The Emperor Has No Clothes

A volume in Educational Leadership for Social JusticeSeries Editor Jeffrey S. Brooks University of Missouri-Columbia Denise E. Armstrong Brock University;Ira Bogotch Florida Atlantic University; Sandra Harris Lamar University; Whitney H. Sherman VirginiaCommonwealth University; George Theoharis Syracuse UniversityThe Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don't Want toKnow offers theoretical grounding and practical approaches for leaders and teachers interested in effectivelyaddressing racism and other oppressive constructs. The book draws both on the author's extensive experienceteaching about race and racism in classroom and community settings and from the theory and practiceof a wide range of educators activists and researchers committed to social justice.The first chapter looks at the toxic consequences of our western cultural insistence on profitbinary thinking and individualism to establish the theoretical framework for teaching about race and racism. Chapter two investigates privileged resistanceoffering a psycho/social history of denial particularly as a product of racist culture. Chapter three reviews the research on the construction andreconstruction of dominant culture both historically and now in order to establish sound strategic approaches that educators teachers facilitators andactivists can take as we work together to move from a culture of profit and fear to one of shared hope and love. Chapter four lays out the stages of aprocess that supports teaching about racist white supremacy culture explaining how students can be taken through an iterative process of relationshipbuildinganalysis planning action and reflection. The final chapter borrows from the brilliant brave and incisive writer Dorothy Allison to discussthe things the author knows for sure about how to teach people to see that which we have been conditioned to fear knowing. The chapter concludeswith how to encourage and support collective and collaborative action as a critical goal of the process.