Page 145 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

The Invisible Whiteness of Being: The Nature of the Beast 119

First, our schools and curriculum are monocultural in nature and come
primarily from a White Western European perspective that omits, distorts, or
demonizes the history of non - White groups in America. Many multicultural
scholars argue that changing the racial reality of people necessitates incor-
porating the accurate histories and cultures of people of color not only into
the study of Western civilization but also into the materials used for educa-
tion, teaching and learning styles, the attitudes and behaviors of teachers and
administrators, and the school campus culture (Banks, 2004; Sleeter & Bernal,
2004). We have already shown how falsehoods can have major negative con-
sequences for groups of color when they are disguised as educational truths:
when students are taught that Columbus discovered America, the internment
of Japanese Americans was a national security issue (not racism), and the
taking of land from Native Americans was manifest destiny, worldviews are

shaped to reflect White racial superiority and non - White racial inferiority.
Second, the mass media that includes printed materials (newspapers,
magazines, websites, etc.), television, film, and radio often dispense powerful

images of race and racial beliefs to the general public. The continual repetition
of themes and messages about race that involve criminality, poverty, intel-

lectual deficiencies, foreignness, and so on provides an information base by
which we learn about other groups in our society (Cortes, 2004). Interestingly,
the portrayal of people of color in the media may also have devastating con-
sequences for the oppressed as well as the oppressor. In a media study carried
out by Children Now (1998), it was found that children representing all racial
groups were most likely to associate positive qualities with White characters
and negative ones with minority characters. Latino and Asian children were
more likely to be omitted in media portrayals; Whites usually played high sta-

tus roles such as doctors, police officers, and bosses; Blacks played the roles of
criminals or domestic servants. The study concludes that media portrayals
of persons of color showed them as less worthy of respect, less capable, dan-
gerous, and to be feared.
Third, peers and social/organizational groups exert an equally powerful
means of dispensing a racial curriculum to the general populace. The Boy
Scouts of America propagates its attitudes toward gays by denying the exist-
ence of gay scouts and barring prospective gay scout leaders from admission
or leadership positions, and the U.S. military conveys its beliefs about gays
through its policy of “ don ’ t ask, don ’ t tell. ” The exclusion and codifi ed taboo
against “ coming out ” silences those who are oppressed and demeans them as
deviant and socially unacceptable. Messages received from schools, places of

1/19/10 6:10:49 PM
c06.indd 119 1/19/10 6:10:49 PM
c06.indd 119