Lost Opportunities
There are many roots causes as to why mass incarceration and the school to prison pipeline have drastically increased over time. One root cause, I believe, is the affect of a father figure in African American homes. Not having a father figure in the home can take a toll on the children and can affect their outlook on life. Thus influencing them to not to well in school or get into other dangerous situations. This correlates to the mass incarcerations because most of these fathers that are gone or missing are in jail. “…Hundreds of thousands of black men are unable to be good fathers for their children, not because of a lack of commitment or desire but because they are warehoused in prisons, locked in cages. They did not walk out on their families voluntarily; they were taken away in handcuffs, often due to a massive federal program known as the War on Drugs.” (739)
When Alexander writes, “Many people ‘know’ and ‘not know’ the truth about human suffering at the same time.” she means that people know and are aware of what is going on and the struggles and human suffering but they do not really know what the struggles and human sufferings are because they never went through the same experiences themselves. A truth that people ‘know’ and also ‘not know’ about the students families at my community partner is that because most of these students come from low-income families that they are not as educated either. It is believed that some of these students struggle in school because their parents are not as educated either so they have a hard time completing assignments for school that’s why they offer the tutoring with college students. But working alongside with these students I’ve learned to understand that these students are much more capable than what they are thought of. They’ve been stuck under a label that puts them in the position to feel as if they cannot ask for anymore help because they constantly ask for help. Putting them in this state of mind does not help them at all, if anything it stops them from their potential.
