Racism is a challenging topic to address, no matter your setting. Some students and classes have little or no experience of discrimination and race-related hostility. For other students and groups, it's a part of everyday life.
Whether it's a hot-button issue or a non-starter with your students, any constructive discussion of racism can result in deeper understanding and a stronger sense of solidarity. This lesson stretches students to consider racism’s influence and engage in efforts to respond to it.
Racism can't easily be dramatized in a classroom setting. The potential for inappropriate or hurtful comments or actions, even if unintended, is strong. Injustice, along with its causes and effects, is more easily explored. Begin this exercise by admitting that it is intentionally simple and, therefore, not perfect. Encourage students to reserve judgement and withhold comments until the discussion time after the activity.
Provide each student with a coin. They will flip a coin four times, with results determining factors mentioned in the article. Move to an open space where students can step forward based on the results of their flip (i.e., a step for every "heads" flip). Say:
- Flip your coin. If heads, you are a member of a racial majority. Take a step forward. If tails, you’re in a minority group. Stay put.
- Flip your coin. If heads, your parents graduated high school and had the opportunity to earn college degrees. Step forward. If tails, they didn't.
- Flip your coin. If heads, your parents have steady jobs with wages that allow them to pay bills and save for the future. Step forward. If tails, they don't.
- Flip your coin. If heads, your family has access to quality, affordable health care. Step forward. If tails it doesn't.
Ask students to look around the room. Who has advanced the furthest? Who is left behind?
Invite students to remain standing in place as a reminder of the imbalance experienced in the activity.
Begin by saying "Coin flips don't determine how life unfolds, but while there are many factors in life that people can control, there are other realities that people can neither choose nor easily move beyond. The article we read addresses racism and several key ways it affects people's lives." Then ask:
- Can people control their race or the family they are born into (or adopted by)?
- How can a person's race influence opportunities they have to pursue an education, find or advance in jobs or gain access to health care and other needs in life?
- What role might where someone lives, along with local culture, politics and business practices, affect the opportunities of a person from a racial minority?
- To what degree can a person's own work ethic or their willingness to share ideas and resources with other people have an impact on obstacles they face?
- As this brief game unfolded, did you feel it was unfair as you either fell behind or advanced? Were you tempted to bend the rules? How might that happen in real life?
- Who really wins a game that's so random? What steps might we take — in real life — to move from the randomness of coin flips toward making intentional choices to love as God loves?
Invite students to set their coin on their desk, then say. "Loving God, you give us many great gifts, including life itself. You create us all in your image and likeness, and bless us with courage, wisdom understanding and so much more. Help us to set aside simplistic ideas about the sin of racism. Free our minds and hearts and hands so that we might work together with our sisters and brothers of all races in building a fairer and more loving world. Amen."
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