The Case for A More Specific KNOW Requirement

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Written by Rachel Lorentz

In 2014, at the University of Puget Sounds in Tacoma, Washington, faculty voted yes for the addition of the KNOW requirement, short for knowledge, identity, and power. This course requirement for graduation necessitates all UPS students to take one class that focuses on power differentials and social inequalities and how they relate to the production of knowledge. Reading through the 2014 Trail article entitled “Controversy within Faculty Send KNOW Proposal to Final Vote,” it is obvious that the KNOW requirement did not garner the undivided support of UPS faculty. While the vote came out 59 to 14 in favor of the new requirement, those in opposition were not silent about why. Professor Richard Anderson-Connolly, of the Sociology and Anthropology department, stated that the requirement, “…doesn’t pay attention to the idea that race can be a harmful social construction,” stating that while we shouldn’t ignore the impacts of racism, “…we also shouldn’t be teaching students to view each other as representations of different races” (Dohrmann).

Although the KNOW requirement was a step in the right direction, I would argue that those who view the requirement like Professor Anderson-Connolly, as one that could bring forth potential divides by highlighting social differences such as race, are the same minds that the requirement initially set out to reach.  It is interesting to note that the KNOW requirement guidelines say nothing specifically about race, but the faculty conversation immediately centered the conversation on race. Rather, the learning objectives listed in the Bulletin course catalogue state that the KNOW requirement for graduation would help students, “develop their capacity to communicate meaningfully about issues of power, disparity, and diversity of experiences and identities” (Knowledge). After reading Professor Anderson-Connolly’s comments, it is no surprise that the word race never made it into the official description of the requirement. The portion, “diversity of experiences and identities” is the closest mention of race in the description. 

When I scroll down the 70+ classes available to satisfy the KNOW requirement, I see classes that address the, “issues of power” and, “disparity,” but very few that address the, “diversity of experience and identities.” For instance, I believe intro-level classes like AFAM 101 or GQS 201 meet all three of the listed learning objectives of the KNOW requirement, while other classes listed as meeting the KNOW requirement, like HON 214 Interrogating Inequalities, do not. While I took HON 214 and can attest that the class was based around interrogating inequalities and allowed me to learn how to communicate meaningfully about issues of power, I still was not exposed to the intricacies of inhabiting a marginalized identity in our hegemonic society or taught about the presence of alternative historical narratives and knowledge. In HON 214, I was exposed to dominant, progressive, white topics regarding inequality, not novel ideas that were purposely not covered in my high school textbooks. Throughout the course of taking AFAM 101 and GQS 201, I not only became a more socially conscious individual, but I had my eyes opened to a world that was previously closed off to me in higher education. 

I have had multiple students tell me that AFAM 101 changed their lives. This was not simply because they learned about power structures and inequality; AFAM 101 also addresses the creation of knowledge and dominant narratives with a focus on listening to the repressed narratives of a marginalized people. How can one communicate meaningfully about disparity when they do not know about the presence of institutions in our society that perpetuate that disparity but benefit whiteness? Identity-based social justice classes like Latino/a Studies, African American Studies, and Gender and Queer Studies address every aspect of the KNOW requirement’s learning objectives, including developing, “the capacity to communicated meaningfully about issues of… diversity of experiences and identities” (Knowledge). Discussing the presence of disparity is one thing but talking about the forces that cause those disparities not only to be there, but to continue to be there, is a less performative and more meaningful way for UPS’s majority white students to engage and learn from other identities and experiences.

In order to meet the original standards of the KNOW requirement, I propose that the language be changed from “experiences and identities” to “experiences and identities of marginalized folk.” It is important to note that this will narrow the range of available classes that meet the KNOW requirement significantly. With this change, it is important to note that the LTS, AFAM, and GQS departments are some of the smallest, youngest, and most overloaded and understaffed on campus; putting the burden of teaching our majority white students at UPS on these departments should not be done. It is not the job of those with marginalized identities to fix white peoples’ shortcomings when it comes to understanding race. Rather, professors who teach classes already meeting the KNOW requirement would have to resubmit their applications to the Curriculum Committee with an addendum specifically about how the class meets the new, more specific requirement of teaching about “experiences and identities of marginalized folk.” The addendum should also include what kind of pedagogy the professor plans to use when teaching this altered material about, more than likely, an identity other than their own. It is also important to ensure that people of color and marginalized identities occupy seats at every single Curriculum Committee meeting involving the decision of a class counting toward the KNOW requirement. 

Including the “experiences and identities” segment of the course description gets at the core of what the KNOW requirement initially set out to accomplish, yet the vague language allows for the presence of auxiliary classes offered as cop outs for those who may believe race is a harmful social construct that should be avoided at all costs. It is important to notice the positionalities of those who make this kind of statement. Very rarely will someone who has experienced discrimination because of their marginalized identity buy into this colorblind notion. Students of color at UPS are already forced to be representations of their own races on our majority white campus. White people are the ones oblivious to the fact that race matters, as Anderson-Connolly so astutely explained to The Trail. This is why it is important to ensure that the KNOW requirement meet certain standards regarding marginalized identities and race.

References

Dohrmann, R. (2014, April 13). Controversy within faculty send KNOW proposal to final vote. The Trail. http://trail.pugetsound.edu/?p=10089

Knowledge, Identity, and Power (KNOW). (June 2019). The Bulletin 2019-2020 CourseCatalogue. Retrieved from https://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/curriculum-courses/knowledge-identity-and-power/

Bounce Rock Skate Roll: On the Gift of Covid-19 for AF AM Graduating Seniors

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Written by: Prof. Renee Simms

What a beautiful time to be living and engaging antiracism work. You already know this. That’s why you majored and minored in African American Studies. That’s why you’ve spent the last four years reading difficult critical texts, writing papers, doing research. If your family questioned your decision to study AF AM before March 2020, they have been forced during the coronavirus crisis to confront injustices that are foundational to our discipline, its literature and praxis. The pandemic has revealed disparities in access and privilege across systems of health, housing, employment, incarceration, farming, politics, and education. For example, as of April 9, 100% of the Covid-19 deaths in St Louis were of African Americans[1].

This virus has lifted a veil and this clarity is its gift to graduates like you. Unlike previous graduating seniors, you won’t hear empty platitudes that your anxiety about the future is “normal” and “it will all work out in the end.” No one will pretend that structures undergirding our society always work. No one will argue when you say black communities are at risk and treated as if they’re expendable. No one will tell you with a straight face that security or stability are features of adult life.  Instead, you are graduating and walking out into the world with your eyes wide open. Better yet, you are armed with critical cultural knowledge that explains the current cruelties and collapse.

And this is true as well: There is still a lot of beauty during this pandemic. Have you noticed how many newborn babies there are? Just look around. And spring arrived this year, showing off as usual with her bright blooms. The wonderful details of being human remain. We still appreciate the scent of flowers, still laugh and dance. We will continue to fall in love, experience joy, suffer through sorrow. We are human. And while we acknowledge the distinction between “humanity” and “blackness” made by Afro-Pessimists, African American Studies also teaches that we have a responsibility to create a society that reflects and supports all humanity. Sometimes we understand this responsibility without directly experiencing or witnessing injustice. But sometimes it helps to have this experience. As our scholarship instructs, there is no imagining future liberation, nor creation of blues or jazz, without remaining in the hold of a slave ship[2].

Having experienced society before Covid-19, you stand at a critical juncture that provides important perspective. You will be able to explain how society operated before the virus and what came afterwards. You will be able to describe the nature of this pivot and whether it was just.

The easiest way to explain what I’m trying to say is through metaphor.

  • Wyatt Hall

The other day I watched a video of a colleague and his family. In the video they are smiling as they roller skate in the Wyatt parking lot. They bask in sunlight. The mother skates and moves the baby’s stroller in loving arcs back and forth over the pavement. To someone unfamiliar with our campus before 2020, the video might seem self-evident. It shows a happy, black family. But if you were here on our campus in 2016 you might remember rumors that someone wrote in chalk in that parking lot, “Make America Great Again.” You might remember fewer faculty of color on campus at that time. If you’ve been teaching or working at Puget Sound since 2000 or before, you might recall a long list of racialized incidents that have caused harm to black and brown students, faculty, and staff. From that eagle-eyed perspective you would watch the video while holding the skating and past events in tension. You might think about the very complicated history ensconced in this place.

That’s the vision you will possess as 2020 graduates in African American Studies. You’ve seen the before and during. Soon you will witness the after. And you’ve studied the scholarship and know our deep tradition. Congratulations on all you’ve learned and accomplished. We look forward to the revolutionary work you will do.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/all-coronavirus-deaths-st-louis-missouri-have-been-african-americans-1497199

[2] “Fantasy in the Hold” from The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten (2013).

The Invisible Survival Knapsack: Understanding the Privileged Realities that Remain in the Time of a Pandemic

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Written by Eliza Tesch

Link to Original Article by Peggy McIntosh

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

For the purposes of this article we are looking at the academic work entitled “The Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh.  In the words of McIntosh, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable.”

McIntosh invites the reader to think critically about the circumstances of their life as an offshoot of identities (race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, citizenship, level of ability, occupation, etc.) and establishes the ideas that all people have a variety of identities that influence their lived experience, having certain identities makes life more or less challenging, and these identities are not mutually exclusive (ie. black women experience both racism and sexism). This Pandemic has made the inequalities that exist in our society more evident than ever. Many people who have not had to face the realities that people from marginalized groups live every day are experiencing for the first time what it feels like to have larger systems control in a very tangible way what they can and cannot do and have a negative impact on their life.

We have taken the original “The Invisible Knapsack” and altered it to apply specifically to the COVID-19 pandemic. For this activity, I invite you to read through and answer the questions below and take some time to reflect on your responses. To further challenge yourself, think about what privileges (or lack of privilege) you personally have and how the Coronavirus has impacted this. Think about the experiences of others that are different from your own and the systems of oppression that are or aren’t at play here. How does this make you feel, and what can you personally do to combat this thing of oppression to create a more just world?

  1. I have access to a computer and internet
  2. I have a phone or other device that allows me to stay connected with my friends and the outside world virtually
  3. I have consistent access to food
  4. I have the ability to purchase a mask or mask making kit in stores or online
  5. I do not need to rely on public transportation to travel to the grocery store, the pharmacy, to seek out medical care, or to access other essential services.
  6. I have health insurance
  7. I am not currently worried about being able to pay my rent, utility bills, or afford food for my household.
  8. I have a safe home environment to shelter in place in.
  9. I do not experience physical, verbal, emotional, or psychological abuse from someone in my household
  10. If I got sick I know those around me would take care of me and help me access the support and medical care I need
  11. I have enough money saved up to support myself for six months without an income
  12. If I needed financial support I could rely on my family or those close to me to be in a stable enough financial position to help me out
  13. I live in a community where it is safe to go on walks for leisure/ exercise
  14. I do not work in the medical field, grocery stores, pharmacies, or in any essential service that puts me at risk of getting COVID-19
  15. I am currently being paid by my employer (whether that is for working from home or for hours I would have worked if it weren’t for COVID-19).
  16. I can afford to stock up on enough groceries to feed my family/ household for a week or longer so that additional trips to the store don’t need to be made
  17. I have a home that is comfortable for me and my household to remain in for weeks at a time.
  18. I have spent most of my time sheltered in place partaking in hobbies such as arts and crafts, video games, gardening, etc.
  19. I have enough extra money to buy non-essential items for fun and entertainment purposes
  20. I can spend time outside, but not in public because I have a backyard.
  21. My routine and circumstances allow me to stay 6 feet away from people at all times, or nearly all of the time.
  22. I am not immunocompromised, elderly, or have a health condition that makes me especially vulnerable to COVID-19
  23. I am not worried about being denied medical care due to being disabled, elderly, or an otherwise vulnerable person
  24. If I got sick I am reasonably sure that I am of an age and level of health that I would recover without complications
  25. I have not had medical or mental health care appointments cancelled due to COVID19 that are essential to maintaining my physical health or emotional wellbeing
  26. I do not have a mental health problem that has been exacerbated by COVID-19
  27. I have not faced insults targeted at me related to COVID-19 due to my race
  28. I can cover my face without fearing for my safety from law enforcement
  29. If I were to go see a medical professional they and their team would likely be of the same race as I am
  30. If I were to express illness to a medical professional I am reasonably sure they would believe me and treat me
  31. I am here in the US legally, and seeking out medical care or other forms of government related support would not put me at risk of being deported
  32. I am not descended from indigenous people and I do not carry the historical trauma of my ancestors having faced colonizer brought illness
GP: Coronavirus protesters St. Paul Minnesota Groups protest against the stay at home order in Minnesota

Right now there are conservative groups across the country protesting the corona virus shutdown both virtually in online spaces and movements and in-person protests and calling to “reopen America”. In the words of Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, “They want to keep us away from churches and synagogues. They want to make sure we don’t go back to work. They don’t get it. The American spirit is too strong, and Americans are not gonna take it.” Stephen Moore, an adviser to Trump’s Covid-19 economic recovery task force and a founder of a new group lobbying for a quick re-opening of the economy, Save Our Country, even went so far as to say “We need to be the Rosa Parks here,” he said, “and protest these government injustices” (Michael). The current Coronavirus situation has caused profound fear, suffering, and panic and resulted in the loss of more than 38 thousand lives. It has also resulted in Americans being laid off in droves, a serious hit to the economy and a current unemployment rate of 14.7%, the highest unemployment rate since 1940 (Lambert). The aforementioned right wing movements are protesting these circumstances and their loss of livelihood and security. This may possibly be the first time in their lives that they are experiencing what it feels like to have systems, which are much larger than them and are callous and unfeeling, put restrictions on what they can and cannot do and negatively impact their lives and their ability to provide for themselves and their families.

“Their invisible knapsack is no longer full.”

It is evident that those who have never before faced true oppression have no idea what it feels like to actually experience it. White wing groups claim that the conditions they are experiencing are unbearable and that they cannot live like this, after only having been restricted for a month or so to protect their health and safety during a deadly pandemic. Those who have faced true oppression because of race and gender and additional oppressions face it constantly for their entire lives. It is unbearable, but they have to bear it because there is no other option. It is an overwhelming force that suffocates and takes and takes. It is exhausting, it is consuming, and it can seem to those who experience it as if it is endless and inevitable. The freedoms that white right wing groups are asking for have been denied to people of color, who have been oppressed by systems for centuries. Ironically, often those same right wing groups, who are currently protesting injustice, are the same people who have and are still denying freedoms to people of color.

Coronavirus is killing people of color at rates that are far above other demographics. In New York city, Latinos make up 34 percent of Coronavirus related deaths. A CDC study of nearly 1,500 hospitalizations across 14 states reported that black people made up a third of the hospitalizations and 42 percent of the victims, even though they make up 18 percent of the population in the areas studied (Kendi). This is not a fluke accident. History is there for us to look back on, and when we do we see that this has happened time and time again. Communities of color are consistently hit hardest in national crises.

For those who are paying attention, there is a clear pattern of death and suffering and catastrophe around people of color. This is no fluke accident, as the systems are working as they were created to. For those who have not been paying attention it may seem as though the suffering and ills marginalized people are experiencing during this Coronavirus pandemic are unexpected or surprising. They may just now see systems of oppression at play, and comment on how visible Coronavirus makes them. For those who have lived these experiences and seen these systems at work now and previously, they have seen this very scenario play out over and over again in many different ways throughout time.

“Today Coronavirus is killing marginalized populations at high rates because the systems in our society do not value or protect their lives, and the people within those systems do not seem to care to prevent black deaths.”

Black people have been used historically as test subjects for medical research due to racist beliefs that their blackness makes them less than human, and this pattern continues today.  J. Marion Sims performed gynecological experiments on enslaved women and did not provide them with pain medicine because he believed that the experimentation was not “painful enough to justify the trouble”. It was suggested by Jean-Paul Mira, the head of intensive care at a French hospital that a Coronavirus vaccine be tested in Africa. An understandable lack of trust in the healthcare thing due to historical trauma has resulted in black people being less likely to seek out healthcare. Insurance and the financial expenses of healthcare also make it incredibly difficult for many people to access the medical care they need. Historically eugenics, the selective breeding of a population to achieve more desirable characteristics has been used to commit genocide on communities of color because their lives were and still are seen as being less valuable than white lives. Today Coronavirus is killing marginalized populations at high rates because the systems in our society do not value or protect their lives, and the people within those systems do not seem to care to prevent black deaths.

“We need to create a world devoid of invisible knapsacks.”

People in marginalized groups have lived through experiences that those who are privileged enough to not experience would find to be unbearable. The experience of this Coronavirus may seem to be unbearable, but it will end. People will come out of quarantine and go back to their lives and this experience which seems like a nightmare to many will be over. Oppression will continue, because systems of oppression will continue. They will continue to exist until we as a society can clearly see them for what they are and decide that they need to end and we take the steps to undo the layers and layers of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and all others that plague our society. This current state of existence will continue until we as a society begin to value the lives of marginalized people enough to protect them, and even more than that create a world where people of color and all marginalized people are able to experience the justice and freedom that we are all promised. We need to create a world devoid of invisible knapsacks.

References

Kendi, Ibram X. “Stop Blaming Black People for Dying of the Coronavirus.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 14 Apr. 2020.

Lambert, Lance. “Real Unemployment in the United States Has Hit 14.7%, the Highest Level since 1940.” Fortune, Fortune, 9 Apr. 2020.

McIntosh, Peggy. “White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack.” (1988).

Michael. “Trump Fans Protest Against Governors Who Have Imposed Virus Restrictions.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Apr. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-governors.html.