Case Study #1
Restorative Circle and Definitions
(Optional)
DAY
1
What to Expect: Today’s Lesson
Warm Up
Questions
Vocabulary
Exit Ticket
Key definitions, quick write, learning target, check-in
Questions on identity
Putting our key definitions into context
Wrap-up
Warm Up
I can examine and discuss the impact �of racism on my life and the lives of those who are culturally different from me.
SECTION ONE: WARM UP
Learning Target
Inclusive Welcome:
Key Definitions to Consider
Identity
Race
Ethnicity
The qualities, characteristics or beliefs that make a person who they are.
An assumed category of people based on a similar set of physical and biological traits (what you look like)
Belonging to a social group that has common cultural traditions. (learn more)
SECTION ONE: WARM UP
5 Minute �Quick Write
What are your cultural identities?
What Makes Up �Our Identities?
SECTION ONE: WARM UP
Questions
What do you need to feel supported and challenged?
Preparation Question:
Circle Agreements
SECTION TWO: QUESTIONS
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” –James Baldwin
What do you know about racism and systemic racism?
Round One:
Circle Agreements
SECTION TWO: QUESTIONS
“In all my work, what I try to say is that as human beings we are more alike than unalike.” –Maya Angelou
How does your racial identity impact how you are treated in America?
Round Two:
Circle Agreements
SECTION TWO: QUESTIONS
“It’s not our differences that divide us. It’s our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” –Audre Lorde
Vocabulary
Key Definitions to Consider
Antiracist (adj.)
Racist Policy
Racist (adj.)
Believing and acting as if racial groups are equals and actively resisting racism.
Any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. Policy includes: written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people.
Believing and acting as if something is wrong or right, superior or inferior, better or worse about a racial group.
SECTION THREE: VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER
Antiracist (adj.)
EXAMPLE:
“We Shall Not Be Moved!”
These bold words were written across the large banner (right) that unified young black men and women from Buffalo’s Dante Place Housing Project. In 1960, 35 representatives boarded a bus to New York City to protest for their right to affordable integrated housing in front of the NYS Housing Commissioner James Gaynor.
Use your own words to define:
SECTION THREE: VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER
Antiracist (adj.)
EXAMPLE:
Reverend H. Edward Whitaker led the New Hope Baptist Church in Niagara Falls. He was a big supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. Back in 1956, when Black people in Montgomery, Alabama were boycotting the buses because of unfair treatment, Reverend Whitaker invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to come speak at his church in Niagara Falls. Four years later, in 1960, when students in the South were doing sit-ins at lunch counters to protest segregation, Reverend Whitaker organized protests at some stores in Niagara Falls that were connected to those Southern stores. He also held a meeting at his church to show support for the students fighting for their rights.
Use your own words to define:
SECTION THREE: VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER
Antiracist (adj.)
EXAMPLE:
In 1959 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Buffalo to support local leaders in advocating against segregated housing and schools. He shared with the congregation of Faith Baptist Church about the Civil Rights Struggle in Alabama and welcomed their financial and moral support in working for freedom in both Buffalo and the South.
Use your own words to define:
SECTION THREE: VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER
The Buffalo Criterion published this photo of Dr. King at Faith Baptist Church on Humboldt Pkwy on its front page during Dr. King’s visit to Buffalo in December, 1959. (Buffalo Stories archives)
Racist Policy
The underwriting manual for the National Housing Act recommended that across the United States, restrictions be put in place on house deeds (ownership papers) to limit where people could or could not live. These restrictions are called racial covenants.
Harry and Robert Yates carried out this policy by placing racial covenants on homes they built in Orchard Park, NY.
EXAMPLE:
Use your own words to define:
VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER
SECTION TWO: VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER
Racial Covenants in Orchard Park, NY
Harry Yates, right, and his son Robert, in a photo taken June 9, 1937. Yates, an industrialist and financier from Buffalo, was honored in 1951 as Orchard Park's first citizen in part because he created Green Lake and donated Green Lake Park. The Yates chose to put racial covenants (see one example below) on the homes they built in Orchard Park in the 1940s.
Source: Buffalo News, July 2022
Exit Ticket
Racist (adj.)
Use your own words to define:
The Greater Buffalo Board of Realtors enforced the National Real Estate Board’s code of ethics that stated real estate agents could not show Black people homes in white neighborhoods.
EXAMPLE:
SECTION THREE: VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER
Antiracist
Racist
Racist Policy
SECTION FOUR: EXIT TICKET
Aunt Jemima Advertisement
BLM Protesters in Rochester, NY
Monroe County Legislature in 1939/40 voting on racist deed restrictions on the homes sold to developers
Image Bank
Word Bank
Questions
Matching
Match one image from the bank to one of the words in the word bank.
Next, ask yourself the questions in the ‘questions’ column to put today’s lesson into perspective.
How well do you know the terms?
How is my cultural identity impacted by systemic racism?
How are those with different cultural identities from mine impacted by systemic racism?
What does this quote from the President Obama mean to you?
What zone are you in?
SEL: OPTIMISTIC CLOSURE
Zones of Regulation What zone are you in? | |||
Blue Zone | Green Zone | Yellow Zone | Red Zone |
Bored | Happy | Excited | Upset |
Tired | Positive | Worried | Angry |
Sad | Thankful | Nervous | Aggressive |
Depressed | Proud | Confused | Mad |
Shy | Calm | Embarrassed | Terrified |
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” —President Barack Obama