They put it in the yearbook, but with a smiling white kid
encoding the weakness of children and native Americans, and the whitewashing of the message
pp. 175-179
in: Sarah Travis, Amelia M. Kraehe, Emily J. Hood, Tyson E. Lewis (eds), Pedagogies in the flesh, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
This chapter examines the encoding of colonizing power asymmetries in a US first grade classroom, in two acts. The perspective of the white children in the classroom is taken as they witness their teacher's behavior toward the lone visibly ethnically different child in the classroom. While the visibly different child sleeps, he is placed in a trash can by the teacher. Upon awakening, he is unable to get out without the teacher's help. Meanwhile, the other children sit frozen, horrified, and silent at the teacher's domination. Later, the other children are invited to sit in the trash can in a playful event that whitewashes the oppressiveness of the teacher's act. The event is photographed for the yearbook, capturing these children's co-option into the colonizing regime.