How to deal with students constantly calling out “whiteness” in my classroom and other subtly discriminatory things

I realize this is incredibly loaded, and there’s no way around this. But I’m a new faculty member and pretty stuck, needing some advice. (I wasn’t sure which subreddit to post this in, so I’m open to suggestions.)

I teach undergrads (who are — due to COVID — behind some years in development as we’re seeing across the education spectrum). It’s a fairly liberal school. I’ve considered myself liberal, but like many people have felt lost in recent years and shifting more towards centrist. I constantly hear students criticizing whiteness in one way or another, when the classrooms are actually full of “white” students. I put quotations around this because I don’t actually know everyone’s background, where they’re from, if they themselves identify as white, etc. I’m what the kids call “white passing” but I’m actually Middle Eastern. I personally think the avenue of centering certain voices (even those historically disadvantaged) and quieting other voices (those seen as less disadvantaged, whether true or not) is a fast track to other forms of damaging hierarchy, and not the way to equity. Dare I say anything like this without risking getting pushed out of the university by horrified 20 year olds. I realize as an educator there is difference between teaching and teaching my opinions. I know the latter is not my job. But I feel responsible for creating a good learning environment where students — no matter their skin color or origin — don’t feel shamed by these kind of anti-white comments (if that’s even the right way to say it). So I’m asking two things of you all:

1. How to manage this in a liberal 2024 classroom, and…

2. Personally, are there any resources, authors, podcasts I can go to to find solace in my confusion and struggle (please no recommendation to read White Fragility…). There must be other people that struggle with this that aren’t on either extreme of our political spectrum.

Thanks, and sorry in advance for the chaos this may cause here. I realize there was no perfect way to write this out or to share everything I needed to but I’m hoping it’s enough… I’m just super lost and looking for guidance. I love teaching but these kinds of issues are taking over and making me not love it…

Submitted January 27, 2024 at 02:11PM by PsychiaTree https://ift.tt/OljIrxT