In this three-part video series, John Bracey presents the case for inclusive representation in your Classics classroom. He begins by outlining a basic understanding of what race is – and isn’t – followed by the bias involved in the assigning of racial categories to ancient figures. He ends with a discussion of the impact image choices have on popular culture and on the students sitting in front of us each day in our classrooms.
Part 1: The Basics of Race
“Race is social, not scientific. There is no scientific observation of race. We don’t have evidence that throughout history people identified a thing that we would call race. The concept of race – the theory of it – is that human beings are divided into the main human species – what we would call white people – and then everyone else is part of a subspecies. This is not observable: nobody ever looked at the world and saw it that way.”
“When you’re looking back at ancient sources and looking at your materials, and you’re looking for definitive evidence – you’re not going to find it.”
Part 2: Assigning Racial Categories
“We comfortably and confidently, when we teach our classes, assume that the ancient Greeks were a non-Black people – despite having depictions of them as literally Black.”
“We’re making choices in how we tell our students that these people appeared, what their ethnicity was, what their racial category would have been, who in your class they would have resembled. I’m asking you to look at that again: revisit and reconsider.”
Part 3: The Impact of Imagery
“There was no confusion about the ancient Egyptians until about 200 years ago, when very intentionally they were converted into a non-African group – historically for the purposes of justifying colonization and slavery.”
“You have the power in your classes to undo all of this, so that your students see themselves not as they would like to but as they actually were. What I ask you to do is to be aware of the choices that you make, and understand that you have so much more freedom than you think.”
Before you go…
This piece is part of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Latin Classroom series. Please help us shape the program for years to come by providing your feedback on this link.
If you’d like to learn more about the other content available in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Latin Classroom series, please click on the image below.
