The Intellectual Invitation

"Otegha Uwagba: 'I've spent my entire life treading around white people's feelings'" by Nesrine Malik
The Guardian, November 14, 2020
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 "What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?" by Jessica Bennett
The New York Times, November 19, 2020

In the world, nation, and schools, we are grappling with the tension between Dr. King's belief that "the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice" and the idea that it does not (e.g., from Ta-Nehisi Coates). How do we teach these mindsets on a continuum, instead of teaching them as diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive? And how can we equip our students to decide where on the continuum they see themselves or choose to place themselves in a given conversation – with flexibility for them to move in either direction? Nesrine Malik's recent interview with Otegha Uwagba about her new short book, Whites, explores Uwagba's "rage and frustration" over what Malik calls the "mental tithes of coexisting with whiteness." By design, Uwagba's book is uncomfortable, challenging, and confrontational, examining her "anger and disappointment in white allies" and "the limitations of white allyship," concluding that "genuine allyship is probably not going to feel good for white people," since "it requires loss." Also in November, Jessica Bennett wrote in The New York Times about Professor Loretta J. Ross's course on white supremacy at Smith College, which includes a "calling in" (instead of calling out) module. Believing that calling people in is the "antidote to [the] outrage cycle," Ross works to "create a culture of compassion." For Ross, calling out can be appropriate, yet shaming may be counterproductive; she emphasizes keeping a seat at the table for those willing to engage in the work. Bennett synthesizes: "Civil conversation between parties who disagree [is] part of activism." It would be easy to simplify and minimize these thinkers as exclusive versus inclusive, like juxtaposing certain ideas from Dr. King with certain ideas from Malcolm X and reducing them to nonviolent versus violent. The intellectual invitation, however, is to study their contexts and complexities. In a culture with tendencies towards reduction and polarization, schools have the opportunity – with perhaps more urgency than ever – to nurture complexity and pluralism.