoom link: https://davidson.zoom.us/j/97030400540?pwd=S3YvNTlDMCtkdGpQWVpNVlBzYkt4UT09
The tentative title of the talk: “White People and ‘Whiteness’: What a ‘Woke’ Lecture By a ‘Woke’ Professor In ‘Trumpland’ Sounds Like.”