LESSONS FROM JASPER: HOW A WHITE FATHER'S UNIMAGINABLE IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS WITH HIS BLACK DAUGHTER SHINE A LIGHT ON WHITENESS

Abstract

As I’ve talked with people about my studies in graduate school – at the University of Illinois and The University of New Mexico – I’ve always been hard-pressed to answer the question, “Why race?” I remember always being interested in race, but I’m not sure why. I remember my parents being strident anti-racists. They were always telling me and my four siblings how wrong racism was, that people who thought that way didn’t know any better. Growing up in almost all-white Montana, most of what we learned about blacks and other minorities came from comments made by others (many who had never known any) and from television and movies. Our parents often reminded us that what we saw and what we heard was not true, that people didn’t know what they were talking about and what we saw on television were not accurate depictions of blacks or other minorities. Our parents always stressed that they were “just like everyone else,” and in the few times I would come in contact with them during our almost yearly trips back to California, I never had any reason to believe differently.

Citation

Dolan, K. (2005), "LESSONS FROM JASPER: HOW A WHITE FATHER'S UNIMAGINABLE IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS WITH HIS BLACK DAUGHTER SHINE A LIGHT ON WHITENESS", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 28), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 121-126. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(04)28013-9