Nazia Kazi
Just one class can open minds to new perspectives. Nazia Kazi, assistant professor of Anthropology, reflects on her experiences teaching on topics related to race.
One of the things that strikes me while teaching about topics such as race, migration and Islamophobia is just how little so many of our students know about our racial past.
I find such paradigm shifts inspirational... it gives me great hope to see students willing to revisit, revise, even abolish their long-held assumptions about race and difference."
Their social studies classes have reminded them time and again about the Boston Tea Party and how a bill becomes a law. But students all too often arrive in my classes with scant knowledge about, say, the murder of Fred Hampton, the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia or the militant abolitionism of John Brown (and if you, too, are unfamiliar with these histories, well – you’ve just proved my point).
Once our students are presented with the uncomfortable facts of America’s racial legacy, I am stunned at the compassion and diligence they bring to their studies and their eagerness to pursue social justice outside of the classroom.
One student told me that, before taking my “Race & Islam in the U.S.” course, her only exposure to Muslims was an experience as a child at an airport, when her father led her away from Arabic-speaking passengers, telling her ‘don’t look at them.’ She told me that taking the class changed her entire outlook on the relationship between the U.S. and ‘the Muslim world.’
I find such paradigm shifts inspirational; it gives me great hope to see students willing to revisit, revise, even abolish their long-held assumptions about race and difference.
As a faculty member, it is my responsibility to ensure that the classroom and the campus at large is a site for the open exploration of such ideas. I regularly invite students to challenge and disagree with class material (provided they do so in an informed, educated, and thoughtful manner).
This Voice was originally published in 2020. At the time of publication, and presently, Kazi is still an integral part of the Anthropology program, now as an associate professor. Kazi is author of "Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics," which is required reading in college classes across the country.
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