Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes

Part A: Talking About Race

20 minutes

Part B: Discussing Race With Eddie McGuire

20 minutes

Part C: Audience Responses To White Privilege Being Challenged

10 minutes

Reflection

Note: It is important that students have participated in The Final Quarter - What Is Privilege? - English - Year 10 before completing this lesson, as it provides substantial background to the concept of 'white privilege' and privilege more generally.

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will...

deconstruct how language reflects attitudes and beliefs
consider the differing communicative approaches when dealing with a contentious issue
consider opportunities for challenging privilege at the individual/personal level.

Students can...

identify how language reflects attitudes
synthesise information from differing sources
identify and evaluate differing approaches to an issue
reflect on areas for agreement and disagreement.

Part A: Talking about race

Step 1

Distribute the Student Worksheet to each students and instruct them to begin completing the table below while watching a short clip. Let them know they’ll be watching it twice, in case they miss anything the first time.

Play this video:

A Conversation with White People on Race (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXow7olFyIM)

Challenges identified by speakers	Feelings identified by speakers	Opinions identified by speakers

Step 2

Replay the clip and pause after each speaker’s comments to allow students to take notes effectively.

Step 3

Ask students:

“What were the most commonly felt/shared challenges and feelings?”

Discuss as a class and ask students to reflect on why those challenges and/or feelings might be commonly felt.

Step 4

Tell students that this clip, and the next, were created by American people. Explain that this is because Australian resources, where white people talk openly about race, are difficult to find. This is in direct contrast to America where these resources are far more commonly created. Ask students to consider what this tells us about Australia’s current level of comfort with talking about race? After watching the clips, you might like to continue the conversation by as if they think white Australians would make different comments to the ones in the American clips?

Step 5

Show students this video of Robin DiAngelo speaking about racism:

Why “I’m not racist” is only half the story (https://vimeo.com/298414261)

Ask students to write down connections they notice between DiAngelo’s comments and the ideas expressed in the earlier clip. Possible answers provided in italics:

DiAngelo’s comments	Connection or contrast to the prior clip
"… you're suggestion that anything I've said or done is racist… I'm gonna hear that as you just said I was a bad person." "As a result of being raised as a white person in this society, I have a racist worldview… because it serves me really well."	"In this society, the perception of a racist is a guy in a robe." "Maybe I am racist… I certainly don't like to think that." These quotes match what DiAngelo says and racism.

Part B: Discussing Race With Eddie McGuire

Step 1

Show students this clip from The Final Quarter:

Eddie’s King Kong Comment (https://vimeo.com/353514210/8bee5467c9)

Step 2

Ask students to make predictions about the possible audience responses to Eddie McGuire’s comments.

Step 3

Show students this second clip and ask them to note each of varying reactions and perspectives in the table on the Student Worksheet. You can pause after each speaker to allow them to complete the second column in the table below.

Reaction to Eddie's comment (https://vimeo.com/353513965/06769ca9a2)

Perspectives shown	Reactions /perspectives	Do their reactions/ perspectives challenge white privilege? If so, how?	Does McGuire respond to this reaction /stance? If so, how?
Andrew Demetriou
Richard Colless
Adam Goodes
Mark Robinson
Harry O’Brien

Step 4

Invite students to work in groups to complete the remaining columns as they discuss the video.

Note: you may need to play the video again.

Step 5

Tell students that Robin DiAngelo describes a concept called ‘white fragility’. She explains that most white people live their lives insulated (protected) from discussions/experiences of race and racial identities. As a result, they can have limited tolerance and high discomfort in these discussions, which can be seen in highly emotive responses. DiAngelo says “White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors (sic) such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors (sic), in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.” (Source)

Ask students to describe why they think these responses may occur.

Possible answers: Not being used to this kind of discussion, being worried about saying the wrong thing, feeling singled out, feeling frustrated that they do not understand, wanting to reassert the ‘norm’, wanting to help but not knowing how, feeling extremely emotional about the topic, feeling highly confronted.

Tell students that Adam Rodriguez, a person of colour, has explained “it is a privilege to get to feel so sensitively about privilege.” (Source)

Note: Refer to Teacher Notes for further information about ‘white fragility’.

Step 6

Show students this clip from The Final Quarter (stopping at 00:53):

Adam's knee injury after 'King Kong’ comment (https://vimeo.com/348317682/858470cc9d)

Ask students to explain what connections might be made between Eddie McGuire and the concept of white fragility.

Possible answer: Eddie feels extremely confronted, Eddie is highly emotional at having to consider if he has been racist, he feels very upset and wants to reassert he is a good person (he has done good things in the past).

Part C: Audience responses to white privilege being challenged

Step 1

Tell students that they will now be looking at how different audiences respond to discussions (both implicit and explicit) of white privilege.

Step 2

Show students the below quote from Adam Goodes.

“The history of our country is built on …lies and racial policies ...The way I see it is that I can use my position to help educate people to see through the things they were taught growing up.” - Adam Goodes

Step 3

Show students the following clip where Adam Goodes makes this comment. Pause at 01:11 before the reactions to Adam Goodes comments are shown:

Rob Bonnet to Ita Buttrose (https://vimeo.com/348313307/bb9e09d54e)

Step 4

Ask students to predict possible responses to Adam Goodes’ comments. The first column is completed for students. You may wish to jointly deconstruct the first two rows to help students. If students are struggling, there are question prompts below that you can share with them.

Words/phrase or comment	Hidden meaning Where does this place Adam in Australian society?What are Adam’s intentions?	Possible audience responses How would people feel about this comment?What parts of his comments may people agree or disagree with?What might people be critical of?
“Our country”	Possible answer: Adam demonstrates a sense of belonging to the country and includes the audience.	Possible answer: Feel included in the comments.
“Our country is built on lies and racial policies”	Possible answer: Adam is taking an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective rather than coloniser-centric narrative.	Possible answer: Some audiences may agree with this perspective.Some audiences may be offended and see this as too critical of Australia.The words ‘lies’ and ‘racial’ can provoke defensiveness and discomfort.
“I can use my position to help educate people”	Possible answer: Adam has an opportunity to be a spokesperson for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.	Some audiences may think Adam’s position is not to educate people, but to play football.Some audiences may celebrate Adam’s decision to use his celebrity for a positive effect.
“To see through things they were taught growing up”	Possible answer: Adam has learned, through his life experience, that common perceptions about history are incorrect or misinformed.Adam intends to ‘revise’ historical understandings.	Some audiences may be offended or feel that they have a good understanding of our history.Some audiences may think that they would like to know more about the history of our country.

Step 5.

Show students the response to Adam’s comments in this clip from The Final Quarter (starting at 01:11):

Rob Bonnet to Ita Buttrose (https://vimeo.com/348313307/bb9e09d54e)

Discuss if students’ predictions were correct or not.

Step 6

Ask students to write briefly about the connection between the reactions to Adam’s comments and the concept of white fragility.

Reflection

Divide students into small discussion groups to discuss the below prompts:

What makes discussions about race in Australia difficult?
What enables discussions about race in Australia?
Whose approaches did you find constructive in the clips?
How was Adam Goodes’ discussion of race relations in Australia received? Why do you think it was received in this way?
How did Eddie respond to having his comments called out? Do you think his comments led to a constructive discussion of racial vilification and racism in Australia?

Differentiated Learning

Extension

Ask students to look online for resources about white fragility and privilege in Australia. What can they find? What does it suggest about conversations about race in Australia versus America?

Provisions for Learning Support

Have students work in groups or pairs to complete all tasks.
For Part C, students could consider their own response rather than imagining the response of other people. They could then write down the responses they hear others share.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

• What did you learn about your teaching today?
• What worked well?
• What didn't work so well?
• What would you share?
• Where to next?
• How are you going to get there?

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

The Final Quarter - Challenging White Privilege

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Success criteria:

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