Lisa Delpit: The Silenced Dialogue - Reflection

This piece describes the experiences of Black and Native Alaskan graduate students and teachers in predominantly white university classes and discussions about how to best serve students of color. These individuals express frustration and alienation in their interactions with white colleagues and professors, who they feel do not listen to or value their perspectives and experiences. The author suggests that these scenarios are common and that white educators often do not realize that they are silencing the voices of their colleagues of color. The author also argues that schooling prepares people for jobs and that the kind of job a person has determines their economic status and power. She also asserts that there are codes or rules for participating in power, which relate to linguistic forms, communicative strategies, and presentation of self. These rules are a reflection of the culture of those who have power, and children from middle-class homes tend to do better in school because the culture of the school is based on the culture of the upper and middle classes. The author also argues that acknowledging personal power and admitting participation in the culture of power is uncomfortable for many who consider themselves members of liberal or radical camps. The author also discusses the importance of cultural diversity and the right for each cultural group to maintain their own language and cultural style, and believes that political change towards diversity can only be achieved by pushing and agitating from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. The author suggests that students should be taught within the context of meaningful communicative endeavors.

This text was really quite eye opening for me. Throughout my life I have always lived in a middle class neighborhood, been educated at excellent private schools, and existed in the world with a certain amount of assumed power that I have not had reason to examine too closely. To consider that I have, and always have had, a base amount of power over others because of my educational background, economic status, and skin color, is something that I have always avoided looking at directly. I hope that both in this class and in my life I will continue to be challenged about my own ideas on my place in our society. It does not sit well with me that these societal constructs of racial differences have such a profound effect on the lives of people of color. While reading this, I kept pondering what made us, as a society, assign more value to some people than others and how we might at some point be able to combat that through a better education system.