My Experience with White Fragility
As I teach a course in instructional design and technology on culturally inclusive instructional design, I try to model what I teach. This video was made for my grad students in having courageous conversations.
What’s your story?
Looking at an event from one perspective is dangerous and can reinforce systemic issues associated with the -isms of our society.
The History of Now
If I asked you to tell me your history, what would you tell me? Would you tell me about your family, growing up, and adventures and misadventures? Or would you go deeper? In the picture is my great grandmother. I am the blonde-headed kid with my back to her, crying. I’m crying because I do…
Disrupting Systemic Racism
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about systems lately. If you think in terms of a thermostat, you set the temperature, the AC or heat kicks on, when the temperature gets to the desired degree, the AC or heat system holds the temperature constant until you manually change (or disrupt) it again. You are external…
Misguided Assumptions
Deconstructing racism and disassembling systemic barriers requires challenging a worldview system that has privileged whiteness and, in my case, interrogating my white-skinned assumptions.
The Color and Gender of God
I read the book, The Shack (Young, 2007), well before it became a popular read, the movie was produced, and it was a topic of discussion in Christian book circles. I loved the character of God in the book, who was a Black woman named Papa. The juxtaposition of a feminine God with a masculine…
Critical Race Theory
What is critical race theory (CRT) and is it an appropriate lens to be used in public school education?
Badge of Shame
Even as I look at my white world through my white eyes I see the disparity in treatment between white and black and white and brown by law enforcement. As enlightened as I try to be, my truth of my white self still grapples with categorically judging an entire branch of law enforcement based upon…
(Dis)Trusted Servant
I’m Christian. I go to Church. But I do not trust the Christian Church. I’ve got over 40 years of reasons why. The psychological condemnation by the Christian Church I received as a gay man has caused a deep-seated distrust of the institution. But I go to church to worship, not to worry. How does…
Advocacy, Action, Activi$m, and Accountability
Announcing the Brett H. Cook-Snell Endowed Scholarship Fund, a recognized IRS Tax Exempt 501(c)(3) Public Charity 509(a)(2).
Health Check – An urgent message for young black men and women
Disparities in health between ethnicities is not a new phenomenon, it is as old as the enslavement of black, brown, and indigenous bodies. What some may not know is white American doctors were just as culpable in performing experiments upon enslaved bodies as the Nazis were upon Jewish bodies (Washington, 2006). The emerging field of…
Are you from this country? Microaggressions and racism
I was in line at the grocery store this week and chatting with the cashier. She was a young Black female. She asked about my kilt. I told her I wear a kilt so people would ask me exactly that question and it gave me the opportunity to talk about my antiracist work. “I am…
What does it mean to be Antiracist?
“What do Black People need saving from?” (asked by a Black seminary professor during a white fragility discussion group that I co-facilitate) We were talking about DiAngelo’s (2018) analysis of the movie, The Blind Side (Hancock, 2009), in response to a question on white people’s motives when helping Black people. Often, even though white people…
Researching Antiracist Instructional Strategies
It’s been a while since I blogged, only because I take a break between semesters. The semester has started, and I am back to blogging. But this time with a twist. This semester, a black female colleague and I are working on a research project for a book chapter. The research question for the study…
What’s in a Name?
… researchers at the University of Chicago conducted a large study in which they responded to over 1,300 help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. They sent out close to 5,000 resumes to a range of employers in both the public and private sectors. The qualifications on the resumes were consistent, but the researchers randomly…
Four More Years
No, I am not talking about four more years of the 45th President of the United States, please God, no (and that is a prayer!). I’m talking about the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015-2024 (United Nations, 2020). Why am I just now hearing about this now, especially when there is…
Visibly Invisible
I am at the end of teaching my 8-week course on information literacy. My students’ last major writing assignment is to summarize all their blog entries into one paper. This is my example for them on my topic of racism. At 6’4”, I’m hard to miss. Add a white shirt, suspenders, bowtie, and a fedora…
White rage: Fanning the flames of Black and Brown Oppression
Social media lip-service alone will not solve black and brown oppression. You and I will, at the polls, in 2020. You and I will, by holding those officials we elect accountable. To abate the rise of white rage directed at persons of color and end a culture of fear, you and I must make the…
Take Action Now
A CONCRETE STEP YOU CAN TAKE NOW THROUGH CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN A TIME OF CIVIL UNREST. Like many of you, I condemn the deadly act of force against George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement personnel. During these times, we must exercise every right possible to prevent these acts. As an educator, I wanted…
A RACE TO THE POLLS
I would like to say the above image from 2012 is a hoax and a photo-shopped image. I would like to say it as an image someone crafted to prove a point. But it is not. It was a true event restricted to white’s only. If you want to verify this fact, do a Google…
Dead Wrong
I am sickened, distressed, saddened, and dismayed by how our society continues to defend Stand Your Ground culture as a defense for murder. Two semesters ago, I read a book that opened my eyes to how good-intentioned white people still unknowingly perpetuate racism while vehemently declaring they/we/I are not/am not racist(s). I talk about that…
The Golden Rule
It is now the end of Spring semester, COVID-19 has changed our world, probably forever, and my students are writing their concluding blog for the semester. My entry here, is an example for them to follow. It is by no means is it the end of my own blogging. I have peppered this post with…
The WASP’s nest
We’re Americans, and as such, we can’t remember shit. Perhaps that’s why, as we write this, the massive, orchestrated effort by the current administration to revise history even as it occurs is experiencing almost total success. Events are being reduced to sound bites; sound bites are becoming mantras. The truth—if you edit carefully enough, omit…
The Myth of Race
I continue to be saddened at the extinct to which the construct of race has contributed to a culture of racism that is systemic to our American society today. As part of my UCC SC2ER facilitator training this week I’ve had some heady assignments that I am still processing. One assignment was to watch episode…
Across the Great Divide
I was walking into work this morning. Behind me to my left were two white men, mid 40’s or 50’s. One rolling a suitcase with his overnight bag resting on top. The other walking beside him carrying nothing. Their conversation went something like this: Suitcase guy: “My wife and I had driven to a conference…
Jesus didn't speak in red letters
The title refers to the fact that many translations of Christian Scripture put the words of Jesus in red. I recently started reading several books for my United Church of Christ (UCC) Scared Conversations to End Racism (SC2ER) facilitator training, one of which is The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African…
I was black until 1967
If I am to define race based upon skin color, then at my very genetic core … I must be a light-skinned black man. Legally, until 1967, I was black growing up in the Commonwealth of Virginia as a result of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 (the instructions of implementation for the act are…
The Journey Continues
Last semester I started blogging about white fragility (DiAngelo, 2018) as an example blog for my students’ assignments. It’s another semester and time to start my blogging again. My overarching question in my first post of last semester, What color is my hat, was how may I, as a Christian white man, talk with other…
The first step to change is awareness of the problem
“ … humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say and do” (Stowe, 1852/2003, p. 8). This narrative is a quote from abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe’s (1852/2003), Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book, at one time, was second only to…
What color is your Jesus?
In my research question, I pose the question on how, I, as a Christian, can help in shattering the frozen face of white fragility and talk openly about race. I find it curious that the majority of representations of Christ I see, picture a white Christ. Geographically, I don’t see how Christ could have been…
Family Values
To the left is a picture from my Facebook feed (Cook-Snell, 2018). My mother is standing next to a member from my local church. Both women are in their 80s and have experienced a rich and full life. The caption I gave the picture in my post is “wisdom personified”. I can only imagine the…
Color-blindness is a medical condition not a social excuse
Look at the chessboard in the picture from Chessbazaar.com (2019). What colors do you see? If you said black and white, then you cannot claim color-blindness. Color-blindness is a medical condition not a social excuse. Recently I had a conversation with a colleague in which they stated they were color-blind when it came to race.…
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