Critical Social Justice Education and the Assault on Truth in White Public Pedagogy : The US-Dakota War Re-Examined

This book explores tensions between __critical social justice__ and what the author terms __white justice as fairness__ in public commemoration of Minnesota’s US-Dakota War of 1862. First, the book examines a regional __white public pedagogy__ demanding “objectivity” and “balance” in teaching-and-learning activities with the purpose of promoting fairness toward white settlers and the extermination campaign they once carried out against Dakota people. The book then explores the dilemmas this public pedagogy created for a group of majority-white college students co-authoring a traveling museum exhibit on the war during its 2012 sesquicentennial. Through close analyses of interviews, field notes, and course artifacts, this volume unpacks the racial politics that drive __white justice as fairness__, revealing a myriad of ways this common sense of justice resists __critical social justice education__, foremost by teaching citizens to suspend moral judgment toward symbolic white ancestors and their role in a history of genocide. This book explores tensions between critical social justice and what the author terms white justice as fairness in public commemoration of Minnesota's US-Dakota War of 1862. First, the book examines a regional white public pedagogy demanding "objectivity" and "balance" in teaching-and-learning activities on 1862 with the purpose of promoting fairness toward white settlers and the extermination campaign they once carried out against Dakota people. The book then explores dilemmas this public pedagogy created for a group of majority-white college students co-authoring a traveling museum exhibit on the war during its 2012 sesquicentennial. Through close analyses of interviews, field notes, and course artifacts, this volume unpacks the racial politics that drive white justice as fairness, revealing a myriad of ways this common sense of justice resists critical social justice education, foremost by teaching citizens to suspend moral judgment toward symbolic white ancestors and their role in a history of genocide Front Matter ....Pages i-xxviii Introduction: “Official Perspective” and the Two Senses of Justice (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 1-39 J-Term Perspectives (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 41-63 Framing the Discussion (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 65-87 Reopening the Wounds of 1862 (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 89-113 Regional Genocide Denial and Contradictory White Selves (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 115-142 The White Public Pedagogy I: Suspending Moral Judgment (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 143-170 The White Public Pedagogy II: Taking the Justice-as-Fairness View to History (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 171-210 Managing Perspectives, Keeping History “Good” and Safe (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 211-239 From Below in Theory, from Above in Practice: Whites Provide Dakota Perspectives (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 241-276 Conclusion (Rick Lybeck)....Pages 277-295 Back Matter ....Pages 297-304