Identity: Power, Privilege and Intersectionality

Identity: Power, Privilege and Intersectionality

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?


There are SO many ways whiteness and white supremacy culture impacts youth and educational spaces around me. For the purpose of my reflection here and the one that is on my mind the most; I will focus on the characteristic of "Progress is Bigger/More and Quantity over Quality" (White Supremacy Culture Characteristics [website] (Tema Okun)). Whether working with youth from a community organizational stand point or an OST program, I find myself constantly frustrated with the bigger is better idealism that forces us to focus on quantity rather than the true impact and quality of programs.


"An organization that assumes the goal is to grow - add staff, add projects, or serve more people regardless of how well they can serve them; raise more money, or gain more influence and power for its own sake" really resonates with me in reference to how our youth are affected. Organizations, and often times, funders want to see how the program has grown in the ways mentioned, rather than the impact the program has on the youth who have participated. In an effort to increase serving numbers, programs make sacrifices that would have benefitted the youth already participating for longer term. Additionally, "things that can be counted are more highly valued than things that cannot," shows up a lot for me. In afterschool programs, especially mine that has a pathway for K-12th grade, I find it a constant struggle to invest in the quality of long term youth, who continually participate and graduate out of the program over serving more youth in the target age range 1-5th grade. Stakeholders whose mindset are surrounded by white supremacy culture would rather see our program go from serving 300 youth to 500 youth from one year to the next, rather than see that over 20% of the 300 youth that previously participated joined us again the following year. Continually, they would rather see annual participation in numbers go up rather than place value in the youth that have graduated from the program and continue to come back, coming from being mentees, to mentors, to instructors. Placing higher value on the measurable numbers rather than the value of the relationships and true impact.


While the above challenges are frustrating and often result in sacrifices that do not uphold a high quality program, I appreciate a couple of the antidotes mentioned in "Progress is Bigger/More and Quantity over Quality" (White Supremacy Culture Characteristics [website] (Tema Okun)). First, "honoring the ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquios) philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future...," I would like to learn more about this, but it is also important to me because many of my conversations lately have been around questioning what true sustainability looks like. Second, "distinguish between growth, which is necessary and organic, and the conditional desire for "more"...," as we enter year three of our grant, potentially with less funds than when we started, I believe this is crucial. Do we strive to grow in serving numbers, or do we take a step towards sustainability and quality for our existing youth and their programs?

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