I don’t know who to applaud, Stephen Colbert himself or one (or more) of his writers. But someone over there really understand white privilege in a deep way. And even better, that person or persons also knows how to offer up a scathing commentary about it within the satire Stephen Colbert does best.
Two particularly insightful clips from Stephen’s “The Word” segment are really useful. Their penetrating and hilarious treatment of relatively recent events prompted me to build a workshop around them for some high school students last year. I’ve only presented this workshop once. But, it was fun, and I thought perhaps someone out there might want to make use of the resources I developed.
You can download the workshop description, agenda, and handouts on the Witnessing Whiteness book web page: www.witnessingwhiteness.com. The files are all on the “Xtras” page.
As a preview though, here are links to the two clips I used as a base for the workshop.
Have fun!
The Word: Neutral Man’s Burden —- episode #05095
Episode: #05095
Sonia Sotomayor’s personal background should be neutralized the way Band-Aids were when they reached out to minorities. (05:16)
The Word: The Great White Wail — episode #06153
The Pigford claims prove that there’s money in being a victim, and when something is valuable, white men get to take it. (04:57)