UNL Racial Literacy Roundtables

On April 19, 2023 I will be presenting at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Racial Literacy Roundtables. Thank you to Dr. Tricia Gray (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) for the invitation.

Description:

In this talk, Dr. Jacobs will share findings from an autoethnographic case study that focuses on preparing secondary English Language Arts teachers for antiracist pedagogical change by engaging them in antiracist thinking in their approaches to curriculum design, instructional practice, and personal connections with students.

Click here to learn more about the UNL Racial Literacy Roundtables

Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD) 2023

This year I will be attending the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD) Conference in Salt Lake City.

On Saturday, March 25 I will be co-moderating a session with Dr. Christina Rucinski (EmbraceRace).

Raising a Brave Generation: The Role of Developmental Scientists in Building a Multidisciplinary Field of Children’s Racial Learning

Moderators: Drs. Christina Rucinski (EmbraceRace) and Laura-Ann Jacobs (University of Michigan)

Panelists: Drs. Christia Spears Brown (University of Kentucky), Andrew Grant-Thomas (EmbraceRace), Gabriela Livas Stein (University of North Carolina Greensboro), Deborah Rivas-Drake (University of Michigan), Dawn Witherspoon (Penn State University)

Abstract:

Public interest in fostering children’s racial learning is growing. Efforts from scientists, educators, media, and others to respond to this interest signal that a robust, multisectoral field of children’s racial learning is needed–and already emerging. As developmental scientists shift toward embracing scholar-activist identities, questions about how to catalyze and sustain a large-scale movement promoting children’s healthy racial learning are increasingly relevant. This session will lift up opportunities for developmentalists to help strengthen the field of children’s racial learning. The conversation will be framed by members of the Standing uP Against Racism and Xenophobia (SPARX) project (Drs. Christia Spears Brown, Laura-Ann Jacobs, Gabriela Livas Stein, Debbie Rivas-Drake, and Dawn Witherspoon), alongside practitioners (Drs. Andrew Grant-Thomas and Christina Rucinski) from EmbraceRace, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting caregivers in raising children who are thoughtful, informed, and brave about race.

The discussion will explore expansive conceptualizations of antiracist development and caregiving and will highlight emerging evidence about resources and experiences that may support antiracist practices. SPARX will share insights from interviews with diverse parents across the U.S., how those perspectives map onto the landscape of existing resources, and what still needs to be developed. EmbraceRace will speak to efforts to build supportive communities of practice among caregivers and will introduce the Rapid Response Research Network, a new recruitment tool to support research on antiracist interventions, tools, and strategies. Time will be reserved for attendees to exchange insights around their own motivations and goals for contributing to the movement to promote healthy racial learning.

Anti-Racist Book Groups

Summer and Fall 2020 I will be facilitating anti-racist book groups for non-BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Color). These groups are intended to be beginner discussion and learning groups grounded in books written by Authors of Color.

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The development of these groups emerged from Critical Whiteness Learning Groups facilitated by Carolyn Hetrick:

This group is for anyone who wants to join, providing they accept some foundational premises:

First, this will be a community focused on developing critical understandings of how whiteness operates systemically and how white people, in particular, can learn and practice anti-racism.

Second, this will be a community that acknowledges that racism and anti-blackness are systemic and enduring in the United States and that white supremacist ideologies have shaped the systems, institutions, and cultural interactions that white people take for granted as normal and acceptable. We can and will absolutely explore how these premises are true and grapple with how we mediate these premises in our daily lives—but if you are looking for a space to debate the existence of racism and white supremacy, this isn't it.

Third, this will be a community that focuses on engaging questions of racism and whiteness with an understanding that white people must engage this work in order to heal ourselves. In other words, the work of this group will absolutely value and affirm the lives of people of color, but we will not take a "savior" stance in our work. This work is about how white people engage ourselves and each other.

Fourth, this group supports learning. We will work together to develop norms for holding ourselves and each other accountable to and supporting one another in growing our knowledge and shaping skillful anti-racist action.

These non-BIPOC learning groups accept these foundational premises and also view the work and process of engaging questions of racism, whiteness, and anti-blackness as central to the work of healing and justice for non-BIPOC.

In these groups we will interrogate the ways in which white supremacy and anti-blackness in particular have shaped systems, institutions, and our own engagements with the world.

Click here to learn more about these groups.