"Not Playing it Safe: Tutoring an Ethic of Diversity within a Non-Diverse Environment"

  In Rihn's article, "Not Playing it Safe: Tutoring an Ethic of Diversity within a Non-Diverse Environment" he tackles the difficult subject of racism as well as discussing two central goals of the writing center: being a "contact zone" and a "safe house."
The conceptual idea behind the "contact zone" is that the WC should be a socially safe or neutral space where "meaning and risk-free learning" can occur. It should be a place where the minority or oppressed groups can go; institutions, as a rule, impose the dominant culture's view and rigorous standards on all its students, making some students feel "not normal." In other words, being a safe zone means to "comfort the afflicted."
The idea behind the "contact zone" is one in which opposes the comfort zone.  The contact zone should be a place where the privileged should be able to explore risk in learning; a place to question the comforts of their status, a place to "afflict the comfortable."  For the privileged student it should be a place to grapple with gender, class, race, and the ways in which power works in our society.  Rihn suggests that we use the tutoring session as an opportunity to stretch all of the students, whether oppressed or privileged, to question audience, institutions and ourselves. 

Andrew Rihn is a tutor at Kent State University where the majority of students are white and middle class. It is mostly an environment of privilege.


http://emil.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/178
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