{"id":253,"date":"2013-12-03T15:32:08","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T15:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2013\/12\/03\/classroom-privilege-the-case-of-shannon-gibney\/"},"modified":"2015-08-25T16:53:57","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T16:53:57","slug":"classroom-privilege-the-case-of-shannon-gibney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2013\/12\/03\/classroom-privilege-the-case-of-shannon-gibney\/","title":{"rendered":"Classroom Privilege &amp; The Case of Shannon Gibney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2013\/12\/02\/three_white_college_students_file_racial_discrimination_complaint_against_professor_over_lesson_on_structural_racism\/?source=newsletter\">Three white college students file racial discrimination complaint against professor over lesson on structural racism<\/a>\u201d The Salon headline from yesterday reads like my personal nightmare. In fact, Shannon Gibney\u2019s account of what happened in her classroom reads like what I can only guess is the personal nightmare of any educator who teaches their students to critically think about hegemonic social power. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"full-image-block ssNonEditable\"><span><img src='https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/files\/2013\/12\/shannon_gibney-620x412.jpg' alt='' \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Gibney, a professor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, started a discussion on structural racism in her Intro to Mass Communications class when multiple white students complained, \u201cWhy do we have to talk about this in every class?\u201d. Gibney gives her first hand report of what happened next in an interview below:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NyZZqu-sKxQ\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou guys are taking it personally. This is not a personal attack. We\u2019re not talking about all white people- you white people in general. We\u2019re talking about whiteness as a system of oppression.\u201d I\u2019ve said almost that exact same thing to my own students. And yet I know that some of my students still do take it personally. I\u2019ve experienced first hand students stubbornly clinging to an individual-centered understanding of the world despite my attempts to open their eyes to the social structures that all individuals operate within.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, as I listened to Gibney I kept thinking, I\u2019ve said the exact same things. I\u2019ve been in situations like that before. Oh my god, that could be me. But\u2026 to be honest, it couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"mywhitemaleprivilegeintheclassroom\">My White Male Privilege in The Classroom<\/h3>\n<p>Do a Google Image search for the words college professor (or just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=college+professor&amp;safe=off&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS503US503&amp;espv=210&amp;es_sm=119&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=2OKdUpjXOsblkAeKuYHIBg&amp;ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1900&amp;bih=1079\">click here<\/a>) and what do you see. A lot of faces that look a lot like mine. When I walk into the room, I\u2019m willing to bet, no one thinks, \u201coh god. A <em>white guy<\/em>, I wonder if he\u2019s qualified. He must have been an Affirmative Action hire.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sociologysource.org\/home\/2010\/9\/7\/teaching-inequality-from-a-position-of-privilege.html\">I\u2019ve written about this before<\/a> as <a href=\"http:\/\/jmm.sagepub.com\/content\/2\/4\/457.extract\">have others<\/a>. Regardless of what I do, I am the embodiment of authority. My credibility, authenticity, and trustworthiness are rarely if ever questioned.<\/p>\n<p>When I challenge my students to critically analyze white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, etc. no one says, \u201cwell of course you said that because you are\u2026\u201d. No one says I have a political agenda or an axe to grind. In fact, I often get kudos for doing it. I\u2019m seen as a sort of selfless freedom fighter. Because of my social privilege I often am able to walk right by my students resistance, neutralize their rhetorical strategies, and be heard. It\u2019s not because I\u2019m a better teacher (note that some critiques of Gibney have argued <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonmonthly.com\/college_guide\/blog\/professor_teaches_students_abo.php\">she\u2019s a poor teacher<\/a>). It\u2019s because I\u2019m a cisgender, hetero, able-bodied, middle class, white male<a href=\"1\" id=\"fnref:1\" title=\"see footnote\" class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And now lets put some empirical meat on these anecdotal bones. Studies find that people of color are disproportionally tasked with teaching required diversity classes where challenging social privilege is more likely to happen (Alex-Assensoh 2003). A qualitative analysis of students\u2019 comments on student evaluations of instruction found that women, especially women of color, were more likely have their authority questioned and to be seen as biased or affected by their personal politics (Perry et al. 2009; Schueths et al. 2013)<a href=\"2\" id=\"fnref:2\" title=\"see footnote\" class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/a>. This is just the tip of the empirical iceberg, but it\u2019s clear that, like we\u2019ve always taught our students, an individual\u2019s social location and the social contexts they operate in affect their experiences.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"whatcanwedowithallofthis.\">What Can We Do With All of This.<\/h3>\n<p>First, David Mayeda on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SocSource\">our Facebook page<\/a> suggests starting a letter writing campaign in support of Gibney and I think that\u2019s a great start. But more than anything else, let\u2019s stop pretending that social privilege ends at the threshold of our classroom. To my fellow faculty of privilege, let us own our privileges, even if we are uncomfortable with them and even if we are attempting to subvert the systems that privilege us. Personally, I\u2019m going to read this story and remember that I am not Shannon Gibney; in fact my experience is probably closer to the three white men who filled the complaint. And then I\u2019m going to work from there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><br \/>\nAlex-Assensoh, Y. 2003. Race in the academy: Moving beyond diversity and toward the incorporation of faculty of color in predominantly white colleges and universities. <em>Journal of Black Studies<\/em> 34, no. 1: 5\u201311.<\/p>\n<p>Perry, Gary, Helen Moore, Crystal Edwards, Katherine Acosta and Connie Frey. 2009. \u201cMaintaining Credibility and Authority as an Instructor of Color in Diversity-Education Classrooms: A Qualitative Inquiry.\u201d <em>The Journal of Higher Education<\/em> 80, no. 1: 80\u2013105.<\/p>\n<p>Schueths, April M., Tanya Gladney, Devan A. Crawford, Katherine L. Bass, and Helen A. Moore. 2013. \u201cPassionate Pedagogy and Emotional Labor: Students\u2019 Responses to Learning Diversity from Diverse Instructors.\u201d <em>International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education<\/em> 26, no. 10: 1259\u20131276<\/p>\n<div class=\"footnotes\">\n<hr \/>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p>I left out some of my privileged statuses, but I think you get the point. <a href=\"1\" title=\"return to article\" class=\"reversefootnote\">&#160;\u21a9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Full disclosure: April Schueths, the first author of this article, is the editor of SociologySource.org and also my partner. <a href=\"2\" title=\"return to article\" class=\"reversefootnote\">&#160;\u21a9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThree white college students file racial discrimination complaint against professor over lesson on structural racism\u201d The Salon headline from yesterday reads like my personal nightmare. In fact, Shannon Gibney\u2019s account of what happened in her classroom reads like what I can only guess is the personal nightmare of any educator who teaches their students to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1982,"featured_media":254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30649],"tags":[30603,30734],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-thoughts","tag-class-management","tag-student-relationships"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/files\/2013\/12\/shannon_gibney-620x412.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}