The Importance of Understanding Discourse in Social Justice Education: The Truth and Nothing But the Truth?

Abstract

When Audre Lorde wrote that “the Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house” (Lorde, 1984, p. 110), she was speaking from her experiences as a Black, lesbian feminist and she was critiquing white feminists for their heterosexual, white bias. In their allegedly progressive attempts to eliminate sexism, white feminists employed the logic of ignoring difference and, conse- quently, reinforced the very systems of oppression and privilege they claimed to want to dismantle. Lorde’s famous quote highlights the dilemma and the dangers of challeng- ing injustice with the Master’s tools—tools, however, that we might not be able to live without. The dilemma I want to address in this chapter involves the role of truth in social justice education. On the one hand, I will argue that an exclu- sive focus on truth might be one of the Master’s tools that can obscure what discourse does and, thus, protect dominance from contestation. On the other hand, truth-talk cannot be abandoned as it plays an important role in regards to the credibility of what the marginalized are trying to tell the systemically privileged about their experiences with oppression. When should questions of truth be suspended and when do they matter?