Malini Johar Schueller unpacks critical race reading and the role of discomfort in the classroom on episode 625 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Racism is a permanent structural feature of American society, and law alone, as now we have it, cannot deal with racism because racism is also part of law.

Critical race reading takes off from that, and it asks, is there a way of reading… that can awaken us to questions of racial privilege and hierarchy, but without us imagining that we have taken over somebody’s place?

Critical empathy, where you feel for others and you feel the injustice of others, but you also feel differently, you know, differently.

Some level of discomfort is fine for learning, because if learning doesn’t produce any kind of discomfort, you haven’t moved outside your zone of what you already know.