This is an academic blog authored by Muhlenberg College students taking Professor Connie Wolfe’s “Contemporary Racism” seminar. Past students are invited to stay on as contributors, commenting & publishing new posts as they continue studying and living with these issues. We hope the blog provides a forum for your own ongoing conversations about implicit and colorblind racism, white privilege, or microaggressions. The students’ posts are a testament to how difficult it can be to face these issues, but also to how much insight we gain when we do.
We hope our work challenges, educates, and maybe even inspires you. Anyone is free to comment on any post. We welcome an open, controversial, and wide-ranging discussion, bearing in mind that we are a community of learners sharing our ideas for the purpose of developing our knowledge base and communication skills. Trolls will be blocked immediately (as will spam, advertisements, or similarly unrelated material).
New posts may be infrequent so please consider subscribing to the blog to receive e-mail updates (see ride side menu). You can also “like” our Facebook page for notifications and occasional Facebook-only updates. The course is taught once per year.
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Contemporary Racism seminar description:
In this course, we will analyze how racism manifests and is sustained by individuals living within systems of power and privilege. We will conduct an in-depth examination of unconscious racial bias, awareness of privilege, and the impact of ideologies that sustain racism, including colorblind ideology. The focus will be on anti-Black racism; however, the overarching perspectives and theories can translate to other targets of racism and other forms of oppression.
The course is designed around the idea of a sociocultural psychology of racism and oppression (Adams et al. 2008). This perspective focuses not just on prejudice as a function of the individual actor, but also as a function of the micro and macro sociocultural milieus the individual is operating within.
Adams, G., Biernat, M., Branscombe, N. R., Crandall, C. S., & Wrightsman, L. S. (2008). Beyond prejudice: Toward a sociocultural psychology of racism and oppression. In Commemorating Brown: The Social Psychology of Racism and Discrimination.