Speaking Up Against Racism: Workshop & Fundraiser June 21, 2025

Join us for a workshop/fundraiser focused on anti-racism advocacy. Please register by filling out this link. Details below:

We will watch a clip from the film “Hidden Figures” as we open our day together. 

In preparation for the workshop, please read the following essay:

When Emotional Restraint Weakens Community

About twelve years ago, during my final days teaching in New York City, the phrase "teachable moment" became popular and was encouraged as a response to any situation that sparked curiosity or interest—particularly when the engagement showed signs of potential conflict. 

I understand that this phrase refers to unplanned opportunities for teaching and learning, rooted in a philosophy of creating inquiry-based cultures rather than cultures that rush toward judgment or unfounded conclusions.

While I rarely encounter this expression outside educational contexts, since moving to Ithaca—a community that prides itself on non-judgmental attitudes—I've observed how this approach of objective, careful inquiry has largely replaced emotional expression, especially emotions conveying anger, impatience, displeasure, frustration, or dissent. Most discouraged, is any reaction that might lead to criticism, constructive or otherwise.

The result, as I see it, is communities conditioned to suppress the natural spectrum of human emotions—emotions that have helped us survive throughout human history and that serve important and relevant purposes when expressed thoughtfully.

Those who conform to this model tend to become anxious and withdrawn,  restricted to an unnatural communication technique when facing conflict, or explode from the pressure of repressing their feelings when the method fails.

It's important to recognize that conflict resolution methods need not be uniform across all individuals. Our goals can vary based on specific circumstances and people, allowing for diverse approaches to communication, conflict, and resolution.

This “teachable moment” conditioning is usually a method contrary to those facing daily racism.  It is also an idea crafted within White academic clusters and is most likely more useful within controlled environments like educational institutions; those environments have little to do with uncontrolled environments, like “Living While Black,” exposed to the world, or to social structures fraught with the emotionally and psychologically exhausting effect that racism can have on an individual of color or a community of color. 

Black people face racism daily, relentlessly. When White friends or family make racist assumptions or use racist terminology, a "learn and teach" method might be feasible. Being deliberately berated for being Black is not the same and the full spectrum of how to respond needs to be a discussion within predominantly Black circles.

The suggestion made to people of color to use their experience of being racially insulted or assaulted as “teachable moments" oversimplifies what people of color undergo.  The expression, although accredited to Robert Havighurst, a 1952 physicist, has an origin that is spotty, attributed to one person or another between 1817 and 1952, when Black people (people of color) were completely negatively viewed, and racism was widely accepted.

In personally questioning Black subjects about this approach to racism, I found many people of color to be dismayed with it because it lacks “understanding” about racism.

Any response to conflict that becomes automatic or inflexible and used in every situation, racist or not, lacks a nuanced examination of circumstances and ignores consideration of the individual personalities and the power of "group thinking" of racists.  It presupposes that passive, less "emotional" approaches will inevitably bring us closer to peaceful resolutions—or at least construct an acceptable facade of peacefulness.

This perspective rests on the flawed assumption that different paths cannot lead to the same destination, dictating that less "confrontational" or passionless approaches are universally more effective.

Additionally, those employing this uniform method don't readily learn to resolve actual conflicts because they have systematically rejected conflict itself.  Whether consciously or subconsciously, the goal is to flee from strong opposition that results in the ignorance of serious race issues and the inability to handle them effectively. Proponents of the "teachable moment" method tend to recoil from assertive individuals and consequently prevent the formation of fully functional alliances within their own families, employment, and society. 

I have witnessed this pattern within families, friendships, and institutions where difficult subjects remain untouched due to fear. 

It is important to know that to an aggressor or someone with deep-seated beliefs, anything remotely corrective is rejected even when one is trying to establish a moment to teach or learn. Even simple inquiries can appear offensive or perceived as attacks. The aggressive racist identity is not a submissive one.

The term "de-escalation" is frequently invoked when explaining the “teachable moment” method, as if strong or serious emotions automatically create emergencies requiring immediate intervention or escape. We're told that "the situation" will escalate or tragically grow uncontrollably and become unmanageable if we are not emotionally objective, as is suggested. We're warned that the confronted person will "stop listening,” which isn't necessarily true. People continue absorbing information, affirming or disaffirming it long after it's presented. Nor is it necessarily true that people will listen if we remain passive.

I contend that this conflict-avoidant approach produces numerous damaging outcomes, particularly when dealing with racist aggressors. 

One consequence is that Black people confronting a racist feel their voices are being drowned out by the dominant voices of White people. 

Here are other consequences:

• We remain passive even when situations demand greater force or conviction.

• We sacrifice the seriousness of identifying and confronting racial injustices to protect our egos and to superficially “keep the peace.”

• We limit our understanding of others' struggles and the importance of how they may need to defend themselves.

• We undermine individual freedom to discern and choose appropriate responses to conflict.

• We become capable of operating only within controlled environments, assuming everyone lives within the same conditions.

• We under-respond to serious matters to avoid conflict entirely.

• As a White majority, we judge those who don't operate within our method as too aggressive, too critical, or too different—or as angry Blacks.

• We naively assume that questioning an offender's behavior never "escalates" their anger.

• We downplay and criticize the anger of those who are the true victims of hate speech.

• It reduces cultural sensitivity and promotes cultural ignorance.  It also perpetuates distrust between the races. 

  
  

“WHITE PEOPLE WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND.”  “WHITE PEOPLE REALLY DON'T CARE.”

I once asked someone whether they believed this non-confrontational method would have worked with the Khmer Rouge, or when a couple of racists were chasing down a Black person, during sexual assaults, when facing discrimination in restaurants, or when seeking housing.

We are brilliant, clever, and socially adaptable beings. When we lock ourselves into one method or formula for dealing with life's inevitable disturbances, we abandon our intelligence—both social and emotional. True strength comes not from avoiding conflict but from engaging with it thoughtfully, using the full range of our emotional and intellectual capacities as needed.

Let's think in ways that strengthen the entirety of who we are, both individually and collectively.