Highlights from the National White Privilege Conference in Madison

April 1, 2014
***Language Warning***
by Nick Novak
MacIver Institute Director of Communications
[Madison, Wisc...] The city of Madison hosted the 15th annual national
White Privilege Conference last week at the Monona Terrace to discuss
issues of white supremacy, social justice, education and the Tea Party.
The MacIver Institute attended multiple breakout sessions and will be
releasing our highlights over the next couple days.
Our first account comes from the breakout session titled Stories from
the front lines of education: Confessions of a white, high school English
teacher.
The session was facilitated by Kim Radersma, a former high school
English teacher in California and Colorado. Radersma is currently
working toward her Ph. D. in critical whiteness studies at Brock
University in Ontario, Canada.
Radersma argued that teachers must fight against the oppressive
structure in education and society. She said anyone who is going into
teaching and education must be a political figure.
"Teaching is a political act, and you can't choose to be neutral. You are
either a pawn used to perpetuate a system of oppression or you are
fighting against it," Radersma said during the session. "And if you think
you are neutral, you are a pawn."

She said educators need to challenge the system, otherwise they are
giving in to white supremacy. Radersma also argued the first step is
realizing that all white people are carrying the signs of oppression.
"Being a white person who does anti-racist work is like being an
alcoholic. I will never be recovered by my alcoholism, to use the
metaphor," Radersma said. "I have to everyday wake up and
acknowledge that I am so deeply imbedded with racist thoughts and
notions and actions in my body that I have to choose everyday to do
anti-racist work and think in an anti-racist way."
She argued that until white people admit they have a problem, they will
not be able to fight against white privilege.
"We've been raised to be good. 'I'm a good white person,' and yet to
realize I carry within me these dark, horrible thoughts and perceptions
is hard to admit. And yet like the alcoholic, what's the first step?
Admitting you have a problem," she told the session attendees.
Multiple educators attended the breakout session of about 50 people
and seemed very interested in how to bring the ideals of social justice

and white privilege into the classroom. One attendee, a teacher and the
diversity director at his school, spoke about the activities he is
implementing and said it is important for teachers and administrators to
discuss social justice with their students. Radersma echoed his

sentiment.
"If you don't want to work for equity, get the fuck out of education,"
Radersma said. "If you are not serious about being an agent of change
that helps stifle the oppressive systems, go find another job. Because
you are a political figure."
During the session, Radersma also discussed the problem of growing
achievement gaps between white students and students of color in
schools across America. She told a story about her time as a teacher in
Denver, Colorado.
Radersma said she taught a lower-level English class at the high school
and her students were exclusively people of color. However, she said the
Advanced Placement course in her school was almost all white and Asian
students. Her principal observed class one day and commented on the
difference in students between the two courses.
That experience, and the fact that her boss did not know how to tackle
the problem, led her to leave the classroom and work toward her Ph. D.
Radersma told the group she realized the problem was the
institutionalized racist structure of education and her white privilege
was causing the racial achievement gap.
"I came to higher ed to study. What is this problem that I'm scared of? I
don't know what to do. My principal is scared of this. Where do I point?
Who's at fault? My white body is at fault," she said. "My racial identity,
as a white person who believes that I am somehow better or more
deserving, is the problem. The white supremacy, the structure is the
problem."
Since discovering her white privilege was the problem leading to the
achievement gap, she said that she is now working to get more minorities
into the education profession. Radersma told the group she thinks that
students of color cannot learn as well from white teachers.

"My partner, who is a man, can't tell you about feminism. He knows a lot
about it. He considers himself a feminist, but you want to learn feminism
from him? No," she commented during the session. "You need to learn
feminism from a woman. You need to learn what it is like to be a woman

from a woman. He can't teach that. I can't teach students of color nearly
as well as a person of color can."
Another topic of discussion was how white people's actions, like
donating to charity or helping a family in need, are inherently racist. A
white attendee of the conference told a story about how her family
donated school supplies to one of her classmates when she was in first
grade because the family could not afford them.
The receiving family had moved from India, according to the attendee.
While she was happy to be helping when it happen years ago, she was
now questioning her family's motives.
"It was like 'well why don't you swoop in and save the day and give her
all this stuff because we can afford to do that for them' kind of
mentality," she said in the session.
Radersma agreed and said the family that was helped likely felt
discriminated against.
"It's that savior mentality, like 'save them, because they are not like us,' and
that normalization of whiteness. Whiteness is best and those poor others
aren't as good as us," she said. "So, we need to think of them and give
them our sympathy and our charity and our generosity, which is so
demeaning to the people on the receiving end. It's so demoralizing and
disempowering to be receiving it."

Before ending the 90-minute breakout session, Radersma encouraged

current and future teachers to use an organization called Facing History
and Ourselves as a resource. She said it is a non-profit that offers
curricula on the topics discussed for middle and high school students.
The White Privilege Conference aims to provide "a challenging,
collaborative and comprehensive experience," and "empower and equip
individuals to work for equity and justice through self and social
transformation," according to its website.
It hosted more than 100 breakout sessions including: Stories from the
frontlines of education: Confessions of a white, high school English
teacher (discussed above); Against the Tea Party Movement; If You Build
It, They Will Come: Developing a Pre K-12 Curricular Scope and
Sequence for Whiteness and Anti-Racisim; and others which can be seen
here.
The conference was paid for in part with taxpayer dollars. According to
the Wisconsin Reporter, the conference received at least $38,000 from
hotel room tax revenue, University of Wisconsin schools, and the City of
Madison.
In addition to taxpayer and private funding, individuals had to pay
upwards of $440 to attend the four-day conference.

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