Summary Of Tatum's Can We Talk

Tatum’s work, Defining Racism “Can We Talk?”, covered the themes of racism, prejudice, and privilege. She discussed in great detail the effects of racism in America today and how European-American people will always hold White privilege. She discussed an article written by Peggy McIntosh called “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, an article which I was fortunate enough to read and discuss last year. Here she explains how Euro-American individuals hold advantage or privilege in all ways, many of which most people do not even realize. Stephanie Wildman’s piece, Making Systems of Privilege Visible, portrayed themes of privilege, racism, and sexism. She focused heavily on privilege and how everyone is racist, sexist, etc. as long as they are benefiting
In one part she made the argument that racism was like a moving walkway at an airport, where some people are walking right along with racist tendencies, others stand still and do not fight against the tendencies, and a few turn around and actively move against racism. I also believe that she did the job that she intended to do because she got the point across that everyone is affected by racism and prejudice but some are affected positively and others negatively. Wildman’s article did the job it intended to do because I was convinced of her argument by the end. She ended by saying that people need to admit that they are racist/sexist and then decide what they are going to do about it, instead of just trying to convince others that you are not racist/sexist. Her point was extremely well made throughout the article, because she included herself. She did not make it seem like everyone else is this she made a point of saying we are ALL this way. Hankivsky uses evidence collected from a wide range of sources to make her points about how intersectionality is important and needs to be considered more. She includes pictures, charts, graphs, and a variety of statistics to back up her claims. Her points were logical and credible and did the job that she set out to do, which was to educate the reader about the usefulness and principle of intersectionality. Barsky’s chapter, Theory, Values, and Ethics, made the point that social workers use theories that are drawn from other fields, such as psychology, medicine, law, and many others. The reading did a sufficient job of teaching the idea of theory, explaining the ethics of different fields, and defining the values that social workers hold. Barsky succeeded in his intention, which was to educate social workers on the principles and values held