Speaking the unspeakable: the role of speech in a pedagogy of critical whiteness (original) (raw)

2018, Whiteness and Education

Building on the call to racialise Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of development, this paper examines the role of speech in the development of counter-hegemonic white identity. Through a Vygotskian lens, I argue that naming racism as white supremacy, valuing emotion as knowledge, preparing for discomfort, and designing increased opportunities for student discourse on the subject of race advances students' and teachers' critical race consciousness, and provides an initial framework for deconstructing hegemonic white identity. I argue that Vygotsky's understanding of the unity of speech and thinking, contribute to a pedagogy of critical whiteness, and function foundationally, transculturally and cognitively. While the role of speech and theory of discomfort are formative of critical race consciousness, they are not a panacea, but potentially keys to unlock other possibilities of enacting white identity as a student and as an educator in the context of schooling. The extent of curriculum on race in institutions of schooling today remains scant and damaging. Issues on the subject of race in public secondary schools and higher education are typically addressed at designated times, as for example in the United States during February's focus on Black history. During these sanctioned borders of time when Black history is legitimated, culture becomes defined in reference to inclusivity, as tribute to sedated icons, and food and music, labelled 'ethnic' or 'cultural' (Banks 2001; Dixson and Rousseau 2005). Pedagogical understandings of issues about race and racism emphasise cooperation, tolerance and diversity, predictably falling under the theme 'multiculturalism' , sometimes with reference to the struggles and solidarity characteristic of the Civil Rights Movement. While teaching about the Civil Rights Movement as well as about tolerance, et cetera, are certainly important and valuable, the focus of these topics rarely centre conflict, opposition and failure equally with gains, conveying the sense that there is not more work to be done. So-called multicultural coverage in the curriculum functions superficially to imply that problems of racism are in the past, while they simultaneously buttress the concept of race. A strange inversion occurs, where the real (racism as endemic to society) is made KEYWORDS