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Rebels, tune in to 'Let's Talk UNLV' with Dr. Tanya Crabb and Dr. Sammie Scales. Your express pass to everything UNLV — campus highlights, programs, and the latest buzz. Join us weekly as we chat with student leaders, administrators, and faculty, diving into the core of what makes us Rebels.
The program brings guests from different areas of UNLV every week to discuss campus highlights, programs and services, research interests that are essential to being a Rebel. Let’s Talk UNLV places its emphasis on connecting with student leaders who represent the voice of students on our campus. Guests also include administrators, faculty and staff responsible for upholding the mission of the university, which is teaching, research and scholarship.
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0:00:00
Welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNRV. You are co-host Keith and Renee. Renee, how was your weekend?
0:00:13
Pretty good. I spent part of the weekend on the strip at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. So I took in some good food, walked on the strip.
0:00:23
Pretty busy now.
0:00:24
It's picking up out there. And then I had some friends actually come down from Chicago so it was good to connect with them. What about you?
0:00:33
It was a lazy weekend. You know I enjoyed this beautiful weather you know over the weekend. My son had a soccer game so you know just was lazy at the soccer field. You know you see more and more activity going on at the parks and you know it's just reassuring to see that we're returning to some sense of normalcy, or at least the new norm. So the weekend was very chill, which I certainly needed, given all that's been going on over the past like 10 months or 12 months, I think now. Well, you know, I'm excited about this segment, Renee. We have with us today Dr. Kendra Gage, who is a professor at UNRV and teaches African-American studies, focusing on the civil rights movement and addressing racism in modern America. Dr. Cage, welcome to the show.
0:01:17
Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to talking to you all about the current climate on campus and what we're doing right now within our department and within African American Studies as a whole.
0:01:29
Well, we'll just jump right into it. Why don't you tell us a little bit about sort of the current state of what's going on in the department?
0:01:35
Well, right now, we're really focused on addressing the pandemic. And we're not just talking about the pandemic of COVID, but also the pandemic of racism within our department. You know, as soon as this pandemic kicked off, we had the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, then we saw the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the list goes on and on, Rashard Brooks. And so we saw an eruption of social justice movement that happened at the same time. And so we have known that it's very important for us to address these issues with our students because they are really impacted by it more than many other students because most of them are students of color, Latino students, African-American students, Asian-American students within our department. And so they've really suffered a lot of those stressors and have been involved on the day-to-day with the Black Lives Matter movement. Many of our students have been a part of the protest here in Las Vegas. Some of them had to go home and so they were involved in the protest in Seattle, in Los Angeles, and New York. And so it was important for us to make sure that we kept those connections with our students and we also had to make sure that we were addressing these everyday issues. For example, this semester I'm teaching a class called Rise and Revolution that really manifested out of this particular moment, where it was important for us to address what was happening today. And that includes many things, not only the Black Lives Matter movement, police brutality, the calls for defunding police, but also issues of environmental racism, educational pushout, some of those health disparities. It connects that with longer historical issues as well so students understood that these are not issues that are new today and also how to combat some of these issues and how to confront not only institutional structures but structures within the university as well. So I think
0:03:29
I read somewhere that you have a particular teaching style and that on your first day of the lecture in your class you tell your students that I'm white, I mean I can't hide behind that. So you address it. Tell
0:03:47
me why do you take that approach with the students that you teach? I think it's really, really important for us to address that. I am a professor who is white and who is teaching African American studies. A lot of professors might shy away from that and say, well you know, I don't really need to address this that we've been able to use as we've made our way through the institution. I've said this before, but, you know, I grew up white, but I grew up very poor, and I didn't have some opportunities. I remember very explicitly in a class that I said I wanted to be a neurosurgeon, and the teacher said, no, no, sweetie, girls become teachers, and I was really offended by that. But on the other hand, my experiences have not been the same as everyone. And it's very important for us to acknowledge that when I went to the school counselor, they said, okay, what college are you going to go to? It was never retracking me into a trade school, even though my grades were, you know, in between, not great at the moment. Or even conversations where you get further along in college about, well, where are you going to go to graduate school? And I believe that those conversations were very different for me as compared to other students. And I remember having very explicit conversations with some of my friends who were minorities who had better grades than I did, but were told that they should go to the community college. And so those experiences are very, very different. And I think we have to be very frank about those experiences. And as soon as we have a lot of those conversations with our students, then they realize, hey, this person really gets where I'm coming from, where she's coming from and acknowledging those differences. And I think it's a really false narrative if we don't acknowledge those differences. I think that's one of the problems with a lot of academic institutions is that we try to hide behind that and say, oh, well, there's an equal playing ground. Everybody has equal access, but we know that's not the case. We can look at educational disparities that are still in place. We can look at the number of students of color who get accepted at the undergrad and then compare that to the graduate school level and how they progress forward. And those numbers are really still staggering and we really
0:05:56
need to fix those particular numbers. So I'm curious, based on the makeup of your class, when you tell the students that you're white and that's something you can't escape and you want to acknowledge that, how do the students respond who share your identity and then how do those students respond to your statement and your openness that do not share your identity?
0:06:17
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, usually when I come into the room and I say, you know, y'all can't see me right now, but I'm not white, but I'm really, really white. And so in general, I'm like the kind of white that's almost blue. And that's how I say it sometimes. It's like, I'm that level of white. So when I say that, I think it takes a little tension out of the classroom. I usually get laughter as a response. They're like, yeah, we can see you. We know you're white. But then students who don't identify as a minority sometimes, I think that they feel freer to say something that they might have been afraid to talk about within the classroom because they don't know sometimes what's okay and what's not okay. We make assumptions that students nowadays have been educated enough, have been around enough diversity that they know better in certain regards. But the fact of the matter is, is that they really don't. And so I think it allows for really open and honest conversations. And when I open up with my own statements, I feel like students then feel free to share their own life experiences and what has shaped both their racial identity, but their identity
0:07:31
and other ways too. So you know, Dr. Gage, I teach leadership seminar with some master's level students in the college education doctoral students. And tonight we meet. I think I'm going to open up and say, I'm Dr. Watson and I'm black, little red bone black. But nevertheless, nevertheless, I'm black. And we'll see how that how that resonates with them. No, but I really appreciate your openness and vulnerability because you put yourself in such a unique space. But it does set the tone, and it does really mean a lot to students of color, I'm sure, that you are setting the tone of, I'm aware of my privilege, I'm aware of my biases, I'm aware of what that may mean, especially on a minority-serving institution where the students outnumber those that are Caucasian. So thank you again for that approach. Keith?
0:08:31
Yes, and one of the things that I wanted to follow up on is what have been maybe some of the most surprising responses to students when you open up that way?
0:08:42
I think some of the most surprising responses is when students share with me, and it's usually at the end of the course, is that they say, well, I really didn't think that I would learn that much from a white professor. And they're very honest about it, because I'm very honest all the way throughout too. But I think that that's some of the most surprising things is that they say, I was kind of reticent, some of them, and say, you know, I wasn't sure that you could really teach my history, my culture. And I said, well, I'm not teaching it from, you know, everybody has a different perception of these things and it's what you take away from it too, but they're really surprised by what they learn in the class. And one of the most unfortunate comments for me is when they say, I wish I had found this class sooner in the process. I would have felt more connected to the university. A lot of times people in my class are juniors and seniors and it's the first time they're taking an African American studies class because they need that upper division elective. And oftentimes it's where they find their connection, they find other students within the classroom too, I believe in a collaborative teaching environment too, where some days I lecture and then other days students lead the discussions, and I find that that works really, really well too, because students open up not only about what they're learning, but about their experiences as well. And oftentimes, it's the first time in a classroom where students have been allowed to have that voice. And I think that's really, really unfortunate. And I think it's something that the university should really look at how we're approaching material and how we're teaching students as well. So a lot of times, they're surprised by what not only they're learning, but by the classroom environment and how comfortable that they feel. And that's our overall goal, really, in African-American students, is for students to find a home and a place where they can learn and feel comfortable.
0:10:38
Can not agree more. So rise in resolute, sorry, rise in revolution or rise in resolution?
0:10:46
Yeah, rise in revolution.
0:10:48
Rise in revolution. Rise in revolution. Class I would definitely take had I been an undergrad.
0:10:55
You may need to take it now.
0:10:57
I still may need to. I still may need to. Right. Yeah, no credit. Right. So what's on the syllabus? I mean, what kind of books are they reading? What kind of articles are they reading? What do the assignments look like? So I'm just curious as to what the outcomes of this course are that you teach.
0:11:17
Yeah, this class was a completely new prep. It's one of those that you wake up in the middle of the night and you say, this is what I need to do. My brain does not shut off like many of ours where we come up with these ideas and I wrote it down. And I said, you know what, we really do need to be looking more at current issues and how they're really embedded in the past because we keep hearing people on the news and other outlets talking about some of these issues and they really don't understand the longer structural institutional racism that's inherent and it's really important for us to break that down. I've had many conversations with people who are like well you know I view everybody as human and so should everybody else and the fact of the matter is that's not how it works within our society. So it was important to break those things down. So we have several different readings. One of them is Marissa Bar-Barron, and her book is called The Color of Money. And that particular book is looking at economic inequalities and particularly within the banking system. And those are certain pathways that then lead to disparities between housing, disparities between credit, and the list goes on and on. So I thought it was really important that we talk about those economic injustices. Another book that we're reading is called The Condemnation of Blackness. A lot of us have read other books about police brutality and about the prison to pipeline movement, but this book went a little bit more into depth about some of those longer historical trajectories. And a lot of students really love it. It's by Khalil Muhammad. And then we're also reading the making of all Black Lives Matter by Barbara Ramsey. And then we're connecting that to current issues. I have a lot of articles because unfortunately, there's not a book right now that covers all of the issues that we're wanting to cover. So for example, the first week we talked about the differences between the capital city coup and the Black Lives Matter protests. And that was a great way to get the class started because you could see the stark differences between how protesters were treated by police in both particular movements. And then to even talk about some of the rhetoric that was given by that Biden who said, you know, essentially that if this was the Black Lives Matter movement protesters, that we would have seen shooting and we would have seen more aggressive policing. Well, on the other hand, we saw president Trump say, well, when there's looting, there'll be shooting. So we could see those stark differences between the two. The next week we followed up with voter suppression. And I also thought that was really important given what has happened in Georgia and the movement that Stacey Abrams has had there, and to talk about other ways that people get disenfranchised that people aren't really aware of. You know, moving the mailboxes being shut down and limiting hours at DMVs so people couldn't get their voter ID, or that fact that early voting doesn't exist everywhere. That was one thing that really surprised students is that they really thought that people had access to early voting everywhere, and that's not the case. And we even talked about ableism and how people with disabilities have difficulty getting to some of these location sites. And then we talked about the people who had previous convictions and how hard it is for those individuals to once again get their voting rights. So it seems like that we're gonna talk about issues of environmental justice. We're talking about the black student movement that happened in the 1970s this week and connecting that with current black student movements. And we're gonna talk about the black arts movement and we're going to connect that with what I'm calling a whole Revitalization of black arts that we've seen in the past couple years with media with poetry with television We're seeing really a resurgence of that. So it's really connecting all of those
0:15:27
Previous movements and then connecting it to the current what I call revolution today. So dr. Gay you talk very passionately about sort of this work and in particular all the topics that are covered in this new course rise and revolution Could you maybe give us a little bit of insight on sort of how you came into this work with you know? Being white female and sort of teaching african-american studies
0:15:53
Yeah, it came from a longer history within my family my father Was a hippie in Los Angeles and was a part of a lot of the initial protests during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Both my father and my aunts were a part of that. And I grew up primarily actually in New York State. And I remember hearing these stories about the Civil Rights Movement in California and in the West and how prominent women were in that process. And then, I remember, it was either sixth or seventh grade, we were talking about the Civil Rights Movement in my history class and not to begrudge Martin Luther King, but everything was about Martin Luther King. And I specifically remember asking, well, what about the other women who were a part of this movement? And the teacher was not able to answer that particular question. And I just knew that there was more to the movement than Martin Luther King. And I knew that the movement was longer too, because I was also fairly young when the Rodney King riots happened in 1992. And I remember just being really struck by the fact that people were really in a state economically where they were at their wits end and you could see that, you can see the desperation and then you could see that when the cops got away with something that seemed so obvious to the rest of the world that they really took that police force to a level that they really didn't need to. It was really shocking to see and I just remember from those two particular movements that I kind of moved forward as an undergrad, and to be honest, I was told as an undergrad not to do civil rights movement and to not focus on African American studies, because I would have a hard time in that particular field. But as many people know me, the more that somebody tells me no, the more that I'm insistent upon doing it. And I really wanted to do something in a field that I felt like we needed white voices too. We need to be a part of the process of change. We need to be a part of that process of learning because it is such an inherent part of our history. And for us to ignore that just seemed ridiculous to me. So it's hard to explain it. It's a few life moments that really shaped why I went into it. I just think it's so important for us as educators to be a part of that particular process.
0:18:31
And you said something that resonated with me is just about sort of what you're exposed to and what you learn when it comes to black history. You know, I can only remember essentially two things. Blacks were slaves and Martin Luther King. That was the extent of black history learning for me all the way through high school. And you mentioned sort of about it's unfortunate that students are given sort of this sugar coated version of history and they're not really told what has really happened. And how does how does that naive teaching promote and breed this lack of awareness with implicit bias?
0:19:14
Oh yeah, that's a great question. I mean, part of it stems from teachers saying, well, students can't quite grasp this. This is too much for them. It's too violent and they can't really understand everything that has really happened. And to me, I always say, well, that's white supremacy in action. There you go, trying to paint the sugar-coated tale where slaves weren't treated that bad. They were eventually freed. We had the passage of the Civil Rights Act. So everybody is on equal footing and we all have an equal path now. And we just know that's not the case at all. Or even to say that the Civil Rights Movement was one movement that happened with the passage of Brown v. Board and ended with the Civil Rights Act. We know that the Civil Rights Movement continues because there still isn't racial equity in the U.S. And it's important for us to look both before the like, when we talk about slavery, it's often, you know, there were field hands and there were househands. And we don't talk about forms of resistance. We don't talk about forms of preservation. We don't talk about leaders in the North. We don't talk about leaders in the South that came from that. And then we, we talk about the end of the Civil War and it was a triumphalist time. But then, you know, what happens is we have the passage of black codes and we see that votes are stripped and we see the lynching of blacks in the thousands. And then, you know, we get to a moment where we say, okay, you know, we have the civil rights movement and we see kids who are being hosed and we see that little girls were bombed in the church and all of these things. I think it's really important for us to talk about those particular moments to fully understand what has happened and where we're at today. There's been so much that has happened from the 1970s until today as well that we're often not recognizing. There's so many students who say, well, I didn't learn about, I'm shocked by this, I've never learned about Malcolm X. That shocks me. Every student should be learning about Malcolm X. Every student should be learning about Roger Williams. Every student should be learning about Daisy Dace. Every student should be learning about Joanne Robinson. There's so many leaders. The movement wasn't just one movement. It wasn't just one leader. It's been multiple movements across time with many different leaders. And I think that's what needs to change within the school system. And once students realize too how rich that history is, they get really excited about it.
0:21:44
And then how do you think that sort of lack of having a comprehensive education on history in terms of black history and Native Americans and all these other marginalized communities, how does that impact our society in being able to accept the teachings that are occurring today as real and not fabricated or exaggerated? And how does that sort of impact the many issues that we're still dealing with today that are still plaguing us?
0:22:15
Yeah, I mean, a few years ago, I taught at another institution that was primarily white students. And every time I taught, I had a little fact checker that would go through everything I taught. He'd come back and say, oh, you were right about that. I'd never heard anything about that. It reminds me, too, of that story that just came out of Utah with the charter school where they gave students the opportunity to opt out of Black History Month activities because they were using or exercising their civil rights and didn't want to do that. And I think it's that kind of ignorance, and I hate to use that word, but it really is ignorance that people think that where we're taking this moment out during Black History Month to talk about these things in a way that continues to marginalize that particular history that really needs to be expanded beyond that. And just to be slightly anecdotal, as I know that in some of the schools I've done some programs throughout the year where we're talking about African-American history and I also do some stuff on women's history as well is that those students feel so connected. And we've seen too in study after study where if students just have one teacher of color or one course covering what they identify with culturally in elementary school, they're more likely to graduate high school. I think that's really, really, really important. And you know states have tried to do this and unfortunately the funding and the resources have really fallen
0:23:51
short on that. And could you talk a little bit about implicit bias? What's the difference or similarity to when people think about racism. Yeah, implicit
0:24:05
bias is different than racism. Implicit bias is more encompassing. So implicit bias is, I always try to state it simply, is it's those stories that we tell each other about who someone else is before we actually know those people. And those implicit biases are unconscious sexuality, it could be religion, it could be classism, it could be based on someone's religion and, you know, it's those things that we, for example, look at a student and say, well, they don't write very well, so they must not be a very good student. They came from this particular high school. That's something that I hear quite a bit here. And the truth of the matter is that that doesn't mean that that student isn't bright. They might be really brilliant when it comes to speaking. They might be really brilliant when it comes to creative projects. And it's something that as educators that we really need to reflect on ourselves and say, okay, am I approaching students in a way or out in society, am I approaching this person in a certain way because of the implicit implicit biases that I have, where racism is just based upon race. And it's these discriminatory practices that are practiced both covertly and overtly to
0:25:23
suppress a minority. What recommendations could you make to fellow faculty and administrators for sort of, you know, if they're to create a safe space for diversity, or if you have a class that someone may think is unrelated to diversity, what are some suggestions or ways that faculty can better embrace diversity?
0:25:44
Yeah, that's a great question and something that we've been really focused on a lot. I was recently nominated to COLA's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. It's a brand new committee where we're focused on how do we retain faculty of color, how do we recruit more students of color, and how do we create an environment, especially because we are one of the most diverse institutions in the nation. And I always simply say that even if you're not teaching a class that's specifically focused on race, that having a diversity statement on your syllabus speaks volumes to the students. Once they see that, they know that you're a professor who is acknowledging these what's going on today and that you're acknowledging that race is a factor within the institution as well. And I think it's really really important right now more than any other time for us to be reaching out to our students in ways that we might not have before because they are so isolated due to both pandemics. So I think just reaching out to our students, even if you don't hear back from them, and it's another thing that I've seen in evals later, it's like, well, it meant a lot to me that she reached out to me every week and was making sure that I was okay. And another thing that I think is important too is to look at what you're assigning in a class as well. Do those assignments reflect a majority culture or are you incorporating minority writers as well? You know, it spans across sciences, across the field. If you're only assigning white male for students to read for their studies, their articles or for lab reports, that that's a problem and that you need to expand those things because students do recognize that as well. So I think those are more adjustments that professors can make that are perhaps in other areas that aren't directly addressing issues of race.
0:27:51
And then we'll ask you one final question. Is there anything that you would like to share that we have not covered during this session that you think is important to share with our listeners? Well, we do
0:28:04
have an event that we are co-sponsoring with a Nevada Humanities Council on March 4th with Isabelle Wilkinson and that's something that they can find on our website because we are requiring people to RSVP even though it is it's a research lab based on ideas of race, indigeneity and freedom. We're calling it the RIF Lab. And we're having an event called a Speak Out that's open for students to submit more creative projects. And that will also be on our website as well. And that's something we're looking to extend Black History Month and say, okay, well, Black History Month is February. It's the shortest month of the year. Let's take over this year and make it about Black History Year.
0:28:58
Well, Dr. Gage, thank you for joining us and sharing and in all the wonderful things that are going on in your classroom. I am particularly fascinated with this Rise and Revolution class and the curriculum that you share. Some of the readings and discussions and articles that you bring into the classroom is really impressive. But I think I'm probably most intrigued by just your approach to just being vulnerable when you start your class, just confessing your that you're white and then also just confessing your subsequent implicit biases. And then also just being able to bring and corral this pandemic of racism and bringing these actions and injustices into the classroom. So it's just very impressive and certainly I think it's something that I wish I had taken when I was an undergraduate student after the American Studies class. So just thank you for joining us and thank you for sharing and thank you for doing this important work. And that's a wrap.
0:29:55
Thank you so much.
0:29:56
Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. For my co-host Keith, I'm Rene. Tune in next week, Wednesday at 12, Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. For my co-host Keith, I'm Rene. Tune in next week, Wednesday at 12, on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. That's a wrap.
Transcribed with Cockatoo