Chapter 1 of "We Can't Teach What We Don't Know" is titled, White Man Dancing: A Story of Personal Transformation. As the title suggests, this chapter is mainly about the author's own journey through life and his look back at his differing views about race, especially his views about the White race which he is part of. The author started out in an all-white community, eventually moving to Yale for his schooling. While at Yale he started volunteering in an all black neighborhood called the Hill. The Hill was quite an impoverished area and it led him to completely change his views, including his faith and his political views. The author eventually moved to the Hill and lived there for a number of years. 

After his time at the Hill he decided that in order to be the most effective civil rights leader he could be, he needed to move back into white communities and share with them what he had found out about black communities. Basically, that through history white people have dominated other races and cultures, forcing them to live in their shadow. The author speaks quite a bit about making other races live in the shadow of the white population and making them second class citizens in many ways. He also talked about white privileges and how the populations differ in many ways because of their upbringings and the stereotypes associated with each race. For many of his college years and the years directly after, the author almost rejected his white identity and really almost hated the idea of being white and the ideas associated with this identity. He eventually came to terms with his identity, but through the rest of the writing it is quite obvious that he still is very aggressive about white ideas and the mindsets of large groups of the population. 

After reading this chapter I was really struck in a number of ways with this writing. It seemed that the author had such a negative idea about white people in general and their ideas, he was really almost angry at white people in general and thought them to be very uneducated and unyielding in their beliefs. Now, this is definitely true for certain parts of the population, but I think that his anger was unfounded considering that not all white people think themselves superior to other races or practice dominion over them. I think that I understand where the author is coming from and understand what he is trying to accomplish. All races and ethnicities deserve equality and this definitely carries over to education as well, all children deserve a great education regardless of their race or background. Yet, the author seems to take this a step further and almost blame white people for their domination against other races. 

After reading this chapter I almost felt guilty being white because of the way that the author stereotyped white people as so domineering and mean to other races and ethnicities. Actions must be taken to make sure that all peoples have equal rights and that stereotypes are not taken up by the population in their ideas or actions. But this does not mean that other races should be made out as villains because of the actions or ideas of some.