Schedule

Thursday, October 11

9:30 – 10:45 A.M. Anti-Racist Pedagogical Tools and Practices

• • • Location: Davis Court, Markim Hall
    • Student Facilitators: Swopnil Shrestha ’21, Adele Welch ’21
    • Presenters: Eliza Rasheed ‘06, Middle School Theatre Teacher, Linwood Monroe Arts Plus School; Clare Foley, 5th Grade Teacher, Richard R. Green Central Park Elementary School; Gabriella Anais Deal-Márquez ‘12, Youth Organizing Director, Voices For Racial Justice; Arielle Rocca, Science Teacher, Patrick Henry High School
    • Mentor: Professor Sonia Mehta
    • Abstract: This interactive workshop will focus on race and identity formation in K-12 students in Minnesota. In dialogue with local academic content and arts teachers, community organizers, and youth, we will explore constructive ways to introduce themes of race, racism, and identity in educational spaces without reproducing racial ideologies. How does the conversation shift when students are taught to deconstruct the socialized concept of race while recognizing its real implications? How do we affirm students’ identities and differences in an empowering way, while emphasizing shared humanity and the realities of racism? How do we better incorporate and validate the global ways immigrant students experience race? Workshop participants will not only hear the stories of our panelists, but will play an active role in navigating these questions through small group discussions and a theater activity.

9:30 – 10:45 A.M. Orientalism

• • • Location: Weyerhaeuser Boardroom, Weyerhaeuser Hall
    • Student Facilitators: Alya Ansari ’19, Bade Turgut ’19
    • Mentors: Professor Eric Carroll and Professor John Kim
    • Abstract: Drawing on Edward Said’s seminal 1978 book, Orientalism, this session interrogates cultural constructions of the East that maintain neo-imperialist and neo-colonialist hierarchies within a seemingly borderless world. Despite not being considered a strictly ‘racial’ category, (mis)constructions of the East have long alienated it from normative discourse, awarding those from the Orient their own brand of otherness. This mixed-media installation strives to produce a hybrid space for reflection in an attempt to undo, through confrontation, the trauma of Oriental otherness produced by colonial narratives. Our exhibit will be supplemented by informational handouts distributed to viewers upon arrival, but the navigation of this space will be largely individual and contemplative. As we look beyond blood and skin, Orientalism explores the multifaceted and diverse spectrum of those societies and peoples reduced to stereotype in cultural discourse, contributing to common efforts towards ideological decolonization, and in the reconstitution of knowledge and symbolic practices embedded in (post)colonialist thought.

11:30 A.M. – 1:00 P.M. Plenary Speaker: Dorothy Roberts

• • • Fatal Invention: Racism and The New Racial Science, Dorothy Roberts, Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor and George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania
    • Location: John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center

3:00 – 4:30 P.M. Roundtable Dialogue

• • Professor Dorothy Roberts and Professor Premesh Lalu, facilitated by President Brian Rosenberg
  • Location: John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center

4:45 – 6:00 P.M. On the Borders of Race: Rethinking Borders, Boundaries, and Borderlands

• • Location: Harmon Room, DeWitt Wallace Library
  • Student Facilitators: Rosie Chittick ’20, Max Danielewicz ’20, Hannah Hill ’20, Naomi Strait ’20
  • Mentor: Professor Lizeth Gutierrez
  • Abstract: This workshop revolves around an open conversation on the construction of race and the way borders – physical, conceptual, emotional, and structural – inform our understanding of race and difference. We focus on racialization as a border because the concept of borders is fundamental to the construction and reproduction of race and racial ideologies. Although our lives are shaped by many borders, this workshop will emphasize the construction and enforcement of borders in the United States, both historically and contemporarily. The border captures how racial categorizations can be at once fluid and changing, yet still clearly define spaces of privilege and oppression. We hope participants leave this workshop with a new conceptual appreciation of borders in the lives of racialized bodies, and can later use the concept of the border as a lens for examining other constructions of difference. As facilitators, our goal is to provide participants with the tools, the language, and the context to engage in an open reflection and exchange about our racial lives. Fundamental to the conversation, however, is the concept that “self-sufficiency is incompatible with dialogue,” and that no one is expected to to have all of the answers.

6:45. – 9:15 P.M. If Macalester’s Halls Could Talk

• • Location: John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center
  • Student Facilitators: Nana Amoah ’21, Santiago Padron ’21
  • Mentors: Professor Joan Ostrove and Professor Cari Gillen-O’Neel
  • Abstract: Racism is often considered, especially but not exclusively among white people, to be something that is perpetrated by “others.” A concern for racism only at a distance can lead to refusal to address implications in one’s own communities. This panel instead invites participants to reflect on how structural racism manifests in the Macalester community. After viewing clips from the 2014 documentary If These Halls Could Talk, participants will be encouraged to discuss not only the film but also similarities to and differences from their own experiences.To provide an interactive and safe space for participants, we intend to break session attendees into small break-out groups. Groups will be given three minutes to present aspects of their discussion that they are comfortable sharing.

Friday, October 12

9:00 – 10:00 A.M. Challenging and Understanding Conceptions of Race in Muslim Communities

• • • Location: Harmon Room, DeWitt Wallace Library
    • Student Facilitators: Ikran Sheikh-Mursal ’20, Lutfe-E-Noor Rahman ’18, Shireen Zaineb ’20
    • Mentors: Reverend Kelly Stone and Associate Chaplain for Muslim Life Ailya Vajid
    • Abstract: In this panel, we will reimagine our understanding of the various images of Muslim communities in the United States, challenging stereotypes of a “typical Muslim,” exploring the history and diversity of Muslim communities in this country, and examining realities of racism both imposed upon and found within these communities. Moreover, we will be exploring the consequences of “othering” and defining in racial categories on a community’s identity and cohesiveness, focusing on both Muslim communities and broader implications of race production and racism, while also highlighting how various Muslim communities address and combat racism.

9:00 – 10:00 A.M. Confronting Whiteness in the Classroom

• • • Location: Davis Court, Markim Hall
    • Student Facilitators: Sophie Nadler ’19, Theo Twidwell ’19
    • Mentor: Brian Lozenski
    • Abstract: Not only does the classroom teach that “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,” it also acts to both reflect and perpetuate our society. The classroom serves as a site for the reproduction of whiteness, both in content and in execution. In this workshop, we will be utilizing Paulo Freire’s problem-posing method of teaching to explore the ways in which whiteness is reproduced in the classroom and how we can work towards shifting the paradigm. This participatory design will ask us to examine our own positionalities and how they contribute to or refute this process.

10:15 – 11:45 A.M. Plenary Speaker: Rick Kittles

• • Race, Skin Color, and Genetic Ancestry: Implications for Biomedical Research on Health Disparities, Rick Kittles, Professor and Founding Director of the Division of Health Equities within the Department of Population Sciences and Associate Director of Health Equities in the Comprehensive Cancer Center at City of Hope Hospital
  • Location: John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center

Noon – 1:00 P.M. Blood Quantum and Identity Politics: What Does it Mean to be Native in 2018?

• • Location: Davis Court, Markim Hall
  • Student Facilitators: Samantha Manz ’19, Claire Menard ’21, Jennings Mergenthal ’21
  • Mentor: Professor Katrina Phillips
  • Abstract: How are Native people classified inside and outside of Indian Country? Indigenous people can identify themselves using multiple terms: Indigenous, Native, American Indian, Native American, or Indian. Yet, there is a fine line between being an enrolled member of a Native nation and only being “affiliated” with the nation. This process of enrollment is most often determined by blood quantum, a tool embedded in settler colonialism that determines one’s indigeneity purely on their percentage of Native blood. Settler colonialism has worked its way into the foundation of U.S. American law, eradicating generations and dictating who is Indigenous, with land allotment and blood quantum fundamentally defined by race. But as Native populations continue to make up a smaller percentage of the general population, what about those who don’t fit within the strict racial boundaries of “Indian”? Where do mixed-race individuals fit in indigenous communities today? This presentation will discuss the implications of blood quantum, identity politics, and white-coding.

1:10 – 2:10 P.M. Solidarity Beyond Sameness

• • • Location: Davis Court, Markim Hall
    • Student Facilitators: Henry Aoki ’19, Stacy Gerondelis ’19
    • Mentor: Professor Donna Maeda
    • Presenters: Anh-Thu Pham, Core Member of Rad Azns Collective, and Karin Aguilar-San Juan, Professor and Chair of American Studies, Macalester
    • Abstract: What does it mean to build solidarity around a racial category? A half a century ago, the identity of “Asian-American” first emerged as a political statement—and it was invoked as far more than an acknowledgement of the cultural similarities across different Asian diasporas; the first “Asian-Americans” took on the label as a part of a radical commitment to anti-racism and anti-imperialism. This panel will briefly explore the political origins of the term “Asian-American” and from there examine what it means to build solidarity around the category today. What does it mean to politically identify as “Asian-American” in light of United States’ present racial orders and foreign policy? And how do we resist the co-option of the term “Asian-American” by racial ideologies, such as the myth of model minority? Through this panel, we hope to develop an understanding of Asian-American solidarity beyond “essential” or “natural” sameness, and to reconceive of it as a political act.

2:20 – 4:00 P.M. Plenary Speaker: Premesh Lalu

• • The Techne of Trickery: Race, Memory, and Machines, Professor Premesh Lalu, Director of the Centre for Humanities Research and Deputy Dean for Research and Post-graduate Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
  • Location: John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center