the miner’s canary: enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy
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The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy. Lani Guinier & Gerald Torres. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The Miner’s Canary:Enlisting race, resisting power,
transforming democracy
Lani Guinier & Gerald Torres
“Race for us is like a miner’s canary… the canary’s distress signaled that it was time
to get out of the mine….Those who are marginalized are like the miner’s canary: their distress is the first sign of a danger that threatens us all…”
(p.11)
Rethinking Conventions of Zero-Sum Power
The three dimensions of power
1. Direct force or competition. Winner takes-all
2. Indirect manipulation of the rules to shape the outcome
3. Mobilization of biases or tacit understandings that operate to exclude or include individuals/groups in the collective decision-making or conflict.
A Critique of Power-Over Strategies
• Problems with the Individual-Access Model: First-Dimension Rules
• Problems with Outsider/Insider Dynamics: Second-Dimension Rules
• Loss of an Outsider Role: Third-Dimension Problems
• What are the authors trying to argue?
• How do the authors try to explain the argument?
• Do the authors assume the “white, middle-class woman” norm?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the argument?
• How can we apply the authors logic and/or findings towards a diversity training manual?
Enlisting Race to Resist Hierarchy
The Affirming Power of Struggle
• A reconceptualization of the meta-narratives of power over
• A commitment to sharing power in ways that are generative, that build from familiar settings, and that emphasize human agency within an organized community, and…
• A willingness to engage with internally embedded hierarchies of race and class privilege
Power-With
Laboratories of Democracy
Challenging Embedded Hierarchies
The Relationship between Process and Outcome
Gender and Power-With
• What are the authors trying to argue?
• How do the authors try to explain the argument?
• Do the authors assume the “white, middle-class woman” norm?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the argument?
• How can we apply the authors logic and/or findings towards a diversity training manual?