Racial Literacy and Social Media Community Conversation – Casa Grande

Dr. Kathy Nakagawa, Arizona State University, School of Social Transformation

Many parents and educators avoid conversations about race and racism with their children and students, yet young people are regularly exposed to images, stories, videos and statements that reflect racial societal attitudes. This exposure often comes through social media, such as YouTube videos, tweets, Facebook posts and Tumblr blogs. Despite that exposure, many young people are unprepared to discuss race and racism in productive ways, and many parents and educators are unsure how to guide these discussions. So how do we develop a “racial literacy” to have these conversations? Like learning to read and write, racial literacy equips us to talk about race and understand historical and systemic contexts of race and racism, and it helps navigate the parallel dialogue occurring in media. Join us for a community conversation about racism, racial literacy and social media.