Race Institute Framing Concepts

• It’s possible to have a multicultural curriculum, and not have an anti-racist classroom.
• Intent vs. Impact: This is framework for seeing any conflict around race and we need to understand both sides in order to be effective.
• This workshop is not about how to talk to kids about race, but how to work against racism in schools.
• We believe teachers are responsible for supporting all students to have a positive racial identity – we can’t do that unless we ourselves have a positive racial identity and are conscious of our developmental process around that.
• We use the term “anti-racist” not because we think teachers are racist, but because we want to recognize that our students live and learn in a context of racism, which we as educators have to understand in order to support their racial identities.
• Both intergroup and intra-group learning is part of building racial competency: sometimes we need to have dialogues across race and sometimes we need to have dialogue within racial groups.  Both are important tools for learning.
• This work is about creating wholeness: it’s about bringing people together, rather than separating from one another.