It don’t (or shouldn’t) matter if you’re black or white
(in case you didn’t catch the reference from the title)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2AitTPI5U0
Hello, friends!
Welcome back to another episode of me ranting about the education system!
This week’s topic will be on African American students. Now I know you’re thinking, how audacious it is that this non-African American is going to tell you what life is like.
I’m going to attempt the best I can with the research I have, so please have mercy.
I will not get it completely accurate, but as I iterated last week, I’m basing a lot of my claims and arguments from my observations and commentary from my friend’s experiences.
(I am not saying I am the best person to talk about this, but I have done a fair amount of research in hopes of getting it right)
Also, another heads up, I will be making a lot of references to a wonderful book, Multiplication is for White People by Lisa Delpit, that kinda started this whole journey of mine into researching more about the education system, I’ll be referencing and quoting it a lot, so when I say “the book”, this is the book. (and I am not sponsored, but if you’re reading this Lisa… Hi!)
So here we go!
There are many myths and *cough* fake facts given to explain why African American students do not perform well academically.
- “One that is seldom spoken aloud, but that is buried within the American psyche, is that black children are innately less capable — that they are somehow inferior”(Delpit 3)
2. “Another excuse for poor performance has been the rationale that African Americans are part of a “culture of poverty” and later the book gives an example of an ACTUAL book from 1971 called Blaming the Victim (oh boy) (6)
“ In education we have compensatory education to build up the skills and attitudes of the ghetto child rather than structural changes in the schools. In race relations we have special engineers to think up ways to strengthen the Negro family rather than methods of eradicating racism” (7)
WOW. Ok..
I know some of you are thinking, okay that’s a little outdated, times have changed and not a lot of people think that anymore…
Well, the book also provides very recent quotes, like this lovely one from William Bennett in 2005, FORMER SECRETARY OF EDUCATION,
“If you want to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down” (11)
And my personal favorite by James Watson a NOBEL PRIZE WINNING BIOLOGIST in 2007 “I am gloomy about the prospect of Africa…[Our] social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really”(12)
*I recommend that you allow yourself about 2 minutes to scream in disbelief*
I know some may be thinking, what does this really have to do with education, these are quotes by very educated people that are biased, so what?
That is exactly my point. If there is this belief in inherent intellectual subordination among HIGHLY praised scholars and influential individuals who work on educational policies….. you can do the math (pun unintended).
Let me give you an example,
Since the 90s here has been research conducted by Psychologist Claude Steele creating the term stereotype threat. Which is the “experience of anxiety or concern in a situation where a person has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about the social group to which they belong”
In their experiment, they conducted two experiments with two different groups of people. They conducted a math test with Test group 1: women and men; and a language test with Test group 2: black and white college students.
They divided their groups in half so they could conduct the experiment twice. In the case of test group 1, with the control group, they gave no disclaimers and made the participants take the test, the experimental group was told that typically that men and women scored similarly on the test.
Can you guess what the results were?
Yes, the group with no warning had a clear difference in scores among women and men, with the women scoring lower. The group given the disclaimer that there is not a discrepancy had “no gender-based scoring differences” (17)
A similar thing happened with the college students. One group was told that the test was to “see how people already determined to hold strong language skills solved linguistics problems”, again the control group was told nothing. The group that was given the disclaimer had no performance gaps, the group without it had a glaring difference in scores based on the student’s race.
This experiment never fails to discourage me, not because it is slightly depressing to think about, because I can think of so many times I have heard my peers, who are absolutely brilliant, stop themselves short because there was probably someone who told them they couldn’t do something (with implications they could not do so because of their race)
I hope this cute pink octopus pacified the rage you may be experiencing right now.
I could dive into more statistics and narratives, but that would be very depressing.
Now that I’ve given you 3 weeks worth of depressing statistics, what are some solutions?
By no means can this be fixed overnight with some magic “racism-be-gone” potion. There are implicit biases that we have learned over time, depending on where we live, who we encounter, what we have experienced.
There are also so many socio-economic issues that have not been addressed, and I only touched upon them in my previous blogs.
However, one thing that I have noticed in many feel-good movies, real-life situations, and hearing the stories of the people around me. Teachers can make or break a kid’s experience, I can easily answer the educators in my life who never made me feel like I could not do certain things because of my race. I know so many students who, thankfully, has educators who really cared about them, who believed in them and motivated them to shoot for the stars.
To end this on a somewhat happier note, I want to thank those educators who have made a positive difference in the lives of students and being a true educator.
Next week, we’ll see what I come up with, I haven’t thought of a topic yet.
See ya’ll later, wash your hands and stay safe!
