Dialogue Group
A Case Study
Sara Ahmed writes, “If whiteness gains currency by being unnoticed, what does it mean to notice whiteness?” The main purpose of the dialogue group is to do the unfamiliar and often uncomfortable work of this noticing. Kelsey Blackwell asks us to interrogate the structure or architecture of our conversations in pursuit of something different. Here I describe one moment when a dialogue group explored a different kind of conversation where we allowed ourselves to notice whiteness in our own lives and work.
It was the fifth time we’d met and there was an expanding vulnerability among us. Each week—our Zoom backgrounds, our voices, our stories increasingly familiar—the dialogue became more raw, more open, and more complex. As always, I asked if anyone had anything on their mind before we dug into a short reading and discussion. Emily spoke first. “You know how I told you a few weeks ago that I got feedback about teaching that book?” We nod. Emily had described how she felt in learning from some of her Black students that a book she taught had been harmful to them. This was at the height of the Black@ Instagram accounts when Black and other students of color described publicly how their schools and teachers had created toxic learning environments for them. Emily had written her students an apology letter. When she told us this story, tears slid down her cheeks. “I’d always thought I was such a good teacher, so committed to antiracism.” Now, she paused. “What I didn’t tell you a few weeks ago, what I was too ashamed to say,” she breathed deeply, “was that I taught that book for one more year. I don’t know why I did it. I guess I thought I had figured out a way to do it better. That’s some ego, right?”
We’d been practicing sitting with each other through these moments, resisting our strong desires to offer advice or words of comfort, the normal architecture of these conversations. After a moment of quiet, Anna said. “This is so hard. I want to tell you that you know better now, that you won’t do it again. That you probably did do it better. I’m having a hard time just sitting with this, sitting with you.” Others nodded. Then Shane unmuted. “I also taught a book for a lot longer than I should, long past when I knew better. I told myself that I was doing it the right way. I told myself that my students of color would tell me if it was hurting them. I’d told them they could. Did I really think that was enough?” Another quiet moment. Rebecca asked, “What would it look like in our classrooms if we didn’t lead with ego, if we let go of the idea that simply knowing enough, having enough knowledge would shield us from harming our students? I wonder what that would look like.”
The reading that day was from Alice Walker’s essay, “In Search of our Mother’s Garden” in which she asks us to imagine the many unrealized dreams and genius of Black women and mothers. It was an easy journey back to our curriculum. What happens to our students’ dreams when we lead with knowledge and ego, we wondered. And how can we keep wondering when the architecture of so many conversations makes no space for wondering at all?
As we signed off that day, I asked everyone to hold onto Rebecca’s question until we met again. What if accruing knowledge wasn’t the answer? What then? I asked them to not only continue thinking about this question, but also what does it feel like to not have an answer. “Let’s try to stay in this place for now,” I encouraged. “What if it’s not about coherence or answers right now?” With that we said goodnight and as I closed my computer, I felt something settle in my belly. Not knowing, I felt relief in that.
