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Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1125–1136

www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Silence speaks: Whiteness revealed in the absence of voice$

Lisa A. Mazzei�

Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, Didsbury Campus,

799 Wilmslow Road, Manchester, M20 2RR, UK

Received 22 March 2006; received in revised form 20 February 2007; accepted 22 February 2007

Abstract

In this hybrid article, the author attempts to weave together the theoretical implications of whiteness theory and a

theorizing of silence on teacher education practices, research with her own students that explored these implications, and

reflections on her own pedagogical practices and location as a white teacher educator teaching about race and diversity. In

teacher education courses intended to explore issues regarding the implications of diversity in schools, silence is often

encountered in work with white students who have not examined their identity in the context of a racial discourse. This

article explores the nature and intent of these racially inhabited silences that emerged in two teacher education courses

comprised predominately of white preservice teachers.

r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Silence; Whiteness; Racial identity; Pedagogy; Teacher preparation

1. Beginnings

More than a decade ago, I began a qualitativeresearch project whose purpose was to consider howa group of white teachers in an urban school districtin the US understood their racial position and toexamine how that understanding impacted their

ee front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

te.2007.02.009

is a Research Fellow in the Education and Social

ute at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

g MMU in July 2006, she was an Associate

ducation at Ohio Dominican University, USA.

sts include an examination of race and culture in

ifically issues pertinent to the preparation of white

rban schools, and the probing of silence as

meaningful in discourse-based research. Her

Silence in Qualitative Research, was published by

007.

247 2567.

ess: l.mazzei@mmu.ac.uk.

curricular decisions and work as teachers. The twomost notable learnings emerging from that initialresearch were the realization that the white teacherswho participated in the study, including myself, hadlittle or no experience of themselves as having a‘‘racial position’’ and that their experience of havinglived in a world of white privilege severely limitedtheir ability to see or express themselves as ‘‘Other.’’This lack of awareness led to noticeable silences inthe conversations related to race,1 racial position,

.

1Although I embrace the concept of hybridity as put forth by

Bhabha (1994), and acknowledge that the use of ‘‘race’’ as a

distinct category is in itself problematic, recognizing that race is

nothing more than an arbitrary and artificial category (Marshall,

1993), I consciously choose to use this distinction as it provides

entry into the discourse using language which is understood and

interpretable. I do not do so naively, however, I do so with the

knowledge that I will have to trouble this deliberate act of naming

and classifying, much as I push my students to do.

ARTICLE IN PRESS

3Journal entry.

What are my silences? What are my resistances to exposing the

assumptions made by myself and others? How do I create a space

which allows me to hear the voices of silence? How will I know

when they have spoken? What if I am unable to understand

L.A. Mazzei / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1125–11361126

and racial identity, subsequently reflected in thepedagogical and curricular decisions made by theseteachers. In the course of the research these silenceswere shown to be both purposeful and meaningfulin reaffirming the espoused perspective of theparticipants. As a means of acknowledging theimportance of these silences and addressing theirrelevance in circumscribing identity, a methodolo-gical strategy was developed to identify and examinethe significance and myriad meanings inhabiting thesilences. While the research and teaching describedin this article have occurred in a US context, suchdiscussions and learnings have much wider implica-tions. According to Leonardo (2004a), ‘‘race, and inparticular whiteness, must be situated in the globalcontext’’ (p. 117). And while the local context formy work is the Midwest region of the United States,the global context for this work is teacher educationthat concerns itself with the development of raciallyaware and culturally sensitive teachers.

Many who grew up in the US with white skinwere taught not to notice or to mention one’s skincolour for fear of being impolite or racist. I wascarefully taught this by parents who did not wish fortheir children to perpetuate much of what they hadexperienced as whites growing up long before civilrights and integration.2 So what happens when we

2Journal entry.

I am reminded of a story that my mother told me sometime

during this past year. When I was in the first grade, my assigned

teacher went on maternity leave early in the year. Although I was

heartbroken by her departure, she was replaced by a teacher that

I remember to this day, Mrs. Robinson. She was black, although

I didn’t understand what this meant at the time.

One day my mother picked me up early from school for my

annual (dreaded) visit to the paediatrician. On the way to the

doctor’s office, I said to her, ‘‘Mommy, did you know that Mrs.

Robinson was black?’’

Yes I did,’’ was her kind reply.

‘‘How did you know that?’’ I asked her bewildered.

My mother did not say what her reply to me was, nor do I

remember. What I do remember was my mother talking about

how we were raised to see everyone the same, and not to judge

people based on their colour. Someone in my class told me she

was black—I’m not sure I even knew what that meant at the time.

We were forbidden to repeat jokes that were demeaning to others,

especially those that portrayed immigrants (e.g., Irish, Italians,

Polish) in a negative light, and I could never understand until

later why my father had been so insistent that we not laugh at or

tell jokes that demeaned others.

I thank my parents for the way that I was raised; however, I

need to continue to unlearn NOT to talk about race (my own and

others) for fear of embarrassment or offence.

do not notice, or are taught not to notice, or pretendnot to notice? What can happen is that we lullourselves into a dream state induced by thissoporific silence. A silence that shields and veilsuntil finally, something, someone, shatters thedream.3

My silence was shattered in stages. Stages ofbeing uncomfortable around those telling racistjokes; reading the Peggy McIntosh (1990) article inwhich she discusses privileges taken for granted bywhite Americans; being told by a friend and fellowstudent that I was not seeing what I could not see;having a friend in graduate school remind me whenaccording to her I was ‘‘doin’ that white girl thing;’’seeing decorative black angels as part of a Christ-mas display at a professor’s house; visiting theNational Civil Right’s Museum in Memphis, TN;wanting to move out of my mostly white neighbour-hood;4 purposefully going places where I would beforced to confront my whiteness in settings where Iwas the visible Other, not vice versa;5 and teaching

them? How will I determine which silences to listen to?4‘‘Today, 86% of white suburban Americans live in neighbour-

hoods that are less than 1% black’’ (West, 1993, p. 4).5Journal entry

After the Cornel West lecture given at Mershon Auditorium [at

Ohio State University], it was announced that Cornel West and

Elder Dr. John Henrik Clarke would engage in a dialogue at the

Hale Black Cultural Centre. I made the remark to Cynthia Tyson

that it was too bad that they didn’t have the follow-up program at

Mershon so that more people could attend. I realize in retrospect

what a ‘‘white girl thing’’ (as she would say) that was and I will

talk about why. I didn’t mean to be insensitive but I was only

viewing the situation from a white majority perspective. There is

nothing that I have to say about race that I feel needs to be said

behind closed doors.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, Phillip and I walked over to

the Hale centre and luckily found a seat. Most of the seats were

gone by 3:30. It ended up that we were probably two of 10 whites

out of a gathering of 250–300 people. It became quite apparent

the importance of hosting such an even at the Hale Centre. The

atmosphere was totally different, very relaxed. People were

buzzing about, talking, hugging each other, visiting in a way that

can be observed at a large family reunion or similar gathering.

I didn’t feel intimidated per se but I did feel like an intruder.

When the moderator began the program, he commented about

how good it was to host this dialogue on ‘‘home territory’’ where

we aren’t being watched. Professor Clarke is at least in his 80 s

and speaks from an Afrikan Nationalist Perspective. I don’t

know if a majority of people in the audience shared his view, but

ARTICLE IN PRESSL.A. Mazzei / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1125–1136 1127

mostly white students who were preparing to teach,as Lisa Delpit (1995, 2004) would say, Other

People’s Children.Since that initial research I have continued to

explore the importance of racially inhabited silencein classes with preservice teachers, particularly as itarises in conversations regarding issues of diversity.This attention serves as a means of both identifyingand challenging responses to those who are ‘‘differ-ent’’ or ‘‘Other’’ especially as those responses, bothsilent and muted, serve to expose and solidifycircumscribed perceptions. These racially inhabitedsilences are particularly noticeable in settings wherewhite preservice teachers are challenged to deal withissues of diversity, finding themselves uncomforta-ble in the context of a discourse of diversity,especially when the conversation engages the socialand economic implications of racial diversity andwhen the critical gaze is shifted from the racialobject, i.e., the non-white Other, to the racialsubject, i.e., white self (Morrison, 1992). They willtalk about difference, and acknowledge that wemust incorporate diversity into education classes,but when asked to specifically discuss their percep-tions or experiences based on race and ethnicity, it isas if I have asked them to divulge the password of asecret society. In the words of one student, ‘‘Why dowe need to talk about it? Isn’t it best if we don’tnotice it? Isn’t it an issue because we [You] keepmaking it an issue?’’ This discussion then ispresented as a continuing engagement with thoseracially inhabited silences in an attempt to furtherascertain their relevance and to formulate pedago-gical responses so we can get students to talk aboutit. So we can adequately prepare teachers torecognize when they are responding to theirstudents based on their own biases, stereotypes,and ignorance in order to help future teachers notjust mouth the mantra of a culturally relevantpedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 2001), but actu-ally mean it and enact it.

(footnote continued)

many did as was evidenced in the way they responded to his

remarks in the ‘‘call and response’’ tradition. Cornel West

continued to speak from an inclusive, hopeful perspective. The

open, frank exchange which ensued would not have occurred in

the same way had this dialogue been held in a more public space.

As important as listening to these two men speak, was the

experience of being an outsider, in the minority, being looked at

in a suspicious manner by some, and being in a place which was

not ‘‘my space.’’

2. A context for whiteness

The context for my work with white preserviceteachers was in a small liberal arts University in theMidwest region of the US that prides itself on itsurban location, urban mission, and the preparationof teachers for the large urban school district inwhich the university is located. For many of thesemen and women (mostly women and mostly white)who will complete their licensure requirements andstudent teach and/or teach in this urban system, theexperience will be their first meaningful encounterwith persons of colour. This is possible becausewhile many of them may live in the ‘‘city,’’ they livein the white suburban enclaves that actually form aperimeter around the city so they can attend school,shop, and carry on many of their daily activitiessurrounded by others like themselves, both raciallyand economically. Therefore, they have lived mostof their lives in a white world where race has notbeen part of their own identification of self, andwhere, if race was spoken of in reference to others, itwas an uncomfortable topic to be avoided, espe-cially if one desired to ‘‘fit in’’ with acceptable(normative) white behaviour and attitudes (Ells-worth, 1997; Alcoff, 2001). When asked to considera cultural immersion experience that would prompt(in their words ‘‘force’’) them to use publictransportation, shop, eat, or worship in a neigh-bourhood where they might be confronted with thenormativity of their world as they encounter thedifference of a parallel world, one student re-sponded, ‘‘Why would I want to go to a place thatI feel uneasy when there are plenty of places to goand feel comfortable?’’ The thought never occurs tothem that perhaps their classmates or the studentsthat they will teach who are minorities may spendmuch of their life in places where they do not feelwelcome or comfortable. Their peers who arestudents of colour spend their days at the Universitysurrounded by a faculty that is overwhelminglywhite and a majority of classmates who are white,but this does not occur to them.

Many of my students have lived their life in whiteneighbourhoods, have gone to school with otherwhite children, and are in teacher educationprograms and field placements where the teachersare not just a majority, but are predominantlywhite. There is no impetus to notice this sameness,nor is there the experience or consciousness to nameit. Further, when they do notice it, they tend toequate race with European ethnicity, thereby

ARTICLE IN PRESS

7I must also note that the development of a ‘‘multicultural

perspective’’ often means to develop an understanding of others,

i.e., nonwhite others. As I will discuss later in this piece, perhaps

this is why I was met with a silent resistance because the students

didn’t get what they bargained for. What they desire is a checklist

that will tell them what to do when they encounter these ‘‘Other’’

children. From a group conversation with the teachers in my

initial study:

Marcy I really liked that lesson on learning styles, in fact I

looked at it for another class I’m taking this summer,

but it really didn’t tell you how to reach, you know, the

multicultural education student. It didn’t fulfill that

requirement for me. But I really liked the course, and I

liked how they taught y and I thought it was real

motivating and I especially liked the one speaker, the

principal that came in.

Tom But as far as the title of his talk, ‘‘Motivating Black

Males,’’ he did not do that.

Marcia Nothing beyond what we don’t already know, I mean,

invest yourself in a child, but I do that for any child.

Marcy yes, (indicating agreement).

Carolyn I guess I thought, we probably paid a lot of money for

him to come up from Florida. I asked Joann because I

was thinking what you did (referring to Tom’s

comment), OK, I looked through the whole syllabus and

everything, when are we going to get to the point in this

class where we are going to get some tools, something to

go on, I mean, are we just going to keep going over this

every single week, about, you know, the inequalities and

so forth?

L.A. Mazzei / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1125–11361128

explaining away the existence of racial barriers tosocial mobility (Sleeter, 2004). Besides, if studentsbegin to notice racial difference rather than denyingthe salience of race, it would have a palpable effect.As another student who is beginning to noticewrites, ‘‘I believe there is definitely a fog of illusionover the American people and agree that if we liftedthe fog, perhaps the white peopleywould feelliberated from the lies that we have created to feelcomfortable with ourselves against a background ofshadows.’’

This lack of cognition regarding one’s racialidentity/position on the part of many white studentsand the attending lack of conversant experienceregarding race is of particular significance when amajority of teachers in US public schools today arewhite and an increasing majority of their studentsare not. The Results of the 2003–2004 Schools andStaffing Survey reported that 83.1% of teachers inUS public schools were white, non-Hispanic, 7.9%were black, non-Hispanic, 6.2% were Hispanic,1.3% Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.5% Native, non-Hispanic, and 0.7% multi-race, non-Hispanic. (Na-tional Center for Education Statistics, 2000, 2002).Compared to this, the enrolment of students in USpublic schools was 60.3% white, non-Hispanic,16.8% black, non-Hispanic, 17.7% Hispanic,3.9% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1.3% Native,non-Hispanic. Data for the 2006–2007 academicyear in the school district where my work waslocated and where many of these students will eithercomplete their student teaching or be hired as a newteachers indicated that 63% of the students wereBlack, 30% were white, 2% were Asian, and 4%were Hispanic (CPS, 2007).

A required course for students at my universitypreparing to teach in grades P-86 is entitled‘‘Diversity and the Learner.’’ The stated aim ofthe course is to ‘‘enable students to acquire knowl-edge, skills, attitudes and values germane to anunderstanding of human growth and developmentwith an emphasis on multicultural, psychological,and sociological factorsyto analyze the culturalframes of reference and begin to develop a ‘multi-

6Students who are enrolled in the early childhood (grades p-4)

and the middle childhood (grades 4–8) are required to take this

course. In the US, the early childhood license would qualify a

teacher to work with students aged 5–10 and the middle

childhood is for ages 10–14. These are approximate ages, but

my attempt is to provide a comparison to the UK system. All of

these students would be encompassed in the primary schools in

the UK.

cultural’ perspective.’’7 In a recent semester, stu-dents from both the early and middle childhoodprograms were enrolled in a section of the course forwhich I was the instructor. Of the 24 studentsenrolled in the class, 23 were white, non-Hispanicand one was black. It is also important to note thatin addition to a lack of diversity in this class inregard to race and ethnicity, there was also a lack ofdiversity in regard to gender (two males in a class of24).8

When these students were asked on the first dayof class to compile a laundry list of self-descriptors,one of the white students included ‘‘Caucasian’’ onher list and another included ‘‘white.’’ The loneblack student included ‘‘black’’ as a descriptor. Thislimited perceptual frame on the part of the whitestudents is consistent with research by Katz and

8While the role of gender in producing silences is not the focus

of this discussion, I would be remiss not to point out that I think

that there are also silence issues due to gender, compounded by

the fact that I am asking them to talk about something that is

uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory. Not only is it uncom-

fortable and unfamiliar, but many were also raised as women that

it is not polite to be confrontational, nor is it polite to say

something/anything that may offend others.

ARTICLE IN PRESSL.A. Mazzei / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1125–1136 1129

Ivey (as cited in Helms, 1993) who observed, ‘‘ask awhite person what he or she is racially and you mayget the answer ‘Italian,’ ‘English,’ ‘Catholic,’ or‘Jewish.’ White people do not see themselves as

White’’ [emphasis in original] (p. 50) unless they aregiven a box to check on a form that requires them toname themselves as white.

Since whiteness as a descriptor for whites oftengoes unnamed, unnoticed, and unspoken, the silenceor absence (that which is not spoken) of this racialidentity continues to provide a framework for theanalysis of the conversations I have with whiteteachers at both the preservice and inservice levels.These conversations are framed in the context of aqualitative exploration of how white teachersengage the discourses of race and culture in theirclassrooms. If white teachers continue to effectivelydeny or fail to see their whiteness as raced then theywill continue to see students of colour as ‘‘Other’’and respond to them from that perception—i.e.,they are raced, I am not.9 This orientationperpetuates a racially inhabited silence that limits,if not negates, an open dialogue regarding race andculture. In such an environment, stereotypes arefurthered rather than confronted, and perceptionsof self and Other are allowed to remain circum-scribed in a protective caul. In short, education as ameans of transformation or change is subverted,and silence as a means of control and protection isaccepted.

As the instructor in a subsequent semester for thesame course, I had a non-traditional student thatwhile more astute than most, and who acknowl-edged her failure to see her own whiteness, still didnot hear the inconsistencies as she talked about herwhiteness and its attendant privileges. Jan wrote thefollowing speaking as the daughter of a careermilitary person and her experiences growing upboth in Germany and the US:

I [also] would never think to identify myself aswhite. In the military, race is not an issue; rank is. Ididn’t even know what race was until we movedback to the United States y I rode on a bus for

9It is important here to distinguish between raced (i.e., if I

recognize myself as raced, then I mark myself as belonging to a

racial group, in this case white, attending to the privileges which

are associated with my marking), and racist (i.e., holding white

supremacist attitudes). I make this distinction because in a

conversation with a teacher in my initial study, when I said raced,

she thought I was also implying racist. While the preservice

teachers may be racist, I attempt to bring forth a focused

examination of themselves as being raced.

112hours a day to attend an all-black school. My

introduction to racism was as a minority whiteperson in a black school.

I think the fact that I never think of myself aswhite and Felice defines herself as African American[a woman that she interviewed for this assignment]speaks volumes about the differences that existbetween our cultures even though I don’t readily seethose differences. The only time my being white wasever an issue is when I was in an environment whereI was the minority and those in the majority treatedme poorly because of it. The rest of my life beingwhite has put me in the majority and has probablygiven me advantages of which I wasn’t evenaware.10

In my analysis of conversations with both pre-and inservice teachers, an important characteristiccontinues to emerge that is instructive about ateacher’s role in the classroom; teacher’s attitudesand perceptions are not always revealed in whatthey say, but rather in what they do not say,consistent with the notion of the hidden curriculumthat ultimately becomes part of what is taught.Because Jan did not experience the saliency of racein her military experience as the daughter of a whiteofficer, and subsequently does not articulate theprivileges that her family may have been afforded asa result, she is silent about the effects of this colour-blind view of the world. This finding suggests that itis critical that students are engaged in teachereducation programs that challenge (or at leastprovide impetus to examine) their received/per-ceived notions of the world and their place in it.Jan acknowledges that she does not mark herself aswhite and that Felice does in fact mark herself asAfrican American, and goes on to say that thisspeaks volumes about their cultural differences, andyet she does not ‘‘readily see the differences.’’ She isonly able to see/hear/know the differences when sheis the one who is being ‘‘Othered’’ as described inthe experience of attending a mostly black school.What is being said in her inability to recognize andname how we all carry racial markers with us, evenif as whites they go unnamed?

Even though Jan acknowledges that she hasprobably been the beneficiary of advantages as awhite female, why does she subsequently state,‘‘Neither one of us can understand why race is anissue.’’ What are the issues that are not acknowl-

10Quotes from student assignments and response journals are

used with their permission.

ARTICLE IN PRESS

11In a previously published article (Mazzei, 2004), I extend the

notion that researchers must not only recognize silence in

discourse based research, but must also devise strategies for

recognizing and listening to the silence. In this article I discuss

processes or strategies for hearing these silences, particularly

those present in conversations with white teachers in settings

filled with non-white, Others—students, parents, administrators,

and community leaders.12All of the names of students appearing in this article are

pseudonyms.

L.A. Mazzei / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1125–11361130

edged or stated in such a declaration? Further, shenotes that the fact that she would never identifyherself as white and that Felice identifies herself asAfrican American ‘‘speaks volumes about thedifferences that exist between our cultures,’’although she does not ‘‘readily see the differences,’’and yet, perhaps this contradiction presents itself asevidence of the differences that are not visible to heras a white woman of privilege. These in-visibledifferences become un-spoken silences that speak‘‘volumes’’ about the white outs masking thedifferences. As progressive as she may be in herattitudes towards those from different backgrounds,what are the effects upon students when she‘‘doesn’t see colour,’’ or is silent as to the effectsof colour and treats all students the same, therebydenying the fact that the students in her classroomare shaped and acted on by others because of theircolour, and that their response to her, and theresponse to her by parents is also filtered accordingto colour? According to Zeus Leonardo (2004b),whites support a ‘‘color-blind discourse’’ because itmaintains the normalizing of their whiteness; awhiteness protected by silence.

3. A silence of fear

It is somewhat of a paradox that much ofWestern culture is one that accepts and protectsinhabited silences but does not easily embracepurposeful silence. My students, for example, cringewhen I pause 30 seconds after posing a question andthe only thing to be heard is the incessant buzzing ofthe fluorescent light fixtures. My single friends turnon the television or radio upon entering their homesso as to be comforted by the seeming presence ofsomeone else in the space. Persons, even those whoknow each other, often become uncomfortable inthe confining space and looming silence present inelevators. Individuals no longer sit in quiet con-templation before worship services but often chatwith their neighbours until the very last minute. Itwould seem that we resist recognizing that thesepurposeful silences provide the space for us toexperience ourselves and others differently and toexamine the meaning of that difference.

During the abovementioned course, ‘‘Diversityand the Learner,’’ there arrived a moment when itbecame apparent that it was going to be a long

semester unless I assumed a more proactive role asinstructor. I am a firm believer in wait time and inletting students ‘‘find their voice,’’ however, the only

voice that they were finding was a silent one. I wasnot discounting the important place of silence interms of encouraging thoughtful and reflexiveresponses, but a steady elicitation of silent responsesbegan to emerge. And it became evident to me thatthe students did indeed have something to say, buttheir speech was woven in and through theirsilence.11 Not only was the silence palpable in theclass sessions, it was also evident in the learning logssubmitted by students. I wrote the following in myresearch journal after a class session early in thesemester.

January 30

I am disturbed as I begin to read student’sreflective journals. In this same diversity class, Ihave one black student y I am noticing agrowing silence from the class as I pose questionsthat force them to consider their racial positionand the implications for them as teachers asmany of them will be teaching in the large urbandistrict that that surrounds our campus. Would[the white students] be this silent if Karla,12 thelone black student, was not in the class? Or ifthere were more black students in the class? Or ifthere were not any black students in the class?

As mentioned earlier, ours is an urban campus,but more like an island in the middle of the city.Students travel to and from this ‘‘island’’ on a dailybasis, rarely having any contact with the neighbour-hood residents, frequenting any of the businesses, orknowing any of the history of the community. Oneactivity that we do as a class is to take a ‘‘tour of theneighbourhood’’ and to learn about its history andits problems. For example, the freeway that wethink is wonderful because it allows easy access toand from the campus, but that severed what was themain business district and makes it dangerous forchildren to walk to the local library branch. And ofthe often delayed responses that the residentsreceive to their request for city services as membersof a mostly African American community. Karla

ARTICLE IN PRESSL.A. Mazzei / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1125–1136 1131

wrote in her journal about some of the racistcomments of the other students on the bus last weekwhen we took this tour. The students speak thesecomments because they don’t hear what is beingspoken in the subtext of their comments. Is Karlainvisible to them so that their comments don’tmatter? Are their attitudes masked by the colour-blind approach they take to education? Do they‘‘see’’ her as one of ‘‘them,’’ because of how shetalks and dresses, therefore not noticing her black-ness (or rather her non-whiteness?) Are the personasof the [black] students that they encounter in theirfield placements invisible to them, masked by theirblack faces?’’13

Perhaps a majority of these students had livedwithout being confronted with or acknowledgingthe reality of their whiteness and the implications ofsuch an awareness. In discussing stages of whiteracial identity development Helms (1993) noted, ‘‘ifone is a white person in the United States, it is stillpossible to exist without ever having to acknowl-edge that reality. In fact, it is only when whites comein contact with the idea of blacks (or other visibleracial/ethnic groups) that whiteness becomes apotential issuey However, to the extent that suchintrusions can be avoided y one can choose to beoblivious to race’’ (p. 54). And in the case of thisclass, because Karla is the only black student andbecause she ‘‘fits in,’’ her racial presence is absent,thereby producing an inhabited silence. Her ‘‘‘color-edness’ can be bracketed and ignored’’ (Franken-berg, 1993, p. 147). A further contribution to thesilence can be attributed to Ruth Frankenberg’sdiscussion of colour blindness. It produces not onlypolite silences as previously discussed, but alsocolourless silences. If we are colour-blind, we ignorecolour. People of colour are ‘‘good’’ if we see themas colourless, thereby inducing a silence absent ofcolour (pp. 147–148). Frankenberg purposefullyavoids the label ‘‘color blindness’’ because it

13I recognize that the notion of a cultural bus tour of the

community is problematic given my description of the students as

not having any contact with the community except in their

commute. However, we do invite a community member to be our

guide, and to describe the joys and frustrations of the

neighbourhood for its residents. I am not suggesting that they

know the neighbourhood and its challenges from this brief and

superficial encounter, however, like the process of beginning to

see one’s whiteness and to name the silences, a first step is to

make visible that which has been invisible, in this case, the

residents who are cut off from essential services in part due to the

convenience the university students and faculty enjoy from the

freeway which is the source of much of this severing.

connotes a negative physical disability. She says‘‘it is misleading in that this discursive repertoire isorganized around evading difference or acknowl-edging it selectively rather than literally not ‘seeing’differences of race, culture, and color’’ (pp.272–273).

After 3 weeks of the class assuming a colour-blindstance I could stand the silence no more. Students inthe class were effectively remaining ‘‘silent’’ regard-ing the issue of racial identity and their racialposition in relation to the Other, and were just aseffective in ignoring my questions that they reflectedby an absence in the avoidance. Not to be silencedmyself, I decided to attempt to shatter their silenceof colourless comfort. Armed with a stack of blanknote cards, I marched into class and instructed thestudents to clear their desks of everything except apen or pencil—now I really had silence. Theythought that I was pulling out a pop quiz and youcould have heard a pin drop. Instead of giving theanticipated pop quiz, I asked the students tocomplete the following two sentences using the notecards:

1.

Sometimes I am silent becausey 2. Sometimes I am silent in this class becausey

After giving students several minutes to respond tothese questions I collected the cards, shuffled them,and proceeded to read the responses.

�

I am afraid of what I say may be wrong.Therefore people will make fun of me. � Many of the ideas I may think to share are not

the common answers shared by others. I ammore assured that if I were to speak up, I wouldstand out.

� Sometimes I am shy. Other times I could offend

others. Frequently I am told by family membersand friends that I try to please everyone. I am soconcerned about hurting others at times.

� Somebody’s already stated my observations or

opinions. I’m not quite sure I’m right. [emphasisby student]

� I don’t always say what I am thinking because I

fear that I am incorrect, or my comment isn’tnecessary for the conversation.

� I have different views than many people do and I

don’t like confrontations so I usually keep myopinions to myself.

� I feel that my opinion or thought will be

contested and I may not be confident enough.

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�

I’m not sure my answer is correct and I do notwant to look foolish.

I then read some of their responses to the secondquestion regarding their silence in this class.

�

I don’t want to answer the question incorrectly.It’s tough to be on the spot when you’re withyour peers most of which you don’t really know.It is an uncomfortable feeling. � I don’t think people will appreciate my unique

way of phrasing things.

� I don’t feel like everyone else is as passionate

about the issues we discuss. We are all going tobe teachers. Change starts with us. We need totake our roles seriously and contribute to classdiscussions that will greatly benefit us. I alsodon’t feel like people are sensitive to minorityissues, which puts me off.

� Sometimes I don’t know how to word what I

want to say.

� I would rather listen, because I don’t want to

offend anybody, and because I don’t want to saythe wrong thing.

� What I have to say may cause waves or not be

accepted by other individuals. Also, I am unsureof the ‘‘right’’ answer to questions, so I remainsilent. Also, many times my opinions and viewshave been looked down upon or disregarded inthe past. So it leaves me with little motivation tospeak up in front of others (this has nothappened in your class so don’t be offended).

� I don’t feel some people would understand or

respect my response. Some would have a negativeview. Do not share cultural background. Hearingeveryone’s response to the question you asked onthe first day. A lot of people in the class are close-minded and will not change their opinion.

� These issues have always been kept quiet. I tend

to just sit and take things in, and if I do speak Iam afraid that I will offend someone who may besensitive to the issue.

� I am afraid of possibly offending someone with

my ideas, even if they aren’t really offensive.

While I have not reported all of their responses,they do coalesce around several themes, all of whichseem to be associated with fear: fear of offending,fear of being wrong, fear of appearing stupid, andfear of being marginalized by peers. Due to culturalconditioning and the sensitive, potentially contro-versial, even explosive nature of racial interchange,

these fears are exacerbated when entering thatmilieu of potential embarrassment and conflict withtheir peers. So, these students were choosing not tospeak, abiding by the injunction it was better not tosay anything unless it was ‘‘safe’’ or ‘‘polite.’’ Thisin turn gave them permission to circumvent orignore colour, or the racial implications of colour,and permission to silence themselves in order tosilence their fears.

With this insight available, any charge thatpresents students with the admonition to speakand thus break the silence must also take intoaccount that these students and others must first‘‘unlearn to not speak’’ (Piercy, 1991). When silenceis mandated as a means of ‘‘fitting in,’’ remaininginvisible, protecting the vulnerability to emotional/intellectual exposure, or simply avoiding callingattention to oneself (Ellsworth, 1997), it is impor-tant to realize that this silence may not always beintentional or devious but rather reflect a broadercultural insistence. Again, citing Frankenberg(1993), they, like many white people in the UnitedStates, operate out of a ‘‘color-blind’’ or ‘‘colorevasive’’ mode of thinking about race, one that isdependent upon not seeing or not acknowledgingrace difference, thereby producing a ‘‘polite’’language of race (p. 142), or as stated by Simon inan assignment, ‘‘I believe all people think that this isa very good country to live in and we are all blessedto be here.’’

This cognizance of the possible motivations for‘‘not speaking’’ on the part of these students raisesimportant questions regarding any pedagogicalapproach to shattering the glass of racially inhab-ited silences and creating the environment wherethey can ‘‘unlearn to not speak.’’ For example, haveI in my attempt to be inclusive and not tolerateracist and sexist attitudes in my class, silencedstudents for fear that they will ‘‘say somethingwrong?’’ Do they only reveal themselves inadver-tently in their learning logs and assignments whenthey make statements that due to their whitenessthey do not ascertain as being racist? Do theyhesitate to challenge me or show their bias and/orignorance for fear that they will reveal too muchabout themselves? Do they/we realize how much wereveal in our silence?

Perhaps we underestimate our students. We canbe confident that they sense the potential losspresent in revealing themselves and purposefullyavoid discussions that even remotely feel ‘‘danger-ous’’ to their immediate perceptions of self, world,

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and the need to avoid conflict. In discussing thisunderstanding regarding loss, Rosenberg (1997)wrote ‘‘Students may begin to feel lost in conversa-tions of race and racism, especially when they beginto explore what it means to be white. Many of themcome to see whiteness as an empty cultural space.For some, their identity as white people only takesshape in relation to others’’ (p. 80). If white studentssense (or fear) a loss of identity and privilege inconversations regarding race, racial identity, orracial politics, they are going to resist suchencounters. Our role as educators is to provide themilieu where the masks of racially inhabited silencecan be removed in safety.

4. Let’s not talk about it

A clue to providing such a milieu may be evidentin the routine interactions of students as they createboundaries of acceptance among classmates ofcolour. Like the song by War, ‘‘Why Can’t We BeFriends,’’ students want to work together onprojects or ‘‘hang out’’ without acknowledging skincolour. As sung in one of the verses:

‘‘The color of your skin don’t matter to me

As long as we can live in harmony’’ (War, 2004).

They are not knowingly racist, in fact many areappalled at racist attitudes and actions by othersand sometimes angrily ask why we have to keeptalking about the inequities they believe are nolonger important or relate to them. They think thatby looking past skin colour they are above racistattitudes and actions. ‘‘Is it ever going to stop?’’ wasa question asked by one of my students referring tothe continued emphasis on multicultural education,racial identity, and a corresponding need to discussattitudes regarding gender, race, and class inequi-ties. It is a valid question and one which gives pauseto hope that such a day might come, but it will notarrive as long as teachers, particularly whiteteachers, are unaware of our own socially con-structed attitudes and remain blind to our positionas whites in a racial discourse, or worse fail to seeourselves as ‘‘raced’’ thereby continuing a racialdiscourse that identifies all non-whites as ‘‘Other.’’We must seriously expose and critique any positionthat fosters the view articulated by Frankenberg(1996), ‘‘It is interesting that one can in fact (re)tell awhite life through a racial lens y Seeing blacknesswas not seeing whiteness’’ (p. 5).

When Margaret in another assignment for the‘‘Diversity and the Learner’’ class wrote of herimpressions of a young woman with a Koreanmother but who grew up in the United States, sherevealed her tendency to see life through a whiteracial lens. She made assumptions about the Otherfrom an uncritical position of whiteness. ‘‘I lookedat her as the ‘Korean girl.’ I didn’t realize that shegrew up the same way as I did. I questioned herknowledge of American culture just because of theway her eyes looked and the darkness of her hair.’’

When Andrea wrote ‘‘my life as a young, middleclass, Caucasian American provided advantagesthat were not there for others in minority cultures.These advantages were present in the opportunitiesavailable to me. I was educated in Catholic schools.I had access to jobs that probably were not availableto people of other cultures. It is almost as if mysuccess was jump-started from the beginning,’’ sheacknowledged the advantage that white privilegeand affluence afforded. Yet, she unproblemmati-cally wrote in the same paper, ‘‘Like so many otheryoung black males, John has no father in hiseveryday life.’’ This statement reveals the unstatedassumptions that Andrea makes about blackstudents (i.e., that they do not live with theirfathers), and is thereby silent regarding how suchassumptions impact the ways in which she makesjudgements about the students and their familiesthat she works with.

When Linda wrote ‘‘multicultural students strug-gle most with communicating and making friends,’’she revealed two beliefs that are assumed but rarelystated by many white teachers. One, multiculturaleducation is for those who are other than white andis of most benefit for those students who are non-native English speaking students. Two, thesedesignated multicultural students are behind orlacking in some way. In a review of educa-tional research that focused on the preparation ofteachers for urban schools of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s,Weiner (1993) asserted that in each of the threeperiods, the discussion was framed as ‘‘preparingteachers of deprived, disadvantaged, or at-riskstudents’’ (pp. 72–73). Further she stated that sincethe early 1970s ‘‘educators began to describe urbanschool populations as ‘multicultural,’ a label thatignored the absence of white students in urbanschool systems’’ (p. 73).

Finally, when Jennifer asks ‘‘why [does] it matterto even talk about race? Isn’t it best if we don’tnotice it?’’ we can no longer remain silent or

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uncritical. We must understand that when we‘‘don’t notice’’ or when we ‘‘don’t talk about it’’we, both teacher educators and students, are talkingabout it. When one of the cooperating teachersresponded to a question by Linda that the Asianchildren ‘‘struggle with the language arts but neverthe subject of math,’’ and my student rationalizedthat this is because math is pretty universal and theEnglish language is not, then we are engaging in aracial discourse as experienced through a white lens.This discourse, dependent on a racially inhabitedsilence that perpetuates stereotypes of the Otheralso serves to define ‘‘different’’ through a raciallens which is both culturally determined by anduncritical of its racial position.

My journal entry provides further evidence ofthis uncritical lens.

May 5

As I read student resumes detailing their UpwardBound14 experience, many of them describe it asa situation working with ‘‘at-risk’’ students. Isthis language they have picked up from me andthe assistant director for the program? Or do theymake this association because the kids are black,and for the most part attend urban schools?Some do need proficiency test support, andothers may be struggling, but why the broadlabel for all?

Reading Ladson-Billings (2001), she confirmedthat this is not just the language of my students butof educators in general. ‘‘So prevalent is thelanguage of at-risk-ness that it is not unusual forurban teachers to define their entire class as at-risk’’(p. 15). What I find particularly troubling, however,is that even those who are not yet teachers haveappropriated this language. Citing Haberman,Ladson-Billings elaborated further when she asked,

14In support of providing educational opportunities for all

Americans, Congress in 1965 under Title IV of the Higher

Education Act established a series of programs referred to as the

TRIO Programs for the purpose of helping low-income students

enter college and graduate (Council for Opportunity in Educa-

tion, 2004). As mandated by congress, two-thirds of the students

served must come from low-income families or be first-generation

college students. Upward Bound, one of the TRIO programs, is

specifically designed to help young people prepare for higher

education. Nationally, the demographics for students in Upward

Bound programs according to race are black or African

American 44%, white 25%, Hispanic or Latino 19%, Asian

5%, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 2%, American

Indian or Alaska Native 2%, Other 2% (National TRIO

Clearinghouse, 2004).

‘‘How is it possible for schools and teachers todefine a majority of their clients as people whoshouldn’t be there, or people they are unable tohelp?’’ (p. 15). What does Cassidy mean when shedescribes a field placement experience at an elemen-tary school in the large urban district as her ‘‘firstexperience in this type of school setting [emphasismine].’’ What are the differences, the at-risk-nessthat are spoken between the words that Cassidyarticulates? When Cassidy and the other studentsspeak between words and make assumptions abouttheir entire class using the language of at-risk-ness,they are talking about race, even if they do notnotice it. They are silently voicing a normingpresence of whiteness that they risk losing if thesilences of race and of whiteness are noticed andarticulated.

5. A resistance to loss

It is my insistence, and I believe that chronicledby others in education (see for e.g. Cochran-Smith,2000; Valli, 1995; Villegas & Lucas, 2002), thatchange in the arena of racial discourse comes byencouraging our students to brush up against theirown whiteness. For this to happen we must attemptto develop pedagogical strategies that encourage thebreaking of silences, both our own and those of ourstudents. But it is not as simple as distributing notecards and assuming that a recognition of the silenceson our part as teacher educators will lead to abreaking of the silence on the part of our students.As described in the previous section, there is thepotential for much loss on the part of our students,and to deny this loss is to fail to develop a pedagogythat not only recognizes and confronts the silences,but also accepts and acknowledges the fearsassociated with such a loss.

Students may resist breaking the silence, for to doso means they risk a loss of privilege, identity andcomfort. As educators, we can provide experiencesin our classrooms that are potentially transforma-tive, but to do so, we must admit the potential forloss that our students recognize and resist as wechallenge them to engage the silences. The loss ofcomfort, for example, when they are ‘‘forced’’ to gointo settings where they are not the majority, be itaccording to race, gender, sexual orientation, orsocial class. The loss of privilege when they begin toacknowledge the norming presence of whiteness bywhich they are judged, and subsequently advan-taged, but which serves to disadvantage their

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students because the students cannot wear the samemask. A loss of identity when an undoing of whiteprivilege means that their unspoken, unacknow-ledged, unnoticed position of whiteness is suddenlycalled into question and redefined, reinscribed, orrefuted.

An awareness of loss might mean that werecognize the loss and the fear inhabiting the silenceand develop pedagogical strategies that commu-nicate to our students that we do not discount thefear or the loss, but that we also refuse the silence ontheir part as a strategy of avoidance. As acknowl-edged by Amanda, ‘‘the issue of racism is very muchalive in schools today,’’ and as future teachers theymust accept the potential loss of comfort andprivilege toward a recognition that they are asmuch a part of a racial or multicultural discourse astheir non-white students. The fact that racism ispresent in schools means that they participate,whether knowingly or not, and a claiming of thisparticipation is also a claiming of innocence lost. Inorder that we not ‘‘silence’’ the fears associated withthese losses, our challenge as teacher educators isto engage these losses and the silences that theyinhabit.

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to acknowledge and thank thefollowing for their constructive critique of themanuscript as it was in process: Judy Alston,Alecia Youngblood Jackson, Phillip Prince, CynthiaTyson, and the anonymous reviewers.

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