Chapter 2: Defining Racism and Theoretical Considerations for Engaging in Anti-Racism work in Leadership Education

Leadership educators might talk about having dreams of living in a world that is free from discrimination, free from racism and forms of oppression, but would not it be even more amazing to turn those dreams into realities? Having the realities of living up to the promise of our work as leadership educators? As a community, we must think about how we need to shift our thinking, actions, and practices of leadership education to make those realities possible. Without this shift in thought and behavior, we will continue to operate as a system with whiteness at its core. The first step needed to change how curricular and co-curricular leadership programs address antiracism is to understand the definitions of racism, whiteness, anti-racism, and leadership education and the history of how theories concerning those topics came to be formed. This chapter will explore the definitions and theoretical underpinnings of anti-racist ideology and center how it can be applied to leadership education.