Abstract
This article looks at the ways in which the topic of race is treated in social studies classrooms and the conceptual application of the field of critical race theory (CRT) to the teaching of American history. The author discusses the field of the social studies in terms of its stated goals and how these goals are not met because of a lack of atten tion that is paid to the pervasive power of race in US history. By discussing the tenets of CRT, the author argues that US history be taught from a race-based perspective, given the influence that race has had on the unfolding of the American nation state. In addition to discussing the fundamental characteristics of CRT, the author then gives ideas and concrete examples of how CRT can be used in the classroom to teach the topic of Native American history.
Race and Social Studies
Race as a central construct and factor in the history of the United States is undeniable. It serves as the best and the worst of what we, as a country, have represented. Race is the mirror into which we must gaze if we are to meet the credo of equality and justice for all. It would seem that the power that race has played in the unfolding of the American nation state could, and maybe should be a focal point of the social studies or history curricula in American schools. Indeed the question almost seems to be the elephant in the room, the question that no one wants to ask: How is it that the most important social aspect of our history is downplayed, marginalized, and in some cases intentionally omitted? How is it that the “color-line” that DuBois (1989) wrote about that continues to haunt our collective consciousness seems to be missing from the curriculum of our students?
It can be argued (Omi & Winant, 1994) that race, racism, the meaning of one’s skin color, and the politics behind such mindsets represent the central theme in American history. Indeed the idea that America was founded on the ideas of liberty and freedom, nebulous concepts at best, give way to the truth that the United States was founded primarily as a racial state, one whose primary existence was predicated on a racial class system. The problem with this particular narrative is that it is made problematic because students of history have to navigate through and in some cases, against, the surge of nationalism and patriotism that has become such a part of our collective consciousness. This is to say that students must unlearn that America was founded on “freedom” and come to terms with the fact that colonial explorations/invasions were predicated on ideas of racial superiority, that the founding documents (i.e. the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution) created a racial state. So it is not by chance that the US started out as a racist state, but rather that it was an intentional action on the part of the founders. Race has always been and will remain “at the center of the American experience” (Omi & Winant, 1994, p. 5). They continue
The United States has been extremely “color-conscious” society. From the very inception of the Republic to the present moment, race has been a profound determinant of one’s political rights, one’s location in the labor market, and indeed one’s sense of identity. The hallmark of this history has been racism, not the abstract ethos of equality (italics added) … all can bear witness to the tragic consequences of racial oppression, (p. 1)
The problem with the social studies and the representation of race can be found in at least three distinct areas: the social studies curriculum, the social studies profession, and social studies policies (Ladson-Billings, 2003). Because the majority of social studies classes are driven by textbooks (Goodlad, 1984; Ross, 2001), which have become de facto curriculums in their own right, the social studies curriculum is a justified starting point. Throughout the social studies curriculum, students of history are given, at best, an incoherent, distorted picture of those who are non-white (Loewen, 2007). Native Americans, African Americans, and other groups of people that have made up the American experience receive only token representation in mainstream history textbooks (Loewen, 2007) and are eventually erased from the national consciousness altogether (Ladson-Billings, 2003). The treatment of American Indians (Rains, 2003) in history texts pushes them to the fringes of the story: Native Americans are seen as having cordial relations with whites, being obstacles for Manifest Destiny, and eventually succumbing to white progress, never to be discussed again, as though they never existed. A similar treatment is given to African Americans in mainstream textbooks: they were slaves, they fought in the Civil War, they struggled through Reconstruction, had an artistic flowering in the Harlem Renaissance, and the won their right to vote in the 1960s when Martin Luther King, Jr. and others engaged in civil disobedience against the white status quo (Ladson-Billings, 2003). Other than these “key events” in American history, non-whites are largely left out of the dominant narrative, although the experiences of non-white peoples have been the central part of the story.
Ladson-Billings (2003) also is quick to point out that the social studies profession, the profession whose stated goal is democracy and citizenship training, is silent in the face of calls to diversify its teaching ranks as well as the nature of its inquiry. Ladson-Billings states, “I am sad to report that at the college and university level, social studies education remains as frozen in its old paradigms as it was in the late 1960s” (p. 5). The policies of the social studies profession are not explicitly directed towards issues of race either: no overt statement about race or racism is made in the standards that govern and organize the social studies; in fact, in the mid-1990’s NCSS eliminated the standing committee that was charged with race and racism in the social studies (Ladson- Billings, 2003). This event combined with the controversy surrounding the proposed boycott of the Anaheim meeting over Proposition 187 in California led several leading educators (Combleth, Ladson-Billings) interested in social studies and race to formally discontinue their association with CUFA (Ross, 1998). Marshall (2003) points out that the NCSS’s Curriculum Guidelines for Multicultural Education intentionally excluded race and racism as subjects in the hopes that it would disappear of its own volition: “We rarely used the term race in the first edition, perhaps because of our vain hope that silence would facilitate racism’s disappearance” (as cited in Marshall, 2003, p. 80). This is a prime example of how race, as a subject, in the social studies and multicultural initiatives, is rarely addressed in the research corpus or in the stated goals of practitioner intended policy documents. Rains’ (2006) and Nelson & Pang’s (2006) treatment of race as a formal topic in two chapters of The Social Studies Curriculum (Ross, 2006) represent two of the more critical pieces of research in this area. Rains’ piece evaluates the gap between the stated goals of the social studies and the lived experiences of Native American students, and Nelson and Pang (2006) speak to the ways in which race, as a social category, is a construction that is not based on any standard of scientific proof. Both of these chapters serve as exemplars in looking at race with a critical lens and how it plays itself out in the field of the social studies.
Over the past 30 years of research that can be found in the social studies, including research found in the journal Theory and Research in Social Education (TRSE) and the Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning (Shaver, 1991), the topic of race within the social studies curriculum, how teachers think about teaching this topic, and how teachers address this topic within their classrooms, is essentially marginalized in the literature. Two examples of how race is making its way into mainstream discussions about social studies can be found in the latest edition of the Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education (Levstik & Tyson, 2008), and in a special issue of TRSE edited by Tyrone Howard and Cynthia Tyson (2004) that dealt specifically with “Race and the Social Studies.” The Handbook of Research in Social Studies Education improves on the earlier edition in that it deals with race as a constructed identity and how that classification plays itself out in the spheres of citizenship, institutional racism, and diversity (Banks & Nguyen, 2008). Another exemplar of race related research and theory as it pertains to social studies education is found in the four volume Race, Ethnicity, and Education (Ross & Pang, 2006) series. In volumes three and four, the topics of colorblindness (Milner & Ross, 2006; Bonilla-Silva), racial development (Dixon, 2006), racialized personal narratives (Laughter, Baker, Williams, Cearley, & Milner, 2006), race pedagogy (Lynn, 2006), and white privilege (Ayanru, Basualdo, Fleury, 2006; Urrieta & Reidel, 2006) are discussed within the contexts of what meaning race plays in education, and how this shifting, fluid meaning manifests itself in the field of social education.
The Mission of the Social Studies
Of all subjects that American children study in our nation’s public schools, social studies is maybe the most debated, discussed, and scrutinized of all academic disciplines. This is mostly due to the fact that the social studies is the “most inclusive of all school subjects” (Ross, 2001, p. 19). “The social studies… is a field characterized by competing paradigms, diverse approaches and methods, and debates about how social studies teaching in the nation’s schools can best help students to develop citizenship skills and abilities” (Banks, 1997, p. 6). The National Council for the Social Studies (1992) defines the social studies as “the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence.” It is easy to understand why the subject that we call social studies is so difficult to understand and teach; it is very complex in nature and it can be integrated across many other areas of study.
The purposes and goals of teaching social studies have had different meanings and approaches depending on the socio-historical era under consideration (Stanley & Nelson, 1994). “In 1939 that establishment [the social studies] was seen as altruistic and concerned with the nation’s welfare, today it is vilified as protectionist and resistant to change” (Nelson, 1994, p. 1). Of all the disciplines that are taught in schools, it is perhaps the social studies that are most social—meaning the social studies is most apt to be determined by the historical milieu in which it is taught. The social studies encompass the culture of people, the dreams of what they want to become, and in some instances serves to exclude some members of society from the public arena.
With the obvious lack of social studies research related to race/whiteness in the social studies, and even less related to how teachers at all levels of social education think about and act upon these issues, it would seem that the mission of the social studies, at least from a raced perspective, is not being met. There is a lack of systematic research in the field of social studies relative race and whiteness. Given the paucity of research on race within social studies education, NCSS (1994) does have statements directed at race and diversity within social studies:
Students should be helped to construct a pluralist perspective based in diversity. This perspective involves respect for differences of opinion and preference; of race, religion, and gender; of class and ethnicity; and of culture in general. This construction should be based on the realization that differences exist among individuals and the conviction that this diversity can be positive and socially enriching. Students need to learn that the existence of cultural and philosophically differences are not “problems” to be solved; rather, they are healthy and desirable qualities of democratic community life. (pp. 6-7)
The social studies, more than any other school discipline, has been historically charged with creating active, democratic citizens (Ross, 2000; Ross, 2001). From George Counts’ reconstructionist philosophy to John Dewey’s critique of Counts, to Walter Lippman’s social science based notions of social studies, the purpose of the social studies has always been to create a more just society (Ross, 2001; Stanley, 2005). Counts’ book Dare the School Build a New Social Order? (1932) outlined what he thought education should do-examine and transform the undemocratic aspects of American society, namely the individualistic, capitalist economic system. Social reconstructionists, like Counts, argued that schooling is never a neutral enterprise so teachers should consider how what they do in the classroom can be used to create a more just society (Dinkelman, 1999). Dewey’s critique of Counts’ notions of education was rooted in what he saw as indoctrination inherent in Counts’ ideas. Dewey believed that students should be educated with “a method of intelligence” so that citizens would be able to analyze and solve social problems, rather than being taught (i.e. indoctrinated) into one form of social economy or government. Dewey sought to “prepare individuals to take part intelligently in the management of conditions under which they will live, to bring them to an understanding of the forces that are moving, and to equip them with the intellectual and practical tools by which they can themselves enter into the direction of these forces” (Dewey as quoted Stanley, 2005, p. 283). Lippman argued that the democracy on which the nation was founded had been radically transformed by free market capitalism and technology to the point to which citizens did not readily understand democratic decision-making processes. This created a situation in which citizens were unable to grasp the complexity of social issues and their potential solutions. Accordingly, Lippmann believed that only a highly trained group of social scientists were capable of transforming a more just and equitable society (Stanley, 2005).
The issue with these three schools of thought relative to social change and transformation is that, in practice, none is adequately manifested in the social studies classroom, particularly vis-à-vis race. Counts’ interrogation of the political/economic system, Dewey’s notion of training people to make decisions based on social justice, and Lippman’s idea that governments were “manufacturing public opinion” (p. 284), are rarely addressed in school settings. Any notion of social studies designed to critique racial and class inequalities would need to include some aspects of these social studies thinkers. Finally, in looking at the topic race and racial oppression within the school curriculum: If an examination of racism cannot occur within the social studies class, then where will it be taught? I argue that social studies should be charged with this mission, and that it is the responsibility of social studies teachers to teach how race has influenced the creation of the United States. In the next section, I introduce the literature of critical race theory (CRT) as an attempt to reconceptualize how we, as social studies educators, might teach about race in more inclusive and honest ways.
Critical Race Theory Defined
To engage in a serious discussion of race in America, we must begin not with the problems of black people but with the flaws of American society--flaws rooted in historic inequalities and longstanding cultural stereotypes. (West, 1994, p. 6)
Race in America, perhaps more than any other social or political issue, is one of the most hotly contested, debated, and discussed topics in our collective national dialogue. The word “race” first appeared in Europe in the 1500s, and in 400 years went from meaning “a category of class of person or things that carried no implication of biological identity to a connotation firmly entrenched in the language and thought schemas associated with morphological and biological inheritance” (Gates, 1997, p. vii). Upon examination of the origins of race and the history of the meaning(s) of race, it is obvious that race is a socially constructed category used to maintain power structures in societies (Pulera, 2002). The inherent artificiality of race is apparent in the ways in which it has been used by governments and societies in the past. Royal certificates of whiteness could be purchased in Hispanic-American colonies; Portuguese citizens settling in America would be considered white, but not in British Guyana; late in the 19th century, Chinese and Mexican Indians were classified as white in Cuba, but in the United States, they were classified as “colored”; early in the 20th century, the one-drop rule (i.e. one drop of “tainted blood”) classified persons as non-white; laws in Texas during the same time period classified race based on the race of one’s father (Allen, 1998). It is clear that race, however powerful its material, social, and psychological impacts, is a human invention based on pseudo-scientific categories (Jackson & Weidman, 2004).
Race in America and the social construction of what race “means” in contemporary times constitutes one of the most profound problems, not only for people of color, but one for all people who subscribe to the American creed of equality. The impact of race and the feelings and emotions that are associated with race are not a distant and long forgotten relic of the Civil War and/or the Jim Crow era; it is not something that has been cured through long hand wringing and thought; it saturates the American polity. Race is a part of the American experience--it is woven into the birth certificate of the nation (Omi & Winant, 1994). Race in contemporary times is particularly salient in light of the fact that the demographics of the United States are changing from the mostly homogonous world of yesterday into a “browner” society in which paradigms about race, color, and prejudice will have to be addressed (Kailin, 2002; Yasin, 1999).
Critical race theorists originate from many different academic fields and intellectual traditions, but they do share one common theme: race is a part of our culture, and institutions of power serve the dual purpose of maintaining the status quo of white privilege at the expense of people of color. Critical race theorists attempt to name that which oppresses them with the expressed purpose of opening spaces of freedom (Greene, 1988) to claim what is right and just for people of color in America. Through storytelling and an epistemological mindset that cuts across philosophical boundaries, CRT attempts to “describe what is and what ought to be” (Taylor, 1999, p. 184).
Critical Race Theory started in the 1970s, when a group of civil rights and legal scholars of color perceived the race gains of the 1960s stalled or in reverse (Green, 1999). The major writers in CRT, Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, and William Tate, started their movement with the idea that race in American society is normal, not deviant. This is not to say that racial hatred is right, but rather that given the historical background of this country and given the role that schools play in indoctrinating students with narratives about freedom, fairness, and democracy, that people are going to be educated (formally and informally) with racist mindsets.
Critical Race Theory is a theory that is predicated on the idea that the legal system and its subsequent apparatuses constitute a facet of American society that serves the political needs and racist tendencies of a racist majority white population in America. Because the United States is a “nation of laws” and we (in theory) live by the creed of the “rule of law,” the role that the legal institutions of this country play in maintaining societal racism cannot be overstated in CRT (Crenshaw, 1995). For CRT thinkers, “political and moral analysis is situational-truths only exist for this person in this predicament at this time in history” (Delgado, 1991, p. 11). With this in mind, notions of “truth” and “objectivity” in law are considered suspect at best and probably impossible.
At present there is no set of doctrine to which all CRT writers and thinkers adhere, but there are two broad assumptions that ground CRT. The first broad assumption that CRT rests on is the critique of traditional, liberal notions of civil rights work and scholarship; secondly, critical race theorists propose using critical thought via the channel of race to change the social structure into one that is more equitable and into one that upholds the American creed of justice and fairness for everyone (Roithmayr, 1999). CRT’s attack on the traditional civil rights scholarship is essentially an attack on the “universalism, objectivism, and race-neutrality of concepts like ‘equal opportunity,’ ‘merit,’ and ‘equal protection’” (Roithmayr, 1999, p. 1). To CRT the system in America (law, education, employment, etc.) constitutes a racist regime that is designed to uphold white supremacy and subjugate people of color (Crenshaw, 1995).
Critical race theory rests on the ideal that scholarship pertaining to law, race, or education should not or could not ever be “neutral and objective” (Crenshaw, 1995). The notion that society could view racism as something that is perpetrated by people who were ignorant and evil is an idea that critical race theorists believe has hurt the cause for racial justice in the long run; in CRT, racism, in the American context, is normal. The civil rights movement and its discourse have stressed the ideal of a social contract in which “racial power and racial injustice would be understood in very particular ways” (Crenshaw, 1995, p. xiv). In short, the idea of fighting racial injustice was incorporated into the mainstream psyche to constitute thinking that upheld the notions of fairness and equality but that did not radically challenge the structural status quo or the underlying causes of this racist nation--it (i.e. traditional civil rights movement) treated “the exercise of racial power as rare and aberrational rather than as systemic and ingrained” (Crenshaw, 1995, p. xiv). By stressing that racism was a personal decision that was committed by people who were either ignorant or disturbed, mainstream society could absolve itself of participation in a previously more radical movement. This suggests that this mindset allows a “broad cultural mainstream both explicitly to acknowledge the fact of racism and, simultaneously, to insist on its irregular occurrence and limited significance …. it serves to legitimize the basic myths of American meritocracy” (Crenshaw, 1995, p. xiv).
Taking the liberal approach to civil rights gains calls for long, tedious advancements in which the participants must struggle for long periods of time to obtain what is constitutionally theirs (in theory) to begin with--it will (should) end in full citizenship and privileges enjoyed by all people of color (Freeman, 1995). According to the traditional liberal notions of the civil rights movement, racism was “a failure in reason, which resulted from ignorance, lack of education, or lack of exposure to people of color” (Roithmayr, 1999, p. 2), rather than an intentional system of oppression. Critical race theorists believe that racism should be viewed as a normal outgrowth of living in the United States--a country in which race has played the central role in social settings since the inception of the country.
Traditional discourse about racism and discrimination are framed in what Crenshaw (1995) labels defensive terms. By framing racism in terms that are outside the norm, the speech of the liberal tradition espouses ideologies of fairness, the American Dream, and meritocracy that are unconnected to any notions of a larger picture in which social power is connected to notions of race, privilege, and whiteness. Critical race theorists have demonstrated that the paradigms that guided the reformers of yesterday--color blindness, formal legal equality, merit, integration--have in fact created and maintained the system of “institutional racial power” (Roithmayr, 1999).
Ladson-Billings (1999) puts forth the four main ideals behind the CRT movement: (1) racism is normal; (2) experiential knowledge is more important than formal academic (legal) knowledge; this is a call for context; (3) the persistent critique of liberalism; and (4) that whites have been the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation (i.e. interest convergence) (Bell, 1995). The first notion set forth by Ladson-Billings (1999) is in line with the major CRT thinkers. Racism has been a part of our national history not only because of the visible and obvious examples such as slavery and Jim Crow legislation, but also in the fact that racism was outlined in the constitution (e.g., three-fifths compromise) and in the writings of some of the founders of the nation (Bell, 1995a). Thomas Jefferson once wrote that, “blacks should be free but that they are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of mind and body” (Bell, 1995a, p. 2). The idea that racism is abnormal does little to address the more subtle forms (i.e. not obvious to whites) of racism that exist in the workplace and in society in general. By treating everyone the same, the ideal of meritocracy serves as a justification of white supremacy in America.
Experiential knowledge also plays a major role in CRT. Because “a remarkable sameness afflicts many scholarly articles, books, and doctoral dissertations” using the old paradigms of talking and writing about race do not always apply to CRT (Delgado & Stefancic, 1995a, p. 206). CRT takes the position that the constructs of race, power, privilege, etc. are social constructions that can be dismantled through the use of storytelling and counter-storytelling (Delgado & Stefancic, 1995a). In white American society there is the stock story or metanarrative--the one that tells and explains away why things are as they are; this is the explanation that the way things are operating currently constitute “normal,” it justifies the “world as it is, that is, with whites on top and browns and blacks at the bottom” (Delgado & Stefancic, 1995a, p. 64).
The use of counter-storytelling is storytelling by what Delgado and Stefancic, (1995a) call “outgroups.” Outgroups are the ones who define the boundaries of what normal is--those that have been oppressed and undervalued in society. This is what Matsuda (1995) called “looking to the bottom.” Legal scholarship in the field of civil rights has neglected the voice that the oppressed have put forth. The primary tenet of CRT that is based on storytelling puts primary importance on the people who have experienced discrimination and listens to the stories that they have to share as a focal point in the process of liberation, not as a sidenote (Matsuda, 1995). CRT suggests a “new epistemological source of critical scholars: the actual experience, history, culture, and intellectual tradition of people of color in America (Matsuda, 1995, p. 63). Storytelling in the realm of CRT adds contextual clues and racial markers to which thinkers and writers can orient their thinking within the dominant objective, positivistic perspectives (Ladson-Billings, 1999).
Thirdly, CRT scholarship is marked by the persistent critique of liberalism in the civil rights realm. Critical race theorists reject the liberal (read: traditional) paradigms of change that involve notions of the “civil rights crusade as a long, slow, but always upward pull; this line of thought is flawed because it fails to understand the limits of current legal paradigms to serve as catalysts for social change and because of its emphasis on incrementalism” (Ladson-Billings, 1999, p. 13). Critical race theorists think that racism needs to be addressed in more radical and sweeping ways than has been the case in the past. Lastly, CRT takes aim at the assertion that meliorism of the civil rights movement. CRT contends that civil rights legislation in the mainstream notion of the word benefits the white segment of America more than the groups to which it was originally addressed. Affirmative action brings about angst in white America because it is viewed to be diametrically opposed to the ideal of American meritocracy; CRT points out that the group that has benefited the most from affirmative action programs have been white females, ultimately benefiting the whole white society via extra education, salary, and prestige. This notion finds itself most clearly expressed in the idea of interest convergence (Bell, 1995b), which asserts that white actions in favor of civil rights for people of color be examined with some attention given to the ways in which white society benefits from civil rights legislation. Bell (1995b) points to Brown v. Board of Education as a case in point; 1) Brown allowed the United States credibility in the race to win the hearts and minds of people in communist countries, and 2) Brown moved forward a transformation of the agrarian south and thus viewed de jure segregation as an obstacle to economic growth.
Implementing Critical Race Theory in the Classroom
Teachers’ Fear
Critical race theory tells us that teachers are fearful (Branch, 2003; Ellsworth, 1997; Ladson-Billings, 1996; Landsman 2001; McIntyre, 1997; Rosenberg, 1997; Tatum, 1997) when it comes to teaching about race. One of the most formidable obstacles to overtly teaching about race in the social studies is the fear of race that teachers, particularly white teachers, have with this culturally taboo topic (McIntyre, 1997). Ladson-Billings, (1995a, 1995b, 2000) has addressed this phenomenon in her writings that deal with culturally relevant pedagogy and how white teachers can be at a cultural disadvantage when teaching students or talking with parents from different cultural or racial backgrounds (Duesterberg, 1999). Students in the social studies do not receive instruction on race from a critical standpoint and thus leave formal schooling with the impression that race, as a determining factor in one’s life, is of no consequence (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). In addition to receiving non- critical instruction vis-à-vis race, many teachers, by utilizing colorblind, meritocratic paradigms when teaching about race, are “often complicit with the very thing they are criticizing” (West, 1993, p. 6). Many teachers’ fear of teaching race stems from their perception that critically examining race as a social construct (i.e. overtly discussing race in mixed groups) will make them “look” like a racist; others are afraid/ashamed of their own ingrained notions of racism (Ellsworth, 1997; Landsman 2001; Rosenberg, 1997; Tatum, 1997); some are fearful of offending their students of color (Chandler, 2007) or the community in which they teach (Chandler, 2006; McKnight & Chandler, 2008). In addition, adults “remember the awkwardness, confusion, and sadness associated with race related experiences” so they avoid any discussion relative to race (in or out of the classroom) (Branch, 2003, p. 109).
Fear of teaching race in the classroom is also derived from what Branch (2003) calls race-less consciousness. Race-less consciousness refers to the ways in which whites experience race that differs from the ways in which non-whites experience race. This is due to the fact that non-whites are the targets of daily (subtle and non-subtle) forms of racism, while whites do not endure this oppressive regime (Tate, 1997). This becomes a potential problem in social studies classes when white teachers attempt (or do not attempt) to represent racism to groups of students who have firsthand, daily experiences with race and its impacts. “If race is not salient in the consciousness of white people, it makes sense that teaching about race would not be important to white teachers” (Branch, 2003, p. 113). When teachers treat race in particular ways (i.e. remain silent, give it partial treatment, and represent Others’ experiences through “white eyes”) they are operating from the right to define-the right to truth and to power. It is based on the premise that “someone has more of a right to state what they think the world looks like and to coerce others into agreeing with that view” (Armstrong & Ng, 2005, p. 32).
Race as a Social Construction
When teaching secondary students about the concept of race, a good starting point is to allow your students access to the information and the idea that race as it currently exists is an invention of human beings—that it has no meaning outside of the meaning that we assign to it (Nelson & Pang, 2006). The conception of race is not based on biology, on one’s skin color, on one’s facial features, or one’s language--as the courts of the Supreme Court have proved.
Race is neither an essence nor an illusion, but rather an ongoing, contradictory, self-reinforcing, plastic process subject to the macro forces of social and political struggle and the micro effects of daily decisions … the referents of terms like Black and White are social groups. … (Lopez, 1995a, p. 193)
Lopez (1995a) believes that race is a term used to denote who is part of the group and who is not. When the term race began to develop characteristics of being based on biological inheritance, the term was used to denote people “outside the European continent” (Gates, 1997, p. vii)— again stressing the outsider notion (Said, 1995) inherent in racial categorizations. Lopez (1995a) writes that the Supreme Court has had considerable trouble determining what race was, to whom it applied, and if it was even admissible in court to make decisions; at the very least, using race in the court room (as a social construct) essentially means using traditional roles and stereotypes to “label” groups of people and maintain existing power structures. In addition, racial epithets and their respective meanings have also been the subject of some court cases in American jurisprudence history (Kennedy, 2003). If race must be viewed as a social construction, then CRT believes it can be “constructed” into something more fair and equitable. “Just as objective social reality exists not by chance, but as the product of human action, so it is not transformed by chance” (Freire, 1970, p. 33). This again shows how the legal system of the United States sets the guidelines of who is white, although predicated on the guiding points of “whiteness,” was uneven and contradictory at times (Allen, 1998; Lopez, 1995b). The scientific establishment is also implicated in popular notions about racial categories, with the racial categories it has disseminated to the scientific and lay community alike (i.e. Harvard anthropologist Carlton Coon’s “white, black, yellow, red” scheme) (Alland, 2002).
Both rationales for using whiteness as the criteria for citizenship in our nation’s history, common knowledge and scientific evidence, have been debunked. “The prerequisite courts (cases) in effect labeled those who were excluded from citizenship as inferior; by implication, those who were admitted were superior.… Whites exist not just as the antonym of non-Whites but as the superior antonym” (Lopez, 1995b, p. 547). Muir (1993) goes as far as to say that not only does there exist no biological categories of race, but that “race” as a concept exists only in the mind of a racist. Races, as we know them today, and the concept of race in the collective psyche of Americans is a pseudoscientific invention that dates to the late 1700s (Gould, 1994).
The social construction of race can be seen in Delgado and Stefancic’s (1995b) study of the depiction of groups of color throughout the history of the United States. Their study suggests that the construction of race and the emotions that accompany it are very flexible and usually serve in a capacity to uphold common held beliefs about these groups. During Reconstruction in the United States, blacks were characterized as being “primitive, powerful, larger- than-life blacks, terrifying and barely under control,” … during slavery “society needed reassurance that blacks were docile, cheerful, and content with their lot” (Delgado & Stefancic, 1995b, p. 219). Even the use of the word “black” to describe a person has been shown to suggest and conjure up ideas of negativity when juxtaposed beside the term “white”; even the color that is used to describe people of African descent puts them in opposition to the images of goodness and purity that are suggested by the opposite “color” that represents them (Williams, 1966; Williams & Richard, 1971).
Let’s Start at the Beginning: CRT and Teaching About Native Americans
Native Removal
Although much of CRT deals with the experience of African-Americans’ experience as a racially discriminated group, teachers in the field are often given curricular materials to use that start with a beginning date of 1492. If students in American history courses are to be taught about the beginnings of race based thinking in North America and the policies that were borne out of this thinking, I believe that the integration of CRT into one’s teaching should start with the experience of indigenous people. Often times, the study of Native group in American history or social studies is a truncated, simplified version of actual events, time periods, and personalities. Not only are students left with their stereotypes about Native people reinforced, the coverage of their impact upon the creation of the United States is downplayed. The fact that Native ideas about government and politics had a profound impact on the creation of our own democracy is completely missing from our textbooks and public consciousness (Loewen, 2007). In fact, research suggests that the only exposure to Native American history that our students receive in their formal schooling is found in the first two or three days of a semester, which is usually couched in discussions of the Age of Exploration (Chandler, 2007). The curricular treatment of Natives in the 20th century is even more embarrassing; with their almost total disappearance from the national story (Rains, 2002). In this way of teaching Native history, teachers, who use state approved textbooks to guide their teaching, gloss over the rich history of indigenous people and give students a “cataloging” of Native history; their locale within the US, their diets, their religious customs (Deloria, 1997), and their architecture (i.e. what kind of houses they had) (Chandler, 2007). This type of listing and describing of Native culture, leaves students with a distorted version of what part and role that Native customs and government played on the unfolding of the United States. When the American history student begins to study Native history, “one does not start from point zero, but from minus ten (Dorris quoted in Martin, 1987). This lack of exposure to the interactive nature of Native and European interaction leaves students with a conceptual void that is filled the stereotypes and caricatures of the real people who called North America home before the arrival of Europeans.
One of the most glossed over and ignored parts of the story dealing with Native and European interaction is the explicitly race based logic that went into the push for Native removal. Historically the story of Natives and Europeans has been dichotomized into a story of “good guys” and “bad guys” with Native Americans serving as the villain and backdrop for a more heroic story of Manifest Destiny, in which whites create an America that stretches “from sea to shining sea.” In this narrative, the genocide and theft of Native lands is omitted. In fact the linguistic tricks that we sometimes employ to tell this story belie further explanation. How can we, as teachers, call what happened to the Arawaks of Hispanola (Zinn & Amove, 2004; Zinn, 2005), when Columbus “discovered” America, the “Age of Exploration?” A more complicated story would demand that we call these types of interactions “invasions,” instead of explorations (Deloria, 1997). Indeed, you can probably argue that it was both an exploration and an invasion, but this more nuanced and balanced approach is not present in American classrooms.
What version of the Manifest Destiny story are we telling our students in American history classrooms? Is it the story of westward expansion with the genocide of Native people omitted? I can recall a moment in my own teaching when I taught American history to a class of eleventh graders, who, when confronted with the idea of genocide, felt that it did not square with their previous lessons on Manifest Destiny and the formation of the American nation state. We had discussed primary documents in which the US government seized the land of Natives, we had looked at maps that described where Native lands had been prior to European/US invasion, we had read surrender speeches from Native leaders, and we had looked at the photos from Wounded Knee. But still there was a tinge of disbelief that the United States government could have perpetrated crimes against humanity. Our example of how we “dealt” with the Native in this country was so “effective” that Adolph Hitler used the tactics that had been used to subdue the “Red” man against the Jews of Europe. Toland (1976) writes,
Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history…often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity. (p. 802)
A cursory view at the actions of the US government with regard to Native Americans in the United States reveals actions of which no country could be proud. But teaching these ideas in the classroom is necessary if the social studies will meet it stated objectives. Doing so also “reveals human actions, as an opportunity to inquire on what motivated these individuals to do what they did” (Rains, 2002) giving our students a chance to reflect on actions of the government.
Where to Start?
Using Ladson-Billings’ (1999) description of the field of CRT as our beginning point, in this section I propose some questions or ideas that might guide one’s teaching of CRT within the context of the Native American experience, followed by concrete examples of how I taught Native American history through the lens of CRT within my own social studies classes. In my own experience teaching the topic of Native American history in classrooms, I have found that many of these questions can be studied and interrogated with the use of primary documents such as diaries, letters, government documents, and speeches. As you read these questions imagine how you might teach or introduce these questions in a social studies class, and what impact our students’ “post-social studies realities” (Rains, 2006, p. 138) have on the way they interpret their social world. In addition, also think about how the state approved textbook that teachers across the nation use routinely ignore these very important questions.
Racism in the American context is normal
What role did settler’s ideas about race play in their actions against Native people? What role did religion play in the construction of the racialized Other? How did whites who committed atrocities against Natives justify their actions? Do these reasons for acting justify their actions (Zinn, 2005)?
When students are asked to think about how racism might be normal in America, the first hurdle is to allow students to see how the idea of race is not a normal, biological entity, but rather something that humans have invented. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of CRT that students are confronted with because race (again, in the American context) has been so normalized that it is misrecognized (Bourdieu & Passeron, 2000) for the oppressive role it has played and continues to play in American life. An excellent way to delve into this particular aspect of CRT is to have students discuss how race is/was constructed to maintain existing power structures. When I taught this topic, I used 3 primary documents from 3 different sources to show how the Native-white encounter was fraught with misunderstandings and how these misunderstandings were eventually naturalized, racialized, and used to justify actions against the original inhabitants of North America. I had students read documents and then I would conduct a Socratic discussion (Passe & Evans, 1996) directed towards the documents. A description of Socratic discussion, as used in this lesson, is described as having the teacher pose
questions about a thought provoking selection of a text, to individual students, asking them to explain the meaning of a particular passage, define the issue posed, take a stand on the author’s viewpoint, react to the opinion of another student, or provide evidence to support a contention, etc… (p. 85)
The documents were “Encounter with the Indians” from America Firsthand: Volume I: From Settlement to Reconstruction (Marcus & Burner, 1992) which gives a firsthand account of the Native-white encounter from the perspective of the Jesuits, “The End of the Frontier for the Winnebago” from A Larger Memory: A History of Our Diversity, With Voices (Takaki, 1998) which problematizes Turner’s “closing of the frontier” theory by looking at how Indians “performed” in “Wild West” shows after Manifest Destiny was competed, and “In Defense of the Indians” from Voices of A People’s History of the United States (Zinn & Amove, 2004) which looks at the destruction of Natives through the eyes of Bartolome de las Casas, who argued with Spanish authorities that Natives be considered human beings. These documents point to the ways in which racism against people of color has changed, is fluid, and is a human invention, not a biological truth.
Experiential knowledge is important
What can be learned from primary documents dealing with this time period that the textbook omits (Takaki, 1998; Zinn & Amove, 2004)? What importance is to be gleaned from the actual words of the people who experienced genocide at the hands of the United States government (Zinn & Amove, 2004)? What records did both groups—Europeans and Natives—leave for us to study regarding the affective or emotional aspect of this encounter?
This particular aspect of teaching Native American history focuses around notions of Manifest Destiny from an emotional angle. The most difficult part of teaching Manifest Destiny to secondary students is to allow them to see this period of American history as having multiple points of view, not simply the “Sea to Shining Sea” version. In teaching this I again used primary documents in conjunction with a discussion method called fishbowl (Grambs & Carr, 1991). I would first have students read “Black Hawk’s Surrender Speech” from Voices of A People’s History of the United States (Zinn & Amove, 2004) and juxtapose this document with Andrew Jackson’s “Removal of Southern Indians to Indian Territory” from Documents of American History, Volume I (Commager & Cantor, 1988). After having students read these two opposing viewpoints of the Native-white relationship, they would engage in the fishbowl discussion. Fishbowl is a method by which students discuss a topic in concentric circles. The inner circle participants serve as spokespeople for the students sitting on the outer circle (Passe & Evans, 1996). In this particular lesson, the spokespeople in the inner circle would represent the points of view of 1) Native Americans, 2) white land speculators, 3) the US government, and 4) slave owners. By reading these documents and having students take on the thinking and logic of a specific interest group within the larger debate about Native removal, students are allowed to see how this experience impacted the players on all sides of this historical event.
A critique of the liberal, traditional methods of settling grievances with the government
What was the record of the US government when dealing with Natives in terms of land acquisition (Deloria, 1969)? What does the term Manifest Destiny mean from the Native perspective (Brown, 2001)? What was the politics of land acquisition? Was there a racial aspect to national politics (Deloria, 1969)? Did the US government follow its own mandates when dealing with tribes or did they break federal laws in doing so (Cherokee Nation v. Georgia) (Remini, 1997)?
In my conversations with students at the secondary level, I found that most students did not recognize the fact that “their” land (i.e. parents’ personal property, nebulous idea of their country) used to belong to another people and that it was forcibly taken by the US government. This lesson hinges on students understanding of the legal philosophy of “rule of law” and the American notions of “checks and balances” and “separation of powers.” An excellent example of how traditional ways of addressing the government failed Natives can be seen in the Supreme Court case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1828). A study of this case along with a reading of The Indian Removal Act of 1830 gives students a glimpse into the ways that the US government dealt with Native tribes. In addition to these legal disputes with the US government, the Massacre at Wounded Knee serves to give students a glimpse into the ways in which Native tribes were “relocated” from one area to another until the government found in “necessary and proper” (in this case, the discovery of gold) to relocate them again. A class reading of Brown’s (2001) Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is also an excellent way to allow students to see the psychological impact that US governmental actions had on Native populations, in addition to giving a prime example of how US treaties with Natives (Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1868) were broken time and time again.
Given that this topic is so emotional for some students, I utilized the council method (Evans & Passe, 1996) with this particular content. In the council method students
sit in one large circle. A talking stick is passed from student to student. Each person has the opportunity to speak only which he or she has the stick. The guidelines are talk honestly, be brief (one minute), and speak from the heart. (pp. 84-85)
In my experiences teaching this content, some students find themselves in crisis (Rodriguez, 1998) over their previous beliefs about how the American nation state came into existence. Given this tendency, I specifically used council to control the tempers and emotions of some of my students.
Whites benefit from race based legislation
Who benefited the most from the white-Native encounter (Nash, 2005)? Did the “story” have to unfold the way that it did? How might the story have unfolded differently? When it comes to treaties that the US government made with tribes, who benefited?
This conversation starts with the perceived inevitability of history and whether or not events could have unfolded differently. A cursory (and honest) view at this era in American history leaves students with a picture of their government perpetrating ethnic cleansing against Aboriginal peoples to secure land (Jackson, 1994). If we are to meet the goal of active citizenship for our students, there should be an aspect of our pedagogy that lends itself to the idea that students can be agents of change. Engle (1990) calls this teaching from a hypothetical stance.
That is, they should consider how things might have been, and not simply how they actually were…In many cases, however, political decisions and policy matters cannot be understood fully or evaluated fairly without considering the likely consequences of possible alternatives. (Whelan, 2006)
Many students cannot effectively think about the notion of “what if’ because they have no recognition of how things were drastically different in the past; even the idea that an entirely different race of people populated North America is puzzling to some students. During the study of specific court cases Cherokee v. Georgia (1831) and federal legislation (Indian Removal Act of 1830; Dawes Act of 1887), I used a map from Loewen’s (2007) Lies My Teacher Told Me that shows the eastern half of the United States with Native American nation’s names instead of the names of states. This allows to students to wrap their mind around the idea that 1) North America was populated with non-white people for millions of years, and that 2) Europeans have displaced the former inhabitants of North America.
A glance at the above topics reveal that these questions serve to do two things: 1) they bring the topic of race to the surface of the discussion about Native-white relations, and they 2) make the conversation about the creation of the American nation state more complex. As a teacher in the field, such questions may make your teaching existence problematic in terms of grappling with very complex ideas. My advice is to embrace this complexity; the life of the critical pedagogue is not always a smooth or pleasant experience for you or your students. We must remember, as Plato (1993) tells us
That’s what education should be, the art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn’t be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn’t facing the right way. (p. 246)
When it comes to teaching about race in American social studies classes, we have been facing the wrong way for too long.
Conclusion
Teaching social studies should be viewed as an activity that stresses moral deliberation; it challenges not simply the effects, but also the structure of the status quo. Parker (1996) reminds us, “Official state neutrality disguises actually existing power imbalances and often shifts attention to the supposed deficits of the excluded groups. In this way, political formulations that pretend neutrality tend to reproduce the status quo” (p. 119). Schooling in general and social studies curriculum in general are taken to be neutral, value free, merit-based institutions in which racism and white supremacy are absent. This discussion has looked at the way that deny race’s central role in American society (Ladson- Billings, 2003). I believe, as does Marable (2002), that schools potentially “represent one of the most important institutional safeguards for defending the principles of democracy and equality under the law” (p. 113). Public schools have the potential to be the “true laboratory of democracy” (p. 134), if hegemonic frameworks like white supremacy and racism are deconstructed and evaluated in critical ways.
The discourse of colorblindness and merit are not only powerful in society at large, they are a major component of the imagined state of America’s identity as a nation and as a people. Not only are notions of colorblindness a pervasive part of American identity, it is (or is becoming) the law of the land; on June 28th, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that race could not be used as a primary factor in trying to create diverse school populations (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al), giving the impression that we are living in a post-racial world. Given the stance that race does “matter” (West, 1994), this social studies leaders should take the position that race must be taught as a focal, not marginalized part of the American narrative.
Although people of color represent America, they do not find themselves in the pedagogy of social studies teachers’ practice. In many ways, the experience of America (and what it represents) is Black and Red America (Takaki, 1993; Takaki, 1998). This should be understood as saying that the very things that made America (politically and materially) are and were explicitly race-related. Colonization (Horsman, 1997), the slave trade, foreign policy, wars, local-state- federal laws, domestic policy, etc. all have been determined by the socially constructed meaning (Lopez, 1995a) of one’s skin color. To suggest that we are or have been a race(less) or colorblind society is to ignore American history--a cursory view at our history reveals the explicitly race based character of American society and life (Anderson, 2007).
In addition to the way(s) that race is framed and constructed for political and educational ends, when we ignore race’s impact and influence, we lose something about ourselves as it related to American identity. The Otherization of people of color says as much about “them” as it does “us” (from a white perspective), for there can be no Other without whites projecting constructed characteristics “onto” someone else. In fact, notions of Black(ness) and/or non- white(ness) does not exist without white people projecting onto Others. In a profound sense, one cannot speak of the American experience, accurately, without people of color--American history is the history of people of color. Either it is the history of people of color because they were at the center of crucial eras and events or because they served as a mirror (Delgado & Stefancic, 1997) into which white America looked at itself. The relationship of white America to non-white America is a parasitic one--it is one in which race is used to “create” skewed worldviews (political, racial, military, sexual, religious, etc.), without giving credit or attention to non-white contributions.
What is missing from this social studies conceptualization is an allowing of students to see the ways in which “Americans” have interacted with one another. It gives students a partial view into the ways in which different cultures have lived together. Wills (2001) concept of “missing in interaction,” sums up the impact of teaching social studies and/or American history from a raceless perspective. The idea of “missing in interaction” applies to the school sanctioned narratives about diversity, fairness, and race that are incomplete and inherently flawed because the “interactions” between white and non-white groups is silenced by normalizing discourses in schools. Wills (2001) describes this idea as follows:
Diverse groups, including whites, are “missing in interaction.” That is, missing in the curriculum are meaningful representations of the actions and interactions of diverse groups as agents, actors, and subjects in US history and society (italics added). Because diverse groups are missing in interaction in the social studies curriculum, school knowledge is a poor resource for enabling students to develop a discourse of contemporary race and ethnic relations that moves beyond psychological understandings of racism to structural understandings of racism. (p. 44)
Race has mattered in the past and it will matter long into the future of the United States. If we as social educators are to meet the challenges of our calling to prepare reflective, action oriented citizens, it is imperative that race as a construct of past and present society, be examined for what it has represented, materially and psychologically for people of color and whites alike: a signifying marker that has served to oppress or uplift one in the social hierarchy. If we are to meet the credos of fairness and equality that serve to define the political thinking of Americans, we must, as teachers, have the courage to confront race and racial oppression in our classrooms. “If we truly believe that we can learn from our mistakes, as from doing things well, then couldn’t our children learn from the mistakes in our own history” (Rains, 2003, p. 220)? I think, as teachers, we can do a better job of allowing students to examine the race based history of the United States, not to denigrate the traditions that we hold steadfastly to, but rather to give students and future citizens a template of how confront and challenge racial oppression when we encounter it.
Footnotes
About the Authors
Prentice T. Chandler is Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at Athens State University in Athens, AL. He currently teaches courses in social studies methods, foundations, and management and serves as secondary education program head. His research and writing interests are in the areas of social studies education and methods, civic education, critical race theory, Pierre Bourdieu, academic freedom, and teacher agency in the classroom.