I really identified with what Tom Rietz said about his white privilege. And, I really liked what Jay Smooth said about switching the paradigm of making a mistake to dental hygiene and away from an all or nothing perspective or good person/bad person. It creates a standard of perfection where people don't want to make mistakes because it would mean we're bad and racist people. I like the dental hygiene analogy. I also loved that he said, "We are not good despite our imperfections, it's the connection we maintain with our imperfections that allows us to be good to each other and to ourselves." Very powerful- so growth oriented and deeply accepting.
In teaching we always talk about a growth mindset. As a teacher, I try to remind my students that I am a student too- always learning from them and learning from others how to be a better teacher, role model, mentor, leader. While I feel like I was aware and active and an advocate in some ways, I feel like this course has made me more aware of my white privilege and how I should be doing more in my classroom and my community to combat the institutionalized racism around us all. Becoming more aware has made me think about how I can tweak and add to my curriculum to make my students more aware of how how we can work together to be allies for racial justice.