“Critical Race Theory offers of discrimination frameworks as ways of understanding and eradicating racism. The focus on "discrimination" as the way to understand racism in the US has meant that racism is considered a question of discriminatory intentions - whether or not somebody intentionally left someone out or did something harmful because of their biased feelings about a person's race. This focus on individual racists with bad ideas hides the reality that racism exists wherever conditions of racialized maldistribution exist.” WayPersonsIdeasFeelingsRealityIndividualLeftUnderstandingRaceFocusConditionsTheoryOffersRacismIntentionCriticalDiscriminationRacistFrameworkBad IdeasBiased Author:Dean Spade
“Over the past decade I have watched many friends go through graduate school and write dissertations. Through that process, I have seen how they are guided by mentors to understand particular norms within their disciplines and to learn about what they can and cannot, should and should not say, and which ideas can go together and which cannot. I never went through this process.” ShouldWritingIdeasSchoolTogetherPastProcessParticularDisciplineDecadesGraduatesMentorNormOver The PastMany FriendsGraduate SchoolDissertation Author:Dean Spade
“I am often talking about the ideas collected in Normal Life in contexts that are not academic, or that are full of people who are not primarily engaging as theorists or theory-readers. Being able to make ideas visual, especially critical ideas about movements that can be difficult to hear because of attachments we have to certain national narratives, or because of ways that we see ourselves, is especially useful.” PeopleWayIdeasAbleCertainDifficultTalkingMovementTheoryReaderNormalCriticalNarrativeVisualsAttachmentAcademicEngagingNormal LifeTheorists Author:Dean Spade
“In recent years I have become more interested in making the critical ideas that I love teaching and talking about available in more forms, because many people prefer to engage with ideas in films, infographics, comics and other forms that are not traditional books or articles.” PeopleYearsBookIdeasFilmFormTalkingTeachingAvailableCriticalTraditionalArticlesLove Teaching Author:Dean Spade
“Making my work more visual is something I am increasingly excited about. I am hopeful that it will broaden access to some of the ideas being engaged in activist and scholarly communities of which I am part.” IdeasCommunityExcitedAccessEngagedVisualsHopefulActivistScholarly Author:Dean Spade
“It feels like every person is using their whole brain and heart to figure out these nearly impossible dilemmas about how we do our work, with our principles, in the current conditions. And it feels like the thing we know to be true about working collectively - that we have better ideas together than we do individually.” KnowsFeelsHeartPersonsIdeasWholeTogetherBrainPrinciplesImpossibleConditionsFiguresCurrentsBeing TrueDilemmaHeart And Brain Author:Dean Spade
