Critical Reflection #3 — Racism Here in Marin
While reading this week’s two readings Another Kind of Public Education “Social Blackness, Honorary Whiteness, and All Points in Between” by Collins and “The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’” by Alexander, many points stated reminded me of my community partner at Bayside MLK Academy.
Collins describes a new and current reality of color-blind racism, where middle-class white parents founded private white academies so that their children didn’t have to attend racially integrated public schools (Collins, p. 48). In the Sausalito Marin City School District, there are two schools: Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy and Willow Creek Academy. According to an article I read in the LA Times “A Tiny Marin County District Got California’s First School Desegregation Order in 50 Years” by James Rainey, Bayside MLK has an enrollment of 104 students, of which 50% are African American, 27% are Latino, less than 4% are White, and the rest are other races. Willow Creek Academy is a charter school that opened in 2001, which now has an enrollment of 361 students, of which 42% are White, 27% are Latino, 10% are African American, and the rest are other races. Bayside MLK has suffered from rapid staff turnover, inadequate class offerings, and excessive discipline and substandard academic performance. Additionally, most of the students in this school district qualify for subsidized school meals, as many of their parents struggle to find jobs or have minimum wage jobs. The school lacks resources, as most of the funding and educational interests in the school district goes towards Willow Creek. In 2014–2015, about half of the staff at Bayside MLK left, causing cuts in foreign language, art, music, physical education, and counseling. It was found that the school district “knowingly and intentionally maintained and exacerbated existing racial segregation, and … established an intentionally segregated school” (Rainey). The school district was given a desegregation order. They want to merge the two schools, but that raises many questions. Like would there be enough room for all 465 students on one campus, and would they be a charter school or public? This issue is still not resolved, but the school district will implement the desegregation plan in the 2020–2021 school year and will be completed within 5 years.
According to Alexander, “Our nation’s prison and jail population had quintupled in 30 years” (p. 2) which is largely in part of the racially biased drug war. “It didn’t matter back then that studies consistently found that whites were equally likely, if not more likely, than people of color to use and sell illegal drugs. Black people were still labeled the enemy” (p. 5). “Once human beings are defined as the problem in the public consciousness, their elimination through deportation, incarceration, or even genocide becomes nearly inevitable” (p. 6). I think this is relevant to the population at Bayside MLK because a majority of them are African American or Latino, so many of them suffer from racial inequalities, poverty, and lack educational resources. When I went to my interview, I learned how prisons try to figure out how large of a prison to build based on the number of children who read below their grade level in 3rd grade. Those who don’t learn to read by third grade have a higher chance of getting involved with crime and gangs and have a lower chance of being successful in school and ultimately in their careers. For many of the students at my community partner English is their second language and many of their parents don’t speak English. Their parents probably didn’t have much education and are forced to work minimum wage jobs. Therefore, the student isn’t able to receive much help from their parents.
To me, it seems like history often repeats itself, even when we may not want it to. We may try to take a step forward, but we end up taking two steps back. For example, many of us thought that electing an African American into office would be a step forward for racial discrimination, however, the following president seemed to bring us back to a nation of white supremacy. “We find ourselves in this dangerous place not because something radically different has occurred in our nation’s politics, but because so much has remained the same” (Alexander, p. 10). I agree with this quote because I think we often think something radically different is going to change, but ultimately the issues are still present. I am very skeptical about the merger that is going to happen in the Sausalito Marin City School District soon. Yes, it may feel like a win, in which they have successfully desegregated the school district (assuming this plan goes through), but that doesn’t mean that racial discrimination won’t continue.
I think the first two domains of power (structural, disciplinary domain) are the most relevant to my community partner. Within the school district and within the individual schools, racism exists (structural domain). Although they are working to eliminate racism by desegregating the schools, racism will likely still naturally exist because we are simply born into it. There are members of the community and the school board that have challenged the school district for the unfair distribution of resources and funding and also the purposeful segregation that has been going on between the two schools (disciplinary domain).
