The campus conversations regarding the Teach in for Justice will continue with the second installment of the event surrounding race, white privilege, conflict resolution and the necessary skills for social change Feb. 25 from 5:15 to 7:15 in MGC.
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Sociology professor Celine-Marie Pascale, who ran a workshop on speaking to family members about white privilege at the last teach in, will be conducting another workshop on white privilege. The issue of race has been discussed at AU for a long time and reaches beyond the AU community, according to Pascale.
“As long as I have been at AU, there has been a conversation about racial equity going on, and that conversation has preceded me by generations,” Pascale said. “As long as we have had the notion of races, we’ve had racial inequalities and conversations about them. It’s not so much a matter of if there’s a conversation, but who’s joining it.”
The Teach in for Justice part two will offer students the opportunity to attend a panel discussion surrounding racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
The panel discussion will focus on the prison pipeline, racial profiling and the inequities of the current justice system as well as ideas for reform, according to Robin Adams, a moderator for the panel on the topic.
“These conversations around inequities are ongoing conversations and we must continue to have them as a community if we are to see a resolution,” Adams said. “I think the campus conversations started with the first teach in. Those conversations were initiated by students originally which is how the first teach in came to be because students were already having these conversations around race an inequity.”
Adams said she wanted a greater amount of student participation during the next panel, and she urged more students to get involved in order to make the conversations both meaningful and productive.
“We hope to first and foremost start a dialogue that enlightens people that there are a lot of racial disparities that exist within our justice system,” she said. “I strongly believe that students have to be active participants of these conversations if they expect things to change on campus. It’s not just upon the administration to make these changes.”
The teach in and subsequent panels and workshops are in response to the larger conversations about race and social justice held on campus by students, according to Cathy Schneider, an associate professor in the School of International Service and another organizer for the panel on prejudices in the justice system.
“The need for conversation was demonstrated by the heated exchanges that were occurring on campus around the issue of police violence in general and Ferguson in particular,” Schneider said.
These conversations are essential for addressing problems of racism, social profiling and social injustice, according to Schneider. The conversations are a good first step in the development of skills for social change, she said.
Part two will provide a meaningful outlet for further discussion by offering a safe, controlled environment for all participants to voice concerns, feel empathy and learn about what it means to be white or a person of color.
“For whites and minorities to communicate about these issues, there must be forums where students get together learn about the experiences of people from different races and backgrounds,” Schneider said.
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