By Dr. Bedelia Richards

Bio: Bedelia Nicola Richards, PhD is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Richmond. Her scholarship is motivated by the desire to transform higher education institutions into spaces where students and faculty from historically excluded and marginalized groups can thrive. Her prior research has examined how schools influence the identities and academic outcomes of second-generation West Indian youth. Her current research investigates the transition from high school to college among first-generation college students. In a new project, she examines the impact of anti-racist pedagogy and practices in creating inclusive environments within the classroom. Richards’,  work appears in journals such as Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Problems, and Sociology Compass. Dr. Richards is also the founder and CEO of RaceTalk, LLC. In this role, she uses her expertise as a race and education scholar to provide empirically-based solutions to institutions in achieving their racial equity goals.

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I facilitated my “Racetalk as a Skill’ workshop with my Introduction to Sociology students to prepare them for the conversations we would have about race(ism) that semester.

During the workshop, I asked them, “What prevents you from conversing about race and racism in class?”

I often ask this question, and the two most common answers from my White students are:

• Fear of offending people of color, and
• As a White person, they are not “experts” on race and so have nothing to add to these discussions.

The “I am not an expert” rationale comes up so often during these workshops that I have started to address this explicitly over the years.

Here’s what I say:

Let’s say that a student of color enrolls in an 18th-century British literature course. The student of color in the course tells the professor that they cannot contribute to class discussions because the topic is about White people’s lives, and since they are not “experts” on White people’s lives, they have nothing to add to the conversation.

How do you think the professor would respond to this rationale? Would they accept this as an explanation for the student’s lack of participation?

My students’ faces often express a bit of shock, then slow recognition of the point I am trying to make. They agree that it is unlikely that the professor in this example would accept this explanation. When applied in this way, the “lack of expertise” logic makes absolutely no sense to them. Some giggle in discomfort—recognizing simultaneously that they had used this kind of rationale in the past or had never questioned the logic.

Next, I ask: “Then why do you think that White students in my courses should feel justified in staying silent in conversations about race(ism) in class?”

I push my students to interrogate the problematic logic embedded in the assumption that by virtue of being White, they do not have anything to offer in conversations about race and racism.

The reality: My White students are uncomfortable having conversations about race and racism, and “I am not an expert” is one of the many convenient stories they tell themselves to rationalize their silence and absolve themselves of the responsibility of engaging in a difficult and uncomfortable task.

I see this same logic reflected in the behaviors of my academic colleagues and in workplaces outside of academia. For example, the common practice in workplaces throughout the US that Black and Brown colleagues and coworkers must take the lead in service work or event planning related to racial issues rests on the assumption that White folks’ “lack of expertise” automatically disqualifies them from taking on this labor.

While this might be accurate in some circumstances, the impact of this assumption leads to racially minoritized employees doing the majority of uncompensated and underappreciated “race work” in the workplace. And even in situations where these assumptions are accurate, this assumption prevents White colleagues from sharing in the labor of helping to create inclusive communities in the workplace. It also robs White colleagues of the opportunity to build their racial literacy skills.

While the “I am not an expert” rationalization is pervasive among White people, I have also noticed an equally pervasive pattern among White folks: the tendency to invalidate the lived experiences of Black and Brown folks when we use racism to explain disparate treatment.

When I tell a White colleague about a racist experience I’ve had in the classroom, and in response they say:

Are you sure? It looks like it’s really sexism to me… or maybe it’s because you look young… or they don’t like me either… or maybe it’s social class… or maybe it’s your immigrant background.

Anything BUT race…

Not only are they invalidating the experience of folks of color in these conversations, but White folks are also positioning themselves as “experts” on what racism is and isn’t. They are claiming the expertise they said they didn’t have when they were making excuses for staying silent in conversations about race(ism), where they are expected to take responsibility for their actions.

For White folks in positions of power, it is important to recognize the value of lived experiences in racialized bodies and that these experiences do provide workers with marginalized racial identities with a certain “expertise” on what it feels like to experience racism. These lived experiences can certainly be a resource in certain types of jobs and positions.

However, experiential knowledge about what it feels like to experience racism is not an invitation to have this knowledge exploited for organizational purposes. It is also not a substitute for academic and empirically-based knowledge and understanding of race(ism) and how it functions. For folks in leadership positions, it is important to remain vigilant that these assumptions don’t create or reproduce patterns of racialized inequities in the workplace.