05 Feb -mid term – critical self reflection

Order Instructions
Length: 3 pages, double-spaced. This is an expansion/revision of your Small Discussion 2.

Critical Self Reflections are two-part formal essays that require students to respond to this overarching question:

How does a specific encounter you have had with race or racial difference reflect on our course concepts (pick 2) of racial privilege, systemic racial oppression, anti-racist activism, and/or implicit bias, etc?

In order to address this question, you should:

1) Narrate one encounter with race or a personal experience with race that provoked an insight that relates directly to what you have read/viewed in the first few lessons. In this first part, you should set the scene and use descriptive language (eg. vivid language that describes your emotions or the social interaction).

2) connect your personal experience to two different readings. You may refer to videos, but you need to make direct connections to readings, refer to specific quotations from the reading, elaborate on the meaning of those quotations in your own words and in relation to your specific experience with race.

The structure for this essay is open-ended, but students need to be sure to include these two components:

NARRATE ONE learning experience or insight about race and what that concept or identity position means in the context of American culture. This learning experience may have occurred in a classroom or as a result of a historical event (such as the recent death of George Floyd). This insight may have happened as a result of an interracial relationship in your past or an impactful interracial encounter you had. It may be a reflection on an encounter you had with a person who possessed racist beliefs or a dangerous “single story” about race. It may be a reflection on your own racial identity and/or racial oppression. It may be an honest reflection on your own racial bias or privilege. It may be a reflection on a reading or viewing experience that laid bare the significance or legacy of race in the United States.
Analyze that experience and what it taught you about race in America by connecting it to at least two of the course readings (and perhaps videos) we have explored thus far. Be sure to develop those connections to the readings/viewings by using textual support in the form of examples and quotations that allow you to expand on your ideas about race and racial identity in the United States.
The paper might not have a formal introduction like other academic essays, but it should have (at some point) a strong and complex thesis statement or argument about race and its social, psychological, and cultural effects on American life. That thesis statement should be grounded in specific readings and concepts we have explored in the first three weeks of HU 213. You might select one or two questions below to ground or clarify your thesis statement, which should answer the highlighted question below. Do not try and answer all of these questions; just focus on the highlighted one and use the other questions to help you build your support.

Overarching question:

How does your encounter with race reflect on our course concepts (pick 2) of racial privilege, systemic racial oppression, anti-racist activism, and/or implicit bias, etc?

How does your experience reinforce the notion that racism is not just about individual acts of meanness, but systemic and structural conditions that put some people (whites) at an advantage and others (people of color) at a disadvantage?
How does your experience relate to Kendi’s reflections on the importance of being anti-racist?
How does your experience relate to what is described in Nagarajah’s “Token Black Friend”?
How does your experience illuminate how white privilege operates in the way that McIntosh describes it in “Whiteness: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”?
How does your experience connect with Roxanne Gay’s discussion of privilege and oppression in her essay?
What did the experience teach you about the racial assumptions or cultural biases that some or many people possess about race?
How does your experience reflect how race or racial identity afford some people privilege at the expense of others?
How does your encounter reflect on how the United States is haunted by its history of racial oppression?
How does the encounter reflect on how race is both a social construct and a source of deep oppression?
How does your experience challenge or reinforce a single story about race?
ESSAY GUIDELINES:

Use these guidelines to format essays writing courses. These guidelines will also work for most college-level courses.

Submit all assignments as typed Microsoft Word or PDF files. Do not submit a link to google drive or an external website.
Use 10 to 12 point font. Select a standard, readable font type (for example, Arial, Times New Roman, or Verdana).
Use one-inch margins.
Double-space the entire document.
Use left justification (format the document so that the text is aligned with the left margin).
Include page numbers.
Include your name, date, and course number at the top of the first page of each essay.
Center the title at the top of the first page without underlining or using quotation marks.
Use MLA style
Conventions for Formal Academic Essays

These basic guidelines can help writers develop well-organized, clear essays for a variety of different writing situations:

Write about a narrowly-focused issue rather than a broad or general topic.
Include an original title that reflects the narrow topic and thesis of the essay.
Support the thesis statement and other assertions with evidence from course material and experience that is appropriate for college-level academic writing and for the requirements of the specific assignment.