The Silenced Dialogue

So this article was definitely a difficult read. At first I was totally confused by what she was trying to say and point out.  I couldn’t figure out why she was telling us other people’s stories about how they are done talking to white people. It almost seemed like the author was using those people’s stories as why to get us upset with “those white people” so we would be more sympathetic with the point she was trying to make.

Many times throughout her article she says that the “rich liberal teachers are advocating for certain progressive programs that only help middle class children” while keeping the “children of color” behind. When she continued to say this I began to feel like this article was, in a way, more of an opinion piece than a research piece. As I continued to read I began to see the research that she put into the article.

There is one part of this article that reminds me of another article that we have read so far. On page 22 the author says,

            “You just have to stop talking to them, that’s what I do. I just keep smiling, but I won’t talk to them”.

This line reminds me of Johnson’s article about how when something uncomfortable or difficult comes up people will just shut down. The strange thing about this line compared to what he was talking about is that this was said by a person that has been defined by society as someone with no power or privilege.

I liked this article as a whole piece because, even though I may have disagreed with how the information was being presented, I thought that the author was articulate in the way she said certain things. In my years going through school I have always wondered about how teachers feel about another teacher’s methods and this article gave an interesting view on that topic even if it was more about the race differences.