White Academia & Amy Hillier, MSW, PhD

The Spillway

What does it mean to teach and talk about race and racism in our education systems? What does it mean to be White in academia?

Here we sit down with Dr. Amy Hillier, MSW, Associate Professor at The School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania with the following outline:

What is CRT look like in your classrooms?

What are we getting right and wrong about CRT today?

What are White students saying in classrooms about race and racism?

How do we translate ideas into praxis? Do you see a role in emotionally and physically locating and embodying ideas?

Do you think de-centering Whiteness supports or undermines Derrick Bell’s concept of interest convergence?

Dr. Hillier's research has focused on historical housing and public health disparities including mortgage redlining, affordable housing, healthy foods, park use and access, and outdoor advertising. Her most recent research focuses on transgender youth and their families. With Dr. Stephanie Boddie, she co-directs The Ward, a research, teaching, and public history project dedicated to sharing the timeless lessons about racism and the role of research in affecting social change based on W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1899 book, The Philadelphia Negro. Her teaching has focused on similar topics as her research. She led the required two-course sequence on American racism within SP2’s social work program and has taught courses in city planning, urban studies, public health, and social policy focused on equity and social justice. She is the founding director of the cross-school graduate LGBTQ certificate and, with Dr. Beverley Crawford, co-created of the online course, The Penn Experience: Racism, Reconciliation and Engagement.

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Spillway Community Guidelines

1. Engage sequentially. The show is a serial not episodic. We do this so we can build relation and find common ground and context. 2. We stay in our own lane. The Spillway is about White people talking to (predominately) White people about White people and White culture. We're not out here to critique anyone's actions but our own. 3. Our combined fabric of destiny. (3a) As Dr. King said, our humanities are deeply interconnected to each other. Racism negatively impacts me, too. (3b) The Spillway is one mechanism within a larger framework needed to sustain racial equity and justice. We're not a one-stop shop. 4. No one right way to liberation. We all share the same goals, but not every method works for every person. If this doesn't work for you. That's okay. Maybe it works for someone else.