In this talk, Carmen Henne-Ochoa shares a personal story about a significant moment in her own journey to understand racism in the U.S. She shares a radical idea: racism exists in our country not because of moral backwardness or because white people use racial epithets such as “tar baby,” “welfare queen,” “thug,” or the “N-word.” Rather, racism exists because of white silence. In her talk she asks us to imagine white Americans—individually and collectively—using their voice and their privilege to be catalysts for racial justice.

Carmen first came to Bucknell University as a visiting professor of sociology, anthropology and Latin American studies. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. The focus of her research and teaching is social stratification and inequality relating to social class, race, and ethnicity. She loves teaching at Bucknell, where her approach to teaching and learning is dialogic. She incorporates students’ personal narratives and lived experiences in the classroom, as she believes that these are central to their process of knowledge construction and to the quality of their learning experiences. She was recently appointed a Bucknell University Diversity & Inclusion Fellow in the fall of 2015.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx