Color Blind or Absent Mind

There is a distinction between color blindness and absent mindedness.

The former is a worthy goal consonant with Dr. King’s desire that we judge each other “by the content of our character not the color of our skin.” The latter is too frequently on display in academia.

“As a white assistant professor of mostly white graduate students who will become higher education leaders, I work to dismantle whiteness in my curriculum, assignments and pedagogy,” Jodi L. Linley writes. “I make meaning of my own white identity through my commitment to reflexivity as a constant activity.”

“Equally salient are my identities as a queer, able-bodied, cisgender woman, who grew up working class in the rural Midwestern United States.” Linley is an assistant professor of Education Policy and Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa.

She wrote the article, “Teaching to deconstruct whiteness in higher education,” for the journal Whiteness and Education. I will resist the temptation to say “so there” to an amiable accomplished scholar who recently took me to task on Facebook for my assertion that academic journals are overwhelmingly inane.

In her abstract, which we quoted from above, Linley notes that “This manuscript explores the ways my identities, experiences and teaching paradigm anchor my commitment to the work of deconstructing whiteness.” There might also be a reason they call them abstracts….