We Cannot Recycle Our Way to Peace: Sustainability, Racism, and Capitalism- Dr. Christopher Knaus

Dr. Christopher Knaus

Professor

UW Tacoma

Dr. Christopher B. Knaus serves as Professor of Education at the University of Washington Tacoma. A race scholar and critical race theory practitioner, Dr. Knaus examines how systems of intersectional oppression (racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, islamophobia, and related interwoven oppressions) shape schools, districts, colleges, and ideas of learning that intentionally silence students, educators, communities of color and those who differ from presumed and violently enforced white middle class hetero norms. In short, Dr. Knaus challenges that most ways of doing school and college (grading, competition, western knowledge regurgitation, dominance of standardized English, knowledge standards) are based in capitalism-affirming white supremacist anti-Blackness. 

Dr. Knaus also works to foster educational leadership pathways, including educator of color preparation and support programs that transform towards radically humanistic, critically conscious, creative, localized, decolonial educations. Dr. Knaus collaborates in South Africa, across the United States, and regionally on the West Coast.