Lesson: Unpacking Stereotypes: The Red Cross PSA
Slide Deck to Share with Students HERE
Lesson Objectives:
Students will be able to
Detect, reflect upon, and reject stereotypes that are present in our everyday lives
Learning Standards:
LfJ 11. Students will recognize stereotypes and relate to people as individuals rather than as representatives of groups
LfJ 12. Students will recognize unfairness at the individual level (e.g. biased speech) and injustice at the institutional or systemic level (e.g. discrimination)
LfJ 13. Students will analyze the harmful impact of bias and injustice on the world, historically and today.
Learning Activities (If you have 15 minutes…)
Greeting (Slide 4)
Which Drake are you today?
Reading (Slides 6-7):
Define a stereotype for your students (Slide 6) prior to sharing the reading below (Slide 7)
“In our culture, there are SO many stereotypes and sources of misinformation about race. These stereotypes are so pervasive that they are in some ways like “smog.” Smog is air pollution that is ubiquitous and widespread across an entire community. We all just have to admit that we’ve all been smog breathers.” We’ve all been influenced by these ambient cultural stereotypes. If you live in a community with smog, you end up breathing smog sometimes.”
--Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
What does this quotation get you thinking about?
Initiative
Question for students: What do you notice about this Red Cross poster? (Slide 8)
Students should notice that the people labeled ‘cool’ in the poster are frequently White, and the people labeled ‘uncool’ in the poster are frequently people of color. It’s also pretty unclear WHY the two boys of color in the water are labeled ‘not cool.’
Information for teacher: This Red Cross poster was designed in 2014 and hung in public pools across the country
Questions for students (Slide 9)
Why do you think this happened?
Is there a problem here that needs to be addressed?
What could be the impact of this poster?
Learning Activities (if you have 45 minutes...)
Initiative (continued):
Introduce students to Patricia Devine’s Detect, Reflect, Reject method (Slide 10)
Have students try out each step on the Red Cross poster: 1) Detect-- What is the problem here? 2) Reflect-- Why is this stereotype showing up here? Who is it harming? 3) Reject-- What can we do to challenge this problematic stereotype?
Share how one person who saw this PSA hanging up in the YMCA pool Salida, Colorado went through these steps and got the PSA removed (Slides 11-12)
Learning Activities (if you have 2 hours...)
Initiative (continued):
Share with students the Red Cross apology statement about the PSA (Slides 13-14)
Question for students: What is something you notice about the Red Cross’s apology statement? What do you think of the Red Cross’s plans for moving forward?