Park includes a number of terms in this chapter that are important to understand. Some should be familiar, others are new to this chapter. Here is a short list.
RACE ON CAMPUS:
Debunking Myths with Data
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Discussion Questions
Topic Leader: Susan Vega García
Meeting: LMT 12.11
Please read the following & be prepared to discuss at our meeting:
Chapter 7: How Then Should We Think -- pages 145-155
You can always read more from the book at any time, but this is the Chapter we will focus on in our discussions for today.
Note: This chapter summarizes the entire book, how our brains make shortcuts, and how we can challenge ourselves to remain mindful of these patterns and interrupt them in order to further our own DEI learning.
Discussion Questions
1. In Chapter 7, Park discusses different forms of bias to which we are all susceptible and how, despite exposure to what she calls "disconfirming" evidence, we tend to be "incapable of changing our minds." (p. 146)
2. Park reviews how universities may conflate data to show how diverse their student enrollments are; the example given on p. 148 is a university boasting that 71% of their students are "students of color," yet the fine print shows only 2% of the enrollment was African American.
3. In the section "The Work is Far from Done," Park concludes that diversity and inclusion are "inseparably symbiotic concepts" that require constant "attention, maintenance, and proactive initiative" because the work is never done. At the same time, she points out how university DEI efforts, ethnic studies programs, cultural competence efforts, etc. are also "all too fragile," easily dismantled and "perpetually underfunded." (pp. 150-153)
4. Park ends her book by introducing antiracism as a necessary component of DEI work. Like DiAngelo's White Fragility, Park states none of us is immune from racism and that "...we all carry part of the disease of America's original sin." (p. 154)
