The Miner’s Canary:Enlisting race, resisting power,

transforming democracy

Lani Guinier & Gerald Torres

“Race for us is like a miner’s canary… the canary’s distress signaled that it was time

to get out of the mine….Those who are marginalized are like the miner’s canary: their distress is the first sign of a danger that threatens us all…”

(p.11)

Rethinking Conventions of Zero-Sum Power

The three dimensions of power

1. Direct force or competition. Winner takes-all

2. Indirect manipulation of the rules to shape the outcome

3. Mobilization of biases or tacit understandings that operate to exclude or include individuals/groups in the collective decision-making or conflict.

A Critique of Power-Over Strategies

• Problems with the Individual-Access Model: First-Dimension Rules

• Problems with Outsider/Insider Dynamics: Second-Dimension Rules

• Loss of an Outsider Role: Third-Dimension Problems

• What are the authors trying to argue?

• How do the authors try to explain the argument?

• Do the authors assume the “white, middle-class woman” norm?

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the argument?

• How can we apply the authors logic and/or findings towards a diversity training manual?

Enlisting Race to Resist Hierarchy

The Affirming Power of Struggle

• A reconceptualization of the meta-narratives of power over

• A commitment to sharing power in ways that are generative, that build from familiar settings, and that emphasize human agency within an organized community, and…

• A willingness to engage with internally embedded hierarchies of race and class privilege

Power-With

Laboratories of Democracy

Challenging Embedded Hierarchies

The Relationship between Process and Outcome

Gender and Power-With

• What are the authors trying to argue?

• How do the authors try to explain the argument?

• Do the authors assume the “white, middle-class woman” norm?

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the argument?

• How can we apply the authors logic and/or findings towards a diversity training manual?