The Case for Teaching (by Saba Fatima)

This is the second installment of our series on how to counter racism in philosophy, and as philosophers. 

This entry is written by Saba Fatima, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and host of the podcast She Speaks: Academic Muslimahs

One of the main reasons I decided to switch careers from my bachelor degree in computer science to pursuing a graduate degree in philosophy was because I was lucky enough to take classes in philosophy, sociology, and journalism that were centered on race, gender, and imperialism. These classes shifted my perception of the world around me. In my senior year, I found out that a student I knew had secured a job in the White House and I thought to myself that there was a chance that this person too had experienced this shift in his worldview. In my imagined fantasy, one day he could be in Congress or Senate, and he’d be a better person, a better politician (like maybe he’d vote to bomb less places or something) because of the all critical humanities classes he took as an undergraduate.

It was a naïve thought at best. But if I experienced a shift, so must have others. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever to hold so much sway over how we viewed injustice and how we viewed our place within power structures we occupied. I wanted to have *that impact. And sure enough, once in a blue moon, I get an email from some ex-student of mine, telling me how my classes on Philosophy of Race or Islam & Politics or Feminist Theory have impacted them positively.

We are teachers by profession. This is what most of us love doing and probably even why many of us got into academia. Why not use our skill set, skill set we take so much pride in, that we develop semester after semester, that we write self-reflective narratives on, why not take this skill set and use it to answer the needs of our time.

So here are some basic suggestions on how we, as teachers of philosophy can fight against racism.

• If you are the chair of your department, introduce courses such as Philosophy of Race as part of the core curriculum. Keep the course in regular rotation. Hire qualified (full time) philosophers to teach it.

• If you are a philosopher of race or teach it, consider holding local workshops for folks in your network who aren’t in academia. Gear it toward your uncles, cousins, neighbors, and whoever else is in your life. Keep the audience to people you know, and hopefully they will listen to you. I know there is a certain degree of vulnerability that comes with teaching outside of the classroom, but these times demand this from us.

• If you are a non-Black philosopher who does not do philosophy of race, educate yourself. Read up some introductory stuff. There are already so many syllabi, reading lists, YouTube clips out there that you can access. Please don’t email your Black colleagues for suggestions, they may be already overwhelmed with the trauma of everything going on and don’t need to doll out yet another unpaid education to the rest of us. Give credit where it is due though and do cite them!

• Once you have educated yourself, engage people in your life every chance you get! I know it is super uncomfortable but this is what we are good at. We are good at teaching. We don’t explode with outrage at our students who don’t get it, we explain stuff until we can’t any more. (Let me tell you a hopeful story: I had a super racist kid in my class, like the kind who made me cry with exhaustion at the end of every class. One time, my husband, trying to be helpful, told me: “this is the type of guy you should be teaching to! This is who this is for! I bet you are making a difference in him.” I know there are serious problems with his centering on whiteness yet again, but I took some momentary solace in his words. At the end of the semester, I got my student evaluations. All positive reviews, all except one. This man/kid said: “this is the worst ‘philosophy’ class I have ever taken.  I am a philosophy major and this isn’t even philosophy. Most subpar material blah blah….” Moral of the story:  I should have failed him when I had the chance…. Kidding!!! Kidding!! :D … the hopeful part is that all the other evaluations talked about how the class transformed them to see racism as a problem beyond individual interactions, as something built into our systems. Some of the kids spoke about how this class provided them with the concepts and language necessary to make sense of their experiences of racism). You can't change everybody’s mind, but because of the privileges we carry, we have to try.

• If you are a non-black philosopher of color (like myself), engage people in your communities about how your communities are complicit in upholding anti-black racist institutions while simultaneously being subjects of racism, colonialism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, etc.

• Think about ways that you can introduce discussions of race and racism into your existing syllabus. If you must ask a philosopher of race for help on this, please compensate them for their time by reviewing their next article or grant. Make sure the compensation is concrete and set up from the get go.

• Think about ways that you can bring what is happening in the streets into your classroom discussions. 

• Read up literature on micro-aggression. Make sure you don't commit microaggression in your teaching, whether it’d be in classrooms or the workshops you decide to hold. If you mess up, apologize sincerely and make it a learning experience for yourself!

Comments

[Don Savage]

Countering racism in teaching is especially important looking at the state of matters now.

[Chase Halsne]

The courses I took with Dr.Fatima led me to experience my own "shift" and put me on my own path toward becoming an educator. I would not be where I am today without being a part of her teaching!