Racial literacy is a concept developed by sociologist

France Winddance Twine France Winddance Twine is a Black and Native American sociologist, ethnographer, visual artist. and documentary filmmaker. Twine's research has made significant contributions to interdisciplinary research in gender and sexuality studies, racism ...

. She describes it as "a form of racial socialization and

antiracist Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate a ...

training that ... parents of African-descent children practiced in their efforts to defend their children against racism" in her research done in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

with

mixed-race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...

families. She further describes it as "cultural strategies and practices designed and employed by parents to teach children of African and Caribbean heritage (1) detect, document, and name antiblack racist ideologies, semiotics, and practices; (2) provide discursive resources that counter racism; and (3) provide aesthetic and material resources (including art, toys, books, music) that valorize and strengthen their connections to the transatlantic culture of black people in Africa, the Caribbean and the United States". Twine's concept of racial literacy is to be distinguished from the term 'race literacy' as conceptualized by

Lani Guinier Carol Lani Guinier (; April 19, 1950 – January 7, 2022) was an American educator, legal scholar, and civil rights theorist. She was the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured p ...

, a professor of law and critical race scholar at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. The concept of racial literacy as conceptualized by Twine refers to a set of practices designed by parents and others to teach their children how to recognize, respond to and counter forms of everyday racism. The emphasis here is on teaching children as well as adults how to identify routine forms of racism and to develop strategies for countering it and coping with it.

References

* 1999a. "Bearing Blackness in Britain: the meaning of racial difference for white birth mothers of African-descent children," in ''Social Identities: Journal of Race, Nation and Culture'', Vol. 5, no.2 (1999): 185–210. * 1999b. "Transracial Mothering and Antiracism: The Case of White Birth Mothers of 'Black' Children in Britain." ''Feminist Studies'' 25, no. 3 (Fall): 729–46. * 2003. "Racial Literary in Britain: Antiracist Projects, Black Children and White Parents," in ''Contours: A Journal of the African Diaspora'', Vol, 1, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 129–153. * "A White Side of Black Britain: The Concept of Racial Literacy," in ''Ethnic and Racial Studies'', (a special issue on racial hierarchy) vol. 27, no. 6 (November 2004): 1–30. * Guiner, L. (2004). "From racial liberalism to racial literacy: Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-divergence dilemma," ''Journal of American History'', 91(1), 92–118.

External links

Advancing Racial Literacy in Tech
a project under Data & Society’s Fellowship Program {{DEFAULTSORT:Racial Literacy Sociological terminology Politics and race Sociological theories Language and race