"We cannot erase color lines by trying not to see them. We can color our students' visions of the future"-Olivia Gude |
In this article bye Olivia Gude (2000), "Drawing Color Lines" discussed how as a society, we have drawn and created meanings to different colors over the course of history. And because of these different associations, it can create biases towards people of color, especially those with darker skin. Gude (2000) talks about how we as a society have associated the color white with positive traits such as "innocence, joy, beauty" while darkness or black has been associated with 'trouble, sin, fear" (p. 45). If we do not acknowledge this, we are then ignoring the different ways in which Western ideals of beauty and inherent goodness are also filled with racist standards. This all goes back to issues of representation and what is considered the 'normal' standard versus the 'other' or 'abject'. When students prefer to color in their figures, do they have a wide variety of skin tones to choose from? Or just peach? Why do we always associate bad or evil characters by dark clothing or dark skin? It is up to us to correct these colorist ideals, as Gude says "there is no anthropological or biological evidence which confirms the universal validity of commonly taught color symbolism" meaning that colors have different connotations in different cultures and societies (Gude, p. 46). Because of this, it is important that we teach our students that colors are allowed to be up to their personal interpretation and use, rather than forcing them or implying that one color can only be used for one meaning etc. Even in visual culture from tv shows to movies and characters, underlying racist messages are being sent daily, as more often than not it is the darker skinned person made the butt of the joke, the villain, the "unconventionally attractive" type.
As art educators we have the power in our hands to enact change in how our students see color, but that does not necessarily mean erasing the fact that it exists or ignore them entirely. Students need to see what their subconscious biases are against certain colors and have them reflect and analyze. Ignoring the issue does not make go away, and by making students more away it helps combat towards the unnecessary racism and colorism rampant in our society. Source: Gude, O. (2000). Drawing color lines. Art Education, 53, 44–54. |
In this article by McIntosh (1988), she breaks down how she became to acknowledge the other side of racism that she inherits as a white woman which is white privilege. She talks about how when growing up, although she was taught about racism and how it oppresses minorities, she never thought to think think about how she benefits because of it, describing it as an "invisible package of unearned assets" (p. 1). Although I am technically a minority, asians still have received this status of "model minority" where there are expectations of intelligence which can then turn detrimental and ruin one's self-esteem (Blackburn, 2019). McIntosh lists these privileges such as finding a hairdresser easily, go shopping alone or not getting racially profiled by the police. By McIntosh realizing her privilege, she realized that "whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral...so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which allow "them" to be more like us" (p. 1). I thought that was a poignant thing to say, because when you do have all of these unearned privileges and advantages just for having the right skin tone, it feels normal, and by normalizing it, projects the expectations for people of color to assimilate into the group in any other way. By recognizing privilege in the classroom, you can open up the floor to more conversations about social issues regarding race, representation, and push for more diversity and inspire change. Source: McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Blackburn, S.-S. (2019, March 21). What is the model minority myth? Retrieved from https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/what-is-the-model-minority-myth |
"I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth." |