Blogbook -- Chapter 1: Racist Discourse . . . And The Case of the Irish
Entry 9 Derald Wing Sue, Professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University, explains that racism is institutional and operates through “standard operating procedures (SOPs), which represent the rules, habits, procedures, and structures of organizations that oppress persons of color while favoring Whites” ( note 60 ). The bottom line is, racism is the norm in society because it’s structural. It’s everywhere. It ain’t no anomaly. It happens because the system is working the way it is designed to, not because something or someone went wrong. Recently, I found a great set of tweets from @Absurdistwords that captures the ubiquitous and structural way racism and White supremacy exist in the world. And while we can laugh at the connection to high fructose corn syrup, the simile is pretty accurate. So to be antiracist ELA teachers, we need to understand the history and nature of racist discourse , which is more than just understanding that racism is a discourse. We ha...