Some framing questions about racism and evaluation: Thoughts stimulated byProfessor John Stanfield's "slipping through the front door"

Professor Stanfield's article (this issue) stimulated several questions tha t are briefly discussed, How does the lens of race shape and effect our und erstandings and actions? How do we talk with each other about race and raci sm? How do we engage each other on these issues authentically at a time dom inated by political correctness? What methods and measures fairly capture a cid communicate the experiences of people of color and the poor? Given the reality-shaping power of racial categories, what variables and categories a re meaningful and appropriate? What program outcomes and evaluative judgmen ts are conditioned by racially-shaped assumptions, presumptions, and politi cs? How do we make ourselves aware of such conditioning and its implication s? How do we understand and deal with the paradoxes of race relations witho ut trivializing them by the very act of labeling them as paradoxes? For tho se of us who are white, where do we look for guidance in matters of race an d racism? For those so inclined, how do we find and follow the path to tran sformation?