APPENDIX 1 Dialogue: Some of My Presuppositions Here are some of the presuppositions for our class discussions: 1. Social injustice exists. People are not treated equitably. We live in an unjust society and an unfair world. Although “liberty,” “equality,” and “democracy” are radical ideas with great promise, they have not yet been fulfilled. Oppression (racism, classism, sexism, etc.) exists on multiple seen and unseen levels. 2. Our educations have been biased. The eurocentric educational systems, media outlets, and other institutions omit and distort information about our own groups and those of others. These hidden mechanisms sustain oppression, including an often invisible and normative ‘white’ supremacy. Not surprisingly, we all have “blank spots,” desconocimientos (Anzaldúa), and so forth. 3. Blame is not useful, but accountability is. It is nonproductive to blame ourselves and/or others for the misinformation we have learned in the past or for ways we have benefited and continue benefiting from these unjust social systems. However, once we have been exposed to more accurate information, we are accountable, and we should work to do something with this information—perhaps by working toward a more just future. 4. “We are related to all that lives.”* We are interconnected and interde- pendent in multiple ways, including economically, ecologically, linguistically, socially, spiritually. *Inés Hernández-Ávila. “An Open Letter to Chicanas: On the Power and Politics of Origin.” Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writing of North America. Ed. Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. 237–46. 126 Teaching Transformation 5. Categories and labels shape our perception. Categories and labels, although often necessary and sometimes useful, can prevent us from recognizing our interconnectedness with others. Categories can (a) distort our perceptions; (b) create arbitrary divisions among us; (c) support an oppositional “us-against-them” mentality that prevents us from recog- nizing potential commonalities; and (d) reinforce the unjust status quo. Relatedly, identity categories based on inflexible labels establish and police boundaries—boundaries that shut us in with those we’ve deemed “like” “us” and boundaries that shut us out from those whom we assume to be different. 6. People have a basic goodness. People (both those we study and class members) generally endeavor to do the best they can. We will all make mistakes, despite our best intentions. The point is to learn from our errors. In order to learn from our errors, we must be willing to listen and to speak (preferably, in this order!). APPENDIX 2 Listening with Raw Openness Listening is a crucial yet too often overlooked element in effective class discussions and other forms of dialogue. Below are some suggestions that, if we all practice, will enhance class discussions. I describe this process as deep listening, or “listening with raw openness.” 1. Deep listening entails respect for each speaker’s “complex personhood” (Cervenak et al.). As we listen, we remind ourselves that each individual we encounter has a specific, highly intricate history, an upbringing and life experiences that we cannot fully know. We don’t know the forces that shaped her and, at best, we can only partially ascertain her intentions and desires. Our understanding is always partial and incomplete. 2. Deep listening entails the willingness to be vulnerable: opening to others’ perspectives, acknowledging the possibility of error, and willing to change. As Paula Gunn Allen suggests, such vulnerability can be an important part of growth: “And what is vulnerability? Just this: the ability to be wrong, to be foolish, to be weak and silly, to be an idiot. It is the ability to accept one’s unworthiness, to accept one’s vanity for what it is. It’s the ability to be whatever and whoever you are—recognizing that you, like the world, like the earth, are fragile, and that in your fragility lies all possibility of growth and of death, and that the two are one and the same” (65). 3. Deep listening entails asking for clarification. Before we respond, we should clarify the speaker’s message, to make sure that we’ve understood as fully as possible what s/he’s saying. 4. Deep listening entails frequent pauses and the ability to remain silent. Sometimes it’s best simply to listen, and not respond verbally (especially 128 Teaching Transformation if those responses would involve offering solutions, drawing analogies with our own experiences or those of others, or speaking without first self-reflecting). 5. Deep listening enables us to challenge the ideas, not the speakers. We can respectfully, but forthrightly, challenge desconocimientos, misunder- standings, and expressions of falsehoods and stereotypes about our own groups and other groups. When doing so, it is vital that we challenge the stereotypes/racism/ideologies/etc.—not the speaker herself. Sources Allen, Paula Gunn. Off the Reservation: Reflections on Boundary-Busting, Border-Crossing Loose Canons. Boston: Beacon P, 1998. Anzaldúa, Gloria E. “now let us shift . the path of conocimiento . inner work, public acts.” this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation. Ed. Gloria E. Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating. New York: Routledge, 2002. 540–78. Cervenak, Sarah J., Karina L. Cespedes, Caridad Souza, and Andrea Straub. “Imagining Differently: The Politics of Listening in a Feminist Classroom.” this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation. Ed. Gloria E. Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating. New York: Routledge, 2002. 341–56. Hogue, Cynthia, Kim Parker, and Meredith Miller. “Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk: Ethical Pedagogy in the Multicultural Classroom.” Feminist Teacher 12 (1998): 89. Keating, AnaLouise. “Women of Color and Feminism: Twenty Years after This Bridge Called My Back.” Paper presented at New York University. Fall 2002. WS/SOCI 5463. U.S. Women of Colors. Fall 2002. APPENDIX 3 Two Creation Stories Genesis (Chapters 1–3) Monotheistic: One very authoritative, masculine divine being Top–down creation: (This God seems to do most of the work) Humans and animals play small part in creation (Adam names the animals) Humans’ role primarily destructive (“the Fall”) Separation between the divine and the human Separation between the human and nature Separation between man (Adam) and woman (Eve) Hierarchical arrangement: (1) God; (2) man; (3) woman; (4) animals Begins with perfection; moves to state of exile and fallenness Radical break between “good” and “evil” Dualistic (human/divine; matter/spirit; humans/nature) Emphasis on individuals Domination of nature Linear view of history “Talk Concerning the First Beginning” Multiple divine beings Co-creation: Humans, animals, and divine play crucial, participatory roles in creation Interrelatedness (kinship among all levels: animals, humans, land, spirits, etc.) Holistic, nonbinary, and relational No radical break between material/spiritual; human/divine; etc. Shapeshifting; transformations 130 Teaching Transformation Harmony and balance Nondualistic view of “good” and “evil” “Evil”: illness, being out of harmony, rather than radically opposed to good Mistakes not necessarily permanent Emphasis on communities, not individuals Egalitarian Nonhierarchical Nonlinear Sources Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon, 1986. Cajete, Gregory. Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education. Skyland, NC: Kivaki P, 1994. ———. Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdepencence. Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers, 2000. Deloria, Jr., Vine. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion. Rev. ed. Goldon, CO: Fulcrum, 1994. APPENDIX 4 Epistemologies of ‘Whiteness’ I use the term ‘whiteness’ to indicate a framework, an epistemology and ethics, that functions as an invisible norm which undergirds U.S. culture (educational systems, the media, etc.). I limit my remarks to ‘whiteness’ as represented and played out in U.S. culture; I do not equate ‘whiteness’ with people identified as ‘white.’ Rather, the relationship between ‘white’ people and ‘whiteness’ is contingent (Frye). I posit that we are all, in various ways, inscripted into this ‘white’/supremacist framework. Because this framework functions to benefit ‘white’-raced people, they can be more invested in it. This ‘whiteness’ intersects with certain versions of masculinity, economic status (middle- to upper-class), and colonization that has its roots in the Enlightenment. Why ‘Whiteness’ as Framework? “[S]ocietal norms and concepts of Americanness have developed in almost exclusively White political, social and cultural spheres.” (powell, “Our Private Obsession” 118–19) “The result of this historical dominance is that the styles of thinking, acting, speaking, and behaving of the dominant group have become the socially correct or privileged ways of thinking, acting, speaking, and behaving. One of the main ways this happens is that the ways of the dominant group become universalized as measures of merit, hiring criteria, grading standards, predictors of success, correct grammar, appropriate behavior, and so forth.” (Scheurich 7) 132 Teaching Transformation “Whiteness fails to see itself as alien, as seen, as recognized. To see itself as seen, whiteness would have to deny the imperial epistemological and ontological base from which it sees what it wants (or has been shaped historically) to see. Whiteness refuses to risk finding itself in exile, in unfamiliar territory,