Blog #6 - Week 9 Whiteness

How does whiteness and white supremacy culture impact the youth and educational spaces that you inhabit? What does it look like? Feel like in your body and movements? How does it sound? Taste? Slip by or call out?

OR

What is a space that you are/have been a part of that is grounded in values and practices outside of whiteness? Describe this space--the explicit and implicit beliefs and values that shape policy, practice, and relational work. What does it look like? Feel like in your body and movements? How does it sound? Taste? 

I have witnessed and been a part of a space grounded outside of whiteness at the University of Rhode Island, Talent Development Program. My time was short, but I saw how the advisors, and mentors worked together to give support to the students. TD was considered their “home" away from home. I say "their" home away from home because I got dismissed from the TD program for not completing the summer requirements with passing grades. I bounced back and I got accepted back under the "regular" URI program which didn't care about minority youth. They allowed me to take 6 course, which I didn't know was a bad thing at 18yrs old, I thought it would help me graduate sooner. Little did I realize that 6 courses meant 6 piles of homework, 6 midterms, and 6 finals. Someone else could have probably handled this but not me. I needed someone behind me, or beside me helping me along to the finish line, but at that time, that was not my story.

The space that I have been consistently a part of that is grounded in values and practices outside of whiteness is my "sister circle". There are seven of us in total. We are there for each other in the good times and the bad. We are not physically together all the time but we have a group text that is ALWAYS going at all times of the day and night. We have different upbringings, believe in different things, but are always there for each other in good times and bad. We can be our true authentic selves in our circle of friendship. This is the space where we can exhale....