Trainor's "The Emotional Power of Racism: An Ethnographic Portrait of an All-White High School"

Look on The Bright Side!

            Jennifer Seibel Trainor’s 2008 essay “The Emotional Power of Racism: An Ethnographic Portrait of an All-White High School” is a valuable one.  It took a while for her to get going.  She seemed to spend so much time “defining terms” (as Plato and Aristotle might have had her do), that I thought we would never get to the study itself.  The points she makes for us, as educators, are valuable ones.  They go a long for me in explaining some of the reluctance and/or disconnects I have experienced from my students toward texts that I have brought to class.  This is why I have learned to build in LOTS of prior knowledge and prior experience. (This sounds like so much middle-school pedagogical propaganda, but it is actually essential that we do this.)

            Trainor’s major premises are based on the works of others.  She opens up with Ralph Cintron’s Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday. I am wondering if any of you, my esteemed colleagues and friends, have read his works.  I am embarrassed to say that I haven’t.  She also mentions the work of Sharon Crowley, who I was exposed to in the teacher credentialing program.  I like her a lot. 

            I am intrigued with how Trainor situates racist discourse in a larger framework:  racist remarks function metaphorically and are often connected with social issues and issues of infrastructure, which we all know exert a great deal of power.  It takes a while for Trainor to explain what she means.  So often, we see racism as the result of the dominant power attempting to hold on to this power.  We also see racism as the product of ignorance.  I am not yet convinced that these causes do not play enormous roles here.  But what Trainor means, I think, is that racism has a social component, as well.  Schools, she argues, are institutions that have visible and invisible practices that work against what many of us are trying to accomplish in the classroom. 

            For too long, we have seen emotions as emanating from and operating on individuals.  We almost always consider emotions as quite separate from the realm of rational thinking.  Both of these preconceived, closely-held notions are toppled quite completely in this essay.  Trainor asks us to see emotions as occurring on a public stage, where the social and the personal are connected.  For some reason, this reminds me of Judith Butler’s ideas about the performative.  Am I crazy? Probably.  In terms of reason, we should begin to see it as far more entwined with emotions than we may have ever imagined.  Logos, then, and pathos are not discreet areas of rhetoric after all. 

            As a middle-school teacher, I know firsthand that jingoistic slogans of positivisms abound.  I have been slightly annoyed by them from time to time, but I have truthfully never considered how damaging they can be.  To see Maya Angelou as whining is almost amusing.  The students in this study are so far from understanding the beauty and the inherent optimism of I know Why the Caged Birds Sing – or any of her works.  I can only begin to understand how this teacher, “Elizabeth,” must have felt. 

            And yet…I would love to find out how Elizabeth set up this novel.  How did she build in prior knowledge and prior experience?  This is missing from this extremely valuable essay.  I love the hybrid form of the essay – the mixing of ethnographic work with essay-writing (some of which is narrative, some informational).  And I can relate to some of the findings.  All students have blind spots for “the other.”  But I do feel that how Angelou’s powerful novel was set up for these students was missing.  Without this piece, I don’t quite know what to think.

            The students that I work with are predominately Asian.  I work with students from Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, and Vietnam.  Many of these students were born in the United States, but still more were born in these Asian countries.  I also teach a number of students from Africa – Nigeria to be specific.  Most of my students are good students, but frequently want to find the quickest way to a good grade.  They are less open than I had initially hoped to understanding the struggles of other peoples – indigenous Americans and African-Americans.  With time, these students and the white students in my classes can and do learn to develop empathy.  I use a lot of video, photographs, poems, discussions, and journal writings before we read ANYTHING.  When I shortcut these steps, my readings fall flat.  I have learned to spend more time than I think I need building this prior knowledge. 

            And while all American schools seem to rally around the sports cry of STAY POSITIVE, we can deconstruct the negative/positive binary quite a bit.  It takes times.  And a sense of humor.

            I do not mean to belittle this essay.  Most likely, Elizabeth DID build in this prior knowledge.  She sounds like a thoughtful and bright teacher that I could learn a lot from.  I just want to know how she presented this beautiful novel.  I read a good chunk of it to my middle-schoolers, and they were visibly moved.  Is her population that much different from mine? 

            Friday, I plan to tackle more of this important essay.  I know that I haven’t done it justice.