Being “Cool” is Not Enough: Interrogations on White-Ethnic Privilege and Student-Teacher Relations

Abstract

In this reflective essay, Critical Race Theory's (CRT) focus on “interrogating” racial representations is used to reveal the ways racial and ethnic privilege shape teaching practices and the relations between White teachers and their non-White students. The essay suggests that the progressive identity of White-ethnic teachers and professors works to obscure the social distances between White educators and their non-White students thereby silencing student subjectivity and reproducing distances based on race and ethnic-class privilege. Borrowing from CRT, the author utilizes a narrative style to highlight the importance of stories in theorizing the way race functions to sustain domination. This essay contributes to the work of White women teachers who interrogate their own privilege, the growing body of literature that integrates CRT with education and to Critical White Studies by exemplifying the way narrative can capture the complex and socially constructed nature of race and ethnicity.