“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
– Lilla Watson, Indigenous Australian or Murri visual artist, activist and academic
Socialization is a process we all go through – it’s how we develop values, habits, and attitudes and learn to function in the world. Understanding the process of socialization can help us understand how we came to where we are in our views of race and racism as well as what we are willing and “able” to do to work for justice.
Today, challenge yourself to reflect on your own racial socialization.
Today’s Challenge
Read
Take a look at this website to explore Defining Racial and Ethnic Socialization. (2+ minutes) https://www.apa.org/res/about/racial-ethnic-socialization
Watch
- Watch this short video on the culture cycle to see how we “do” race across different levels. (4 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXybxTn8YhI&feature=emb_logo
Listen
- Listen to some of the stories on the EmbraceRace website that speak to how racial socialization shapes our individual and collective lives. (2+ minutes): https://www.embracerace.org/resources/stories
Engage
- Review this model of socialization and look at the different forces at play that reinforce attitudes and beliefs, and also how to create new patterns, attitudes, and beliefs. (5 minutes): https://depts.washington.edu/fammed/wpcontent/uploads/2018/06/Cycle_ofSocializationHandout.pdf
Discuss
- How are we first socialized? In what ways are the messages of socialization reinforced?
- How are peoples’ behaviors kept in line with the goals of the socialization process?
- What are some of the results of being socialized in this way?
- What are the options, according to the diagram, that we have once we have been socialized?
- What are some of the risks of “interrupting,” or stepping away from the cycle of socialization? What are some of the benefits?
- What are some “real,” everyday actions that you could take to step away or interrupt this cycle?
