Beverly D. Tatum and Race: A summary of her Mondavi event at UC Davis

On Dec 10th (2010), Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, the author of UC Davis’ campus community book, “Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” (1997), spoke at the Mondavi Center. Dr. Tatum began by acknowledging change has occurred in race relations since her book was first published in 1997. But then noted that there is still difficulty in discussing race. Moreover, there appears to be greater incivility regarding the race conversation; we’ve moved from silence about race to hostility.

From Dr. Tatum’s perspective as a psychologist, we as a society feel a great deal of anxiety about race. She calmly explained that often, the human response to anxiety is fear. The way this fear is manifested is through flight or flight. In the case of anxiety about race, the human flight response is to “hunker down” and “tighten our circle” of those we consider us in the “us vs. them” scenarios. Our fight response is to lash out. However, Dr. Tatum pointed out, it is during those times of anxiety that we should work to expand our circle and create more inclusive relationships to dispel our anxiety.

Expanding our circles is, of course, is a difficult task, but can be eased by positive leadership. During the question-answer section of the event Dr. Tatum provided a strategy for individuals to become better allies to each other in the form of the 3 F’s – Felt, Found, Feel.

When someone says something to you that you consider discriminatory, it can often be difficult to speak up for fear of alienating yourself or offending a friend. Instead it may be easier to say something along the lines of, “I’ve felt that way before, but I found it not to be true (give example), and now I feel this way.” This gives you a chance to relate to the offender without placing blame or guilt. In cases when what a person has said is so outrageous that you cannot relate the 3 F’s can be modified to, “I know many people feel that way, I have found _____, and I feel this.” But it is important to speak up, because silence is equivalent to agreeing.

Unfortunately Dr. Tatum only spoke for 30 minutes with the question and answer section taking up the other half hour of the event. One question I’d like to explore, but didn’t get the chance to ask Dr. Tatum is, if our natural response to anxiety from the unknown is to hunker down and/or lash out, and that lashing out creates more anxiety, how do we as individuals break that cycle of anxiety? What are your thoughts?