Black Racial Literacy Roundtable at UD

“Using Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s affinity group practices as a model, we developed a Black Racial Literacy Roundtable at our institution for Black faculty, graduate students, and staff as a space to build racial literacies while processing experiences with racism. We define Black racial literacy from the foundation of Sealey-Ruiz’s work with racial literacy (2011) as, “a skill and practice in which individuals are able to probe the existence of racism and examine the effects of race and institutionalized systems on their experiences and representations in US society” (p. 386). Racial literacy requires self-reflection, along with moral, political, and cultural decisions about how people can be catalysts for societal changes (Sealey-Ruiz, 2011). We have added Blackness specifically to center the racial experiences of Black faculty, graduate students, and staff. A primary goal of using a racial literacy framework is to help Black people engage in discussions about the psychological, interpersonal and structural dimensions of race and racism (Guinier, 2004) while also becoming familiar with the institutional history of the college. Through lectures and discussions with other Black professionals, and by applying race as a diagnostic tool to analyze and develop strategies for taking care of themselves while awaiting systemic change.

In March, 2021, we conducted a survey to understand the pulse of thinking about Black racial literacy among Black faculty, graduate students, and staff at UD. We also facilitated two roundtable discussions via Zoom featuring speakers to help contextualize the themes for each session. In March, 2021, we welcomed our inaugural speaker, Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, and she shared on the significance of Black racial literacy. Our second roundtable speaker, Dr. Norma Hanks-Gaines, rendered her time on Black history at UD in April, 2021.

The Black racial literacy roundtable at UD was started and developed by African Heritage Caucus Members, Dr. Jessica Edwards and Dr. Kisha Porcher in 2021 with support from the University of Delaware’s Anti-Racism Initiative (UDARI).”

References:

Guinier, L. (2004). From racial liberalism to racial literacy: Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-divergence dilemma. The Journal of American History, 91(1), 92-118.

Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2011). Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline through racial literacy development in teacher education. Journal of Curriculum & Pedagogy, 8(2), 116-120. doi:10.1080/15505170.2011.624892