Together and Alone? - Specialized Research AI at MIT

Together and Alone?
The Challenge of Talking about
Racism on Campus

Beverly Daniel Tatum

Higher education institutions are among the few places where people of differ-
ent racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds can engage with each other
in more than just a superficial way, providing students a unique opportunity
to develop the skills needed to function effectively in a diverse, increasingly glob-
al world. Whether students develop this capacity will depend in large part on
whether the institution they attend has provided structures for those critical
learning experiences to take place. But what form should such learning expe-
riences take? This essay argues that positive cross-racial engagement may re-
quire both structured intergroup dialogue and intragroup dialogue opportuni-
ties to support the learning needs of both White students and students of color
in the context of predominantly White institutions.

I n 1954, the year of the landmark Supreme Court case on school segre-

gation Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. population was 90 percent
White.1 Today, the majority of elementary and secondary school chil-
dren are children of color: Black, Latinx, Asian, or American Indian.2 Yet de-
spite the changing demographics of the nation, most children in the United
States attend elementary and secondary schools that do not reflect that diver-
sity. Old patterns of segregation persist, most notably in schools and neigh-
borhoods. More than sixty years after Brown, our public schools are more seg-
regated today than they were in 1980.3 Nationwide, nearly 75 percent of Black
students today attend so-called majority-minority schools, and 38 percent at-
tend schools with student bodies that are 10 percent or less White. Similar-
ly, approximately 80 percent of Latinx youth attend schools where students
of color are in the majority, and more than 40 percent attend schools where
the White population is less than 10 percent of the student body. Both Black
and Latinx students are much more likely than White students to attend a
school where 60 percent or more of their classmates are living in poverty.4

© 2019 by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Published under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license
https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_01761

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Neighborhoods once again determine public school assignment, and to the
extent that neighborhoods are segregated, the schools remain so.

Given this pattern of segregation, it is perhaps no surprise that, accord-
ing to a 2013 American Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Re-
search Institute (PRRI), 75 percent of Whites have entirely White social net-
works, without any minority presence. This degree of social network racial
isolation is significantly higher than among Black Americans (65 percent) or
Hispanic Americans (46 percent). Robert P. Jones, the CEO of PRRI, has point-
ed out that “the chief obstacle to having an intelligent, or even intelligible,
conversation across the racial divide is that on average White Americans . . .
talk mostly to other White people.” The result is that most Whites are not “so-
cially positioned” to understand the experiences of people of color.5 The now
centuries-long persistence of residential and school segregation in the United
States goes a long way toward explaining such social network homogeneity.

And what difference does it make? In his 1968 book Where Do We Go From
Here: Chaos or Community? Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King observes that the so-
cial change needed for a healthy multiracial society would not occur without
meaningful cross-group contact. “A vigorous enforcement of civil rights will
bring an end to segregated public facilities, but it cannot bring an end to fears,
prejudice, pride and irrationality, which are the barriers to a truly integrated
society.” King continues, “Racial understanding is not something that we find
but something that we must create. . . . The ability of [racial groups] to work to-
gether, to understand each other will not be found ready-made; it must be cre-
ated by the fact of contact.” Empathic contact must be created. It is not enough
to be in the same neighborhood, or even in the same room. It is necessary to
create contact that allows for genuine empathy across lines of difference if we
are to reduce the barriers that King describes.

Higher education offers us the possibility of creating such empathic con-
tact. More young people than ever are making the choice to pursue higher ed-
ucation. The increasing diversity of our nation can be seen in higher ed in-
stitutions of all kinds. The incoming class of 2022 is more diverse than ever,
reflecting the changing demographics of the nation. Even a highly selective
institution like Harvard University reported in the fall of 2017 that the enter-
ing class was the most diverse in its history, with students of color for the first
time making up more than 50 percent of the cohort.6 Colleges and universi-
ties are among the few places where people of different racial, cultural, and so-
cioeconomic backgrounds can engage with each other in more than just a su-
perficial way. For many students, regardless of racial background, the college
environment is likely the most diverse learning environment they have expe-
rienced in their lives. In that context, students have a unique opportunity to

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Challenge of Talking about Racism on Campus

engage with people whose life experiences and viewpoints are different than
their own and to develop the leadership capacity needed to function effec-
tively in a diverse, increasingly global world. Learning to engage with others
whose viewpoints are different from one’s own is a citizenship skill funda-
mental to maintaining a healthy democracy.

Whether college students develop this citizenship skill, however, will de-
pend in large part on whether the institution they attend has provided struc-
ture for those critical learning experiences to take place. It is natural for stu-
dents of all backgrounds to gravitate to the comfort of the familiar, seeking
out those places where they experience a deep sense of belonging. Sometimes
that sense of belonging comes from spending time with same-experience
peers (such as those who may be of the same racial background, or share the
same religious beliefs, or speak the same home-language), and there is noth-
ing wrong with that. But the development of these citizenship skills requires
stepping out of one’s comfort zone and engaging with difference. Without en-
couragement, students often avoid doing so.

For example, in the fall of 2016, I visited Franklin and Marshall College,
a small liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that is increasingly
known for its commitment to expanding access for student talent from all ra-
cial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The president had invited me
to join him in a conversation about the importance of dialogue as the kick-off
event for “A Day of Dialogue” on campus. After the college had spent the pre-
vious school year “participating in a national conversation about inclusive-
ness and discrimination, about identity and community, about who we are
and who we hope to become,” the faculty suggested that classes be canceled
for a day to allow time for the community to “center ourselves . . . and listen to
one another, where we set a goal to be able to go forward as a community in
diversity–not have one day of dialogue but catalyze deeper inquiry together as
a part of who we are, our very core.”7

The schedule for the day was full, and students were engaged in facilitat-
ed conversations on various topics. Every session room I saw was full, and stu-
dents were listening to each other intently. At lunchtime, students were ran-
domly assigned to eat lunch together in student spaces that they might not
otherwise enter. I joined a group of students having lunch in one of the fra-
ternity houses. Many of the students had never been in it before, and the
young White man who served as one of the hosts acknowledged that he,
too, had avoided spaces on campus that felt unfamiliar to him. For exam-
ple, he had never entered the Black Cultural Center, though he had been in-
vited to programs there, or attended a Hillel event, though he had several
Jewish friends, or made the time to attend the weekly International Student

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148 (4) Fall 2019Beverly Daniel Tatum

Coffee Hour. Student enthusiasm for the opportunity to enter unfamiliar ter-
ritory and make new connections that day seemed genuine. The unanswered
question was whether they could build on the day’s momentum for sustained
engagement.

H ow might such meaningful engagement be created? I would argue

that positive cross-group engagement can be achieved through the
power of structured dialogue. Institutions that are intentional in
stimulating such intellectual growth by providing formative experiences of
dialogue across lines of difference (ideological as well as sociological) can
help students develop the skills they need to be effective citizens in an increas-
ingly complex world and, perhaps, help each other find common ground.

The University of Michigan has pioneered this strategy for sustained en-
gagement through a residential learning community known as the Michigan
Community Scholars Program (MCSP). Established in 1999, the MCSP has an
inspiring mission statement:

The Michigan Community Scholars Program is a residential learning community
emphasizing deep learning, engaged community, meaningful civic engagement/
community service learning, and intercultural understanding and dialogue. Stu-
dents, faculty, community partners, and staff think critically about issues of com-
munity, seek to model a just, diverse, and democratic community, and wish to
make a difference throughout their lives as participants and leaders involved in
local, national, and global communities.8

The learning community is made up of 120 first-year students and their
resident advisers, as well as ten to fifteen faculty members linked to the pro-
gram. An intentionally diverse community, the MCSP interrupts the experi-
ence of segregated residential communities from which the students typical-
ly come. The MCSP uniquely brings together service-learning, diversity, and
dialogue in a powerful way. Unlike the typical residence hall experience in
which students from different backgrounds might pass each other in the hall-
way without really engaging one another, at the core of the MCSP experience
is the opportunity, indeed the requirement, for intergroup dialogue. As part
of the residential experience, the students take a seminar together and partic-
ipate in various structured dialogues in the residence hall.

While visiting the University of Michigan in the fall of 2016, just a month
before the U.S. presidential election, I facilitated a focus group of MCSP stu-
dents and heard all speak eloquently about how much they had gained from
the program. They also shared how different their experiences were from
their classmates’ who were not participating in such a program. In the midst

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Challenge of Talking about Racism on Campus

of a campaign season characterized by rancorous debate and divisive rheto-
ric, these students were deeply engaged with each other, across lines of differ-
ence, and were learning how to talk with one another about hard topics rather
than talking past one another or avoiding interaction altogether.

The value of these cross-group connections was made more salient by rac-
ist acts that took place on campus during that semester. White supremacist
posters with explicitly anti-Black content were posted around the Michigan
campus, creating a hostile environment for Black students who felt under at-
tack. One young African-American woman, still in her first year, explained,
“It’s hard to focus [on your schoolwork] when there’s so much hateful stuff.
. . . It’s hard to know who to trust. . . . It takes energy to reach out to Whites
without knowing if they are ‘safe.’ MCSP helps with that.” A White woman
in her cohort was quick to second that sentiment, even though as a White stu-
dent she was not the target of hateful rhetoric. She added, “MCSP is the only
place where I’ve constantly felt supported, listened to, and understood.”

In a qualitative study of the impact of the MCSP on students’ growth rel-
ative to social justice outcomes, Rebecca Christensen, Michigan’s director of
engaged learning, found that nineteen out of twenty-two participants exhib-
ited greater cognitive, affective, and behavioral empathy toward others, and
were actively engaged in educating others and “speaking out” against injus-
tice. They had heightened motivation to “create small-scale change in their
everyday lives” and to “incorporate social justice into their future careers.”
Of the various curricular, cocurricular, and informal MCSP-affiliated activi-
ties that facilitated their growth, students identified the dialogues both in and
outside of the classroom as the most influential.9

Though only a small number of students (relative to the thousands who
attend the University of Michigan) have the opportunity to participate in the
residential MCSP, it serves as an excellent model that could be expanded at
Michigan and certainly replicated on other campuses. Alternatively, Michi-
gan students also have the option to register for one of the dialogue courses of-
fered by the Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR). The first program of its
kind in the nation, founded in 1988, the IGR precedes the MCSP by a decade.
Described as a social justice education program, the IGR blends theory and ex-
periential learning to facilitate students’ learning about social group identity,
social inequality, and intergroup relations. It is intentional in its effort to pre-
pare students to live and work in a diverse world and educate them in making
choices that advance equity, justice, and peace.10

What exactly are the dialogues? Defined by Ximena Zúñiga, one of the
original architects of the Michigan IGR program, and her colleagues, an in-
tergroup dialogue is a facilitated, face-to-face encounter that seeks to foster

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148 (4) Fall 2019Beverly Daniel Tatum

meaningful engagement between members of two or more social identity
groups that have a history of conflict (for example, Whites and people of color
or Arabs and Jews).11 The identity groups (defined by race, ethnicity, religion,
socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation, ability status, or national or-
igin) are balanced in size, with five to seven participants from each group, and
carefully designed to address issues of social group identity, conflict, com-
munity, and social justice. Emphasizing both process and content, the credit-
bearing courses use a four-stage model that provides a developmental se-
quence for the dialogue: 1) creating a shared meaning of dialogue; 2) identi-
ty, social relations, and conflict; 3) issues of social justice; and 4) alliances and
empowerment. At the heart of the methodology is cultivating the capacity to
listen, a skill that is central to the practice of dialogue.

Does dialogue lead to social action? The research evidence suggests the
answer is yes! Both White students and students of color who participate
in dialogue demonstrate attitudinal and behavioral changes, including: in-
creased self-awareness about issues of power and privilege, greater aware-
ness of the institutionalization of race and racism in the United States, better
cross-racial interactions, less fear of race-related conflict, and greater partic-
ipation in social change actions during and after college.12 A multiuniversity
study of intergroup dialogue programs found that participants increase their
capacity for intergroup empathy and their motivation to connect with people
different from themselves. This is especially significant since longitudinal re-
search shows that these changes endure beyond the time of participation in
the dialogues.13

Increasingly recognized as a high-impact educational practice, dialogue
programs are spreading to other campuses. Zúñiga now teaches at the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts in the social justice education program, where she is
training graduate students who want to become expert in dialogue facilitation
and related research. As at Michigan, UMass offers intergroup dialogue cours-
es. I had the opportunity to sit in on two group dialogue sessions in Novem-
ber 2016, just ten days after the presidential election. It was powerful to hear
students talking about how they had been able to use their dialogic skills out-
side of class to have difficult conversations with peers about the election at a
time when so many of their elders were struggling to have such conversations
themselves.

The ripple effects of the Michigan and UMass models can be seen at Skid-
more College, where sociologist Kristie Ford is now the director of the Skid-
more intergroup relations program, which has adapted the Michigan mod-
el to suit Skidmore’s small campus. In 2012, Skidmore became the first col-
lege or university in the United States to offer a minor in intergroup relations.

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(Even though it is the leader in intergroup dialogue, the University of Michi-
gan did not establish its intergroup relations minor until 2015.) Unlike UMass
or the University of Michigan, Skidmore is a liberal arts college and does not
have a ready supply of graduate students to serve as dialogue facilitators. In-
stead, Skidmore focuses on developing peer facilitators to lead the dialogue
groups. Facilitators are selected based on their academic performance, devel-
opmental maturity, leadership potential, and demonstrated facilitation abil-
ity. They take at least three courses over a three-semester period as prepara-
tion, and they are provided ongoing support and supervision from a facul-
ty member during their peer-facilitation experience. In her book Facilitating
Change through Intergroup Dialogue: Social Justice Advocacy in Practice, Ford doc-
uments the postgraduate effects on those undergraduates who learned to be
facilitators. Their commitment to social justice is evidenced in their career
choices and their continued growth as White allies and as empowered peo-
ple of color.14

The IGR model has recently been adapted for use in high schools. In one
study, trained college students, serving as near-peer facilitators, led eight week-
ly dialogues with students in a racially diverse high school, designed to engage
the younger students in exploring identity, building cross-group relationships,
and learning how to intervene in intergroup conflict. As with the college exam-
ples, the dialogues with younger adolescents were impactful. Students “deep-
ened their ability to think critically about racial issues and listen actively to
others’ opinions,” proving the dialogues to be “an effective intervention mod-
el for promoting civil discourse on race in this hyperpartisan age.”15

W hile it is clear that intergroup dialogue can be an effective tool for

building bridges and perhaps reducing what Dr. King referred to
as the “fears, prejudice, pride and irrationality, which are the bar-
riers to a truly integrated society,” there are those who are understandably
hesitant to participate. Among them are students of color who fear that the
dialogue process will place the heavy burden of educating their White peers
on their shoulders. In his essay on the challenges of being a Black professor
whose scholarship is on race, George Yancy writes not only of his experience
with racism in the academy, but also about the frustration students of color
express about the futility of talking to White people about racism.

Some of my students of color have asked me, “Why talk about race with white
people when at the end of the day everything remains the same–that is, their rac-
ism continues?” “Why teach courses on race and whiteness?” “Do you really
think that such courses will make a difference?”16

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148 (4) Fall 2019Beverly Daniel Tatum

I hear similar questions from students of color on the predominantly White
campuses I regularly visit. They wonder if it is worth the emotional energy re-
quired to try to explain what it is like to be the target of someone’s malice or
the object of someone’s indifference. Is it their obligation, they ask, to educate
fellow students about history that should have already been learned, or expe-
riences with racism that are painful to recall and exhausting to explain? Some
people of color have concluded it is not worth the emotional cost.

Though journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge lives in Great Britain, her 2014 blog
post on why she does not want to engage with most White people in conversa-
tions about race has resonated with many people of color in the United States.
She expanded on her post in a longer article for The Guardian:

On 22 February 2014, I published a post on my blog. I titled it “Why I’m No Longer
Talking to White People about Race.” It read: “I’m no longer engaging with white
people on the topic of race. Not all white people, just the vast majority who refuse
to accept the existence of structural racism and its symptoms. I can no longer en-
gage with the gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a
person of colour articulates their experience. You can see their eyes shut down
and harden. It’s like treacle is poured into their ears, blocking up their ear canals.
It’s like they can no longer hear us.”17

The frustration of feeling unheard again and again can be a significant
source of stress for an already vulnerable population. According to a nation-
al survey conducted in 2018, students of color report higher rates of emotion-
al distress in their freshman year than White students and are more likely
to keep their difficulties to themselves. They are half as likely as their White
peers to seek out counseling, yet they need support.18 That support is often
found through affinity groups and in designated cultural spaces on campus.

Some faculty and administrators question the value of such spaces, some-
times referred to as “safe spaces.” Such places might be more accurately de-
scribed as “refueling spaces,” where students feeling depleted from the on-
going effort to navigate unfamiliar or hostile social environments can relax
and recharge their energy with other students who share and therefore under-
stand their experiences. Alumni of color often acknowledge the importance
of this kind of emotional support for their success in an otherwise alienat-
ing environment. In a recent conversation with a Native woman who grad-
uated from a highly selective university, she acknowledged that she “never
would have made it through without the Native American Cultural Center,”
where she spent much of her free time. In an essay about her undergraduate
experience at the University of Missouri from 1997 to 2001, historian Marcia
Chatelain describes the racial harassment she and other student activists were

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subjected to in the form of threatening letters, strange phone calls, and fright-
ening emails, delivering messages about “who needed to shut up and die.”

Conjuring up those memories makes my stomach churn. . . . Pranks or promises?
You never knew. . . . You sink into a hypervigilance that some read as paranoia. But
the humiliation and fear become a part of you. Every cell of your 19-year old body
holds the anxiety of the moments when you are put in your place because you
dared to come into someone else’s home and thought you could make it yours too.
. . . When critics mock students for wanting safe spaces, they often argue that po-
litical correctness is undermining education and that students today are “too sen-
sitive.” Rarely do I ever hear any curiosity about what students are seeking shelter
from; when my friends and I peered around the corners of our sprawling campus,
dissenting opinions were the least of our worries.19

Twenty years later, with hate crimes on the rise since the 2016 presiden-
tial election of Donald Trump, the fear she describes is part of another gener-
ation’s college experience.20 The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks
hate-motivated incidents, reports that schools, both K–12 and higher ed insti-
tutions, have been the most common venues for hate incidents.21 Add to that
the “you don’t belong here” message conveyed by frequent social media doc-
umentation of White people calling the police to report “suspicious” Black
people doing ordinary, quite lawful things like sitting in Starbucks waiting for
someone or taking a nap in the common room of one’s own residence hall; or
the “stop speaking Spanish” demands directed at Latinx shoppers in a store;
or the casual “Where are you REALLY from?” questions asked of Asian-Ameri-
can citizens, too often viewed as “foreigners” in the country of their birth. It is
easy to understand why students of color will tell you they are “tired” and why
they might want to refuel in the welcoming company of each other.

In her 2018 book Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data, higher ed
scholar Julie Park summarizes research demonstrating that the involvement
of students of color, particularly Black and Latinx students, with ethnic stu-
dent organizations is linked with a deeper sense of campus belonging and
greater cross-racial campus engagement.

Ethnic student organizations play a vital role in not just helping retain students of
color: they also contribute to the broader campus racial climate by promoting in-
terracial interaction, giving students of color space to recharge their batteries and
navigate a diverse and at times racially charged environment.22

Though it may seem counterintuitive that affinity group opportunities
would promote higher rates of overall interracial contact, if we understand
that people are more willing to take risks when they are operating from an

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148 (4) Fall 2019Beverly Daniel Tatum

internal sense of strength, it makes sense that the experience of affirmation
and belonging found in affinity groups could serve as a launching pad for
greater cross-campus engagement and eventual participation in the challeng-
ing work of intergroup dialogue.

As noted earlier, White adults represent the demographic group with the
lowest rates of casual interracial contact and interracial friendship. The same
is true of young White students.23 Consequently, Whites have their own anx-
ieties about engaging in intergroup dialogue. During my years of teaching a
course on the psychology of racism at predominantly White institutions, my
White students often expressed fear that because of their limited knowledge
and experience interacting with people of color, they might ask a naive ques-
tion or make an offensive remark. This student’s comment was typical: “The
fear of speaking is overwhelming. I do not feel, for me, that it is fear of re-
jection from people of my race, but anger and disdain from people of color.”
Another acknowledged, “Fear requires us to be honest with not only others,
but with ourselves. Often this much honesty is difficult for many of us, for it
would permit our insecurities and ignorance to surface. . . . Rather than public-
ly admit our weaknesses, we remain silent.”24

The retreat into silence is just one of several strategies commonly used by
White students when they experience discomfort in conversations about race.
Multicultural education scholar Robin DiAngelo has coined the term “white
fragility” to describe the emotional response to such discomfort: “A state in
which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, trigger-
ing a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of
emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation,
silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”25

Framing White fragility as a lack of stamina in the face of racial discomfort,
DiAngelo explains that it results in part from racial isolation and the deeply
ingrained expectation of racial comfort that comes from the daily experience
of “racial belonging” that White people typically share in a White-dominated
society. She writes, “In virtually every situation or context deemed normal,
neutral or prestigious in society, [White people] belong racially. This belong-
ing is a deep and ever-present feeling. . . . It is rare to experience a sense of not
belonging racially, and these are usually very temporary, easily avoidable sit-
uations.” DiAngelo further enumerates a common set of racial patterns that
are “the foundation of white fragility,” including: a demonstrated prefer-
ence for racial segregation, a lack of understanding about the systemic na-
ture of racism (focusing instead on acts of mean-spirited individuals), seeing
themselves as individuals who are “exempt from the forces of racial socializa-
tion,” a reluctance to acknowledge the significance of history, an inclination

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Challenge of Talking about Racism on Campus

to make assumptions about the universality of their experience, an unwill-
ingness to listen closely to the racial experiences of others, a tendency to dis-
miss what is not understood, a desire to jump over the hard, personal work of
self-examination and get to “solutions,” a need to maintain solidarity with
other Whites (such as by not confronting them when they say or do some-
thing racially offensive), feeling paralyzed by guilt, taking a defensive stance
toward any suggestions that they are connected to racism, and maintaining a
focus on intentions rather than impact.26 White fragility serves to maintain a
sense of equilibrium in the face of racial discomfort.

White equilibrium is a cocoon of racial comfort, centrality, superiority, entitlement,
racial apathy, and obliviousness, all rooted in an identity of being good people free
of racism. Challenging this cocoon throws off our racial balance. Because being ra-
cially off balance is so rare, we have not had to build the capacity to sustain the dis-
comfort. Thus, whites find these challenges unbearable and want them to stop.27

Such framing helps us understand why exposure to stamina-building ac-
tivities like dialogue can be an appropriate intervention. That said, some pre-
work may be needed before White students can be effective dialogue partners.
An Asian-American woman in one of my classes explained,

The process of talking about [racism] is not easy. We people of color can’t always
make it easier for White people to talk about race relations because sometimes
they need to break away from that familiar and safe ground of being neutral or si-
lent. . . . I understand that [some are] trying but sometimes they need to take big-
ger steps and more risks. As an Asian in America, I am always taking risks when I
share my experiences of racism, however the dominant culture expects it of me.
. . . Even though I am embarrassed and sometimes get too emotional about these
issues, I talk about them because I want to be honest about how I feel.28

She is ready to break the silence, but too often her White peers are not.

They need more practice.

S o what are campus leaders to do? I return to the example of the Univer-

sity of Michigan. Not only do they have intergroup dialogues but they
have intragroup dialogues: opportunities for students with shared iden-
tities to have facilitated conversations among themselves; students of color
in dialogue with each other, as well as White students exploring with other
White students why talking about racism is so hard for them and how to be-
come better allies to those who do not experience the same kind of racial be-
longing on campus that they do. In this context, intergroup dialogue is im-
portant, but intragroup dialogue has value, too.

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148 (4) Fall 2019Beverly Daniel Tatum

It is certain that without understanding the context of intragroup dia-
logue, some people see such homogeneous offerings as the institutional sanc-
tioning of segregated gatherings (perhaps even a throwback to our Jim Crow
history), and consequently respond very negatively to the idea. For example,
when the University of Maryland Counseling Center posted signs advertis-
ing a group called “White Awake: A group for White students to talk about
race,” described as a “safe space for White students to explore their experi-
ences, questions, reactions, and feelings,” the social media response was rap-
id and largely negative. One student of color posted, “Why do they need to at-
tend therapy sessions on how to be a decent human being in society? Why do
they need to have these sessions to learn how to coexist?”29 A White National
Review commentator wrote,

It should seem clear to anyone with a brain that the best way to learn about issues
related to other races is to interact with people of other races. Creating a forum to
discuss such issues that intentionally excludes non-white people is doing everyone
a disservice. The best way to learn about any kind of experience is to learn from
someone who has actually gone through it, and this group will have no opportu-
nities for that.30

Implied in this last comment are the assumptions that White students
live outside of the structures of racism, and that students of color should be
their teachers, exactly the kind of assumptions many students of color find so
problematic.

In response to the critiques, the university changed the name of the group
to “Anti-Racism and Ally Building Group,” clarifying its intended purpose. A
statement issued by the counseling center staff explained: “The aim of this
group is to help White students become more culturally competent, so they
can better participate in creating a more inclusive environment at the Univer-
sity of Maryland.”31 Seen through the conceptual lens of White fragility, the
counseling center initiative could be understood as an effort to build White
students’ stamina for racial dialogue and relieve students of color of some of
the burden of educating their White peers.

If we are clear that the purpose of affinity groups for students of color and
ally-building groups for White students is in fact to increase or strengthen the
capacity of students to engage meaningfully with each other, the wisdom of
providing intragroup dialogues as a campus resource is apparent. The long
history of segregated communities in our society has left us with a popula-
tion of students who arrive at our campus with little previous experience of
the kind of empathic contact that Martin Luther King described as necessary
for meaningful social change. They should leave better prepared than they

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Challenge of Talking about Racism on Campus

arrived. Building that capacity requires a multifaceted approach. In the case
of intergroup or intragroup dialogue, it is not an either-or choice, but rather a
both-and strategy.

Some people believe that talking about race only makes race relations in
our society worse. Silencing the conversation, however, is just another way to
maintain the status quo. You cannot solve a problem without talking about it.
Learning how to have this dialogue is a necessary part of moving forward as
a healthy society. It is of particular importance that White people who want
to see social change learn how to have the conversation, not just with peo-
ple of color, but with their White peers as well. As social justice educator Lee
Anne Bell has written, “Refusing to talk about powerful social realities does
not make them go away but rather allows racial illiteracy, confusion and mis-
information to persist unchallenged.”32

Rather than avoiding hard conversations, through dialogue together and
sometimes in same-race groups alone, students can help each other see the
past more clearly and understand and communicate with others more fully
in the present. With some help, they can find ways to work together in coali-
tion for the betterment of our communities tomorrow and for the health of
our democracy.

about the author

Beverly Daniel Tatum is President Emerita of Spelman College. She is the
former Acting President of Mount Holyoke College, where she also served as
Professor of Psychology and Education and later as Chair of the Department
and Dean of the College. She is the author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting To-
gether in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race (rev. ed., 2017), Can We
Talk about Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation (2007), and
Assimilation Blues: Black Families in a White Community (1987).

endnotes

1 Steve Phillips, Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New

American Majority (New York: The New Press, 2016).

2 Marta Tienda, “Diversity as a Strategic Advantage: A Sociodemographic Perspec-
tive,” in Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous So-
ciety, ed. Earl Lewis and Nancy Cantor (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
2016), 204.

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3 Carl Kaestle, “Federalism and Inequality in Education: What Can History Tell Us?”
in The Dynamics of Opportunity in America: Evidence and Perspectives, ed. Irwin Kirsch
and Henry Braun (Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 2016), 35–96.
4 Thomas J. Sugrue, “Less Separate, Still Unequal: Diversity and Equality in ‘Post-
Civil Rights’ America,” in Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy
and a Prosperous Society, ed. Lewis and Cantor, 39–70.

5 Robert P. Jones, “Self Segregation: Why It’s So Hard for Whites to Understand
Ferguson,” The Atlantic, August 21, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/
archive/2014/08/self-segregation-why-its-hard-for-Whites-to-understand-ferguson
/378928/.

6 Deidre Fernandes, “The Majority of Harvard’s Incoming Class Is Nonwhite,” The

Boston Globe, August 3, 2017.

7 Franklin and Marshall College, “Day of Dialogue Welcome Ceremony,” YouTube,
uploaded October 6, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-azgbWIWFjk.
8 Michigan Community Scholars Program, University of Michigan, “Mission, History
& Goals,” https://lsa.umich.edu/mcsp/about-us/mission-history-goals-highlights
.html.

9 Rebecca Dora Christensen, “‘Making a Difference’: Residential Learning Commu-
nity Students’ Trajectories toward Promoting Social Justice” (Ph.D. diss., Univer-
sity of Michigan, 2016).

10 For more information, see Program on Intergroup Relations, University of Michi-
gan, “About the Program on Intergroup Relations,” https://igr.umich.edu/about.
11 Ximena Zúñiga, Biren (Ratnesh) A. Nagda, Mark Chesler, and Adena Cytron-Walker,
Intergroup Dialogue in Higher Education: Meaningful Learning About Social Justice, ASHE
Higher Education Report Series Vol. 32, Num. 4 (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007).
12 Kristie A. Ford, ed., Facilitating Change Through Intergroup Dialogue: Social Justice Advocacy

in Practice (New York: Routledge, 2018).

13 Patricia Gurin, Biren (Ratnesh) A. Nagda, and Ximena Zúñiga, Dialogue Across Dif-
ference: Practice, Theory and Research on Intergroup Dialogue (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 2013), 168–175.

14 Ford, Facilitating Change Through Intergroup Dialogue.
15 Donna Rich Kaplowitz, Jasmine A. Lee, and Sheri L. Seyka, “Looking to Near Peers
to Guide Student Discussions about Race,” Phi Delta Kappan 99 (5) (2018): 51–53.
16 George Yancy, “The Ugly Truth of Being a Black Professor in America,” Chronicle
of Higher Education, April 29, 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Ugly
-Truth-of-Being-a/243234.

17 Reni Eddo-Lodge, “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race,” The
Guardian, May 30, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why
-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race.

18 Annelle B. Primm, “College Students of Color: Confronting the Complexities of
Diversity, Culture, and Mental Health,” Higher Education Today, April 2, 2018,

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https://www.higheredtoday.org/2018/04/02/college-students-color-confronting
-complexities-diversity-culture-mental-health/.

19 Marcia Chatelain, “What Mizzou Taught Me,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Novem-
ber 12, 2015, http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Mizzou-Taught-Me/234180.
20 Christopher Mathias, “Exclusive: New Report Offers Proof of U.S. Hate Crime Rise
in the Trump Era,” HuffPost, September 17, 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/
entry/hate-crime-rise-2016-united-states-trump_us_59becac8e4b086432b07fed8.
21 Southern Poverty Law Center, Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the After-
math of the Election (Montgomery: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2016), https://
www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/com_hate_incidents_report_final.pdf.
22 Julie J. Park, Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

Education Press, 2018), 25–26.

23 Ibid., 3.
24 Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And
Other Conversations About Race, twentieth anniversary ed. (New York: Basic Books,
2017), 332.

25 Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

(Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), 57.

26 Ibid., 51–69.
27 Ibid., 112.
28 Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? 335.
29 Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, “The Kids Are All White,” Inside Higher Ed, September 14, 2018,
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/09/14/university-maryland
-criticized-white-support-group-flier.

30 Katherine Timpf, “College Under Fire for Dumbest Social-Justice Effort Yet,”
National Review, September 18, 2018, https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/
university-of-maryland-white-awake-social-justice/.

31 Bauer-Wolf, “The Kids Are All White.”
32 Lee Anne Bell, “Telling on Racism: Developing a Race-Conscious Agenda,” in The
Myth of Racial Color Blindness, ed. Helen A. Neville, Miguel E. Gallardo, and Derald
Wing Sue (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2016), 2297–
2298 [Kindle locations].

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