Reducing Racial Disparities

What?

Throughout the article “The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration,” Michelle Alexander highlights structural inequity and uses incarceration practices in the United States as an example. Alexander recognizes that “A third of black men had felony records — due in large part to a racially biased, brutal drug war — and were relegated to a permanent second-class status” (Alexander, 2). She emphasizes that the nation’s jail population has drastically increased and acknowledges the high incarceration rates. In the United States there is a disproportionate amount of African Americans that are incarcerated due to racial profiling. Police tend to be present in low-income neighborhoods which exposes minorities to more law enforcement. We may externally oppress others when watching individuals more carefully based on the color of their skin.

When first starting at Women Helping All People I was initially very nervous because when I first arrived there were large groups of African American males hanging outside on the streets. I felt uncomfortable because I had to walk past them in order to get to where I needed to go. As a young female, I had the urge to rush past them and bring my belongings inside of the school rather than leave them in my car.

Once meeting Royce, the other teachers, some families in the community, and all of the young children, I came to realize that just because it is a low income area does not mean that the people living there are necessarily “dangerous.” Initially, I feel that I may have been contributing to external oppression because of the way that I categorized the men standing outside as a “threat.” Now, I am beginning to recognize the idea of structural inequity and the negative impacts of stereotyping certain communities.

Additionally, in the reading “Social Blackness, Honorary Whiteness” the author, Patricia Hill Collins, claims that “African American youth may be the poster children for this comprehensive failure of public institutions to provide opportunities” (Collins, 10). She explains how schools are segregated because they are located in high-poverty neighborhoods. These communities may have disproportionate levels of unemployment, homelessness, crime, and access to services compared to other locations that are less segregated. She illustrates the idea that it is difficult to desegregate schools without desegregating low and high income communities first.

Golden Gate Village has been a high poverty, African American community for generations and this may be what is adding on to the additional educational and economic barriers. This segregation can cause there to be low rates of achievement in specific areas such as Marin City. Students may have unequal access to educational resources. For example, WHAP offers after school program hours in order to provide these students with additional resources outside of class time. Many of the students do not have access to computers, and the classroom provides these students with this equipment in the classroom so that they are able to have greater opportunities to gain additional information.

So What?

One concept that I would like to better understand is the idea of minorities having to navigate “gatekeepers” through “whitening.” I am interested in the concept of code switching and why individuals may use it to convey a different aspect of their identity.

Throughout the reading “Social Blackness, Honorary Whiteness,” Collins points out that subordinates usually have to risk their safety in order to challenge those who are dominant. She furthers this concept when she states that “there are many gatekeepers in life… and black and brown people, among others in the U.S. context, quickly learn… [the] behavior [that] may be needed from one situation to the next” (Collins, 3). She tells her own personal experience with a receptionist and how she was mistreated until she was displayed as someone who was higher up. Collins emphasizes “color-blind racism” and how Whites often declare that they are living in a world where racial privilege does not exist. However, their behavior often supports the idea that minorities are still being categorized based on race.

Collins also claims that “people who are Latino, or Middle-Eastern, or women, or dressed poorly, or who either are out of their whitening context or do not explicitly whiten themselves are routinely ignored by people in positions of power and authority” (Collins, 3). Dominants may serve as gatekeepers when racial profiling which causes subordination among specific minority groups. Racial profiling is a troubling and common problem in the world, and it still occurs in everyday life. Gatekeeping is an extremely negative concept which allows for the discrimination of specific groups based on their ethnicity or nationality. I find this topic very interesting and how those with subordinate qualities may be treated differently by those with dominant qualities. Even qualities such as gender or the way you dress may inflict the way a person addresses you.

Now What?

One domain of power that impacts the people at my community partner site, Women Helping All People, is the structural domain of power. Structural domain of power shows “how racism as a system of power is set up, and how it is organized without anybody doing anything. This is the structure into which we are all born and we will leave behind when we die” (Collins, 53). Collins explains the structural domain of power as it works through the resegregation of housing and schools. She also emphasizes that minorities, especially African Americans, get segregated within cities due to this domain of power. She then highlights that “rates of poverty for African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans remain consistently higher than for whites” and that this causes there to be substantial power gaps. (Collins, 47). This aspect of colorblind racism causes there to be an organization of oppression in society. She argues that this type of organization causes the subordination of African Americans.

At Women Helping All People a large majority of the tenants in Golden Gate Village are African American and many of them are living below the poverty line. Most of the young students that are taught at WHAP live in the housing around the school, and the school is run within the apartment complex. Segregation prevents most of the African American community in the U.S. from having easy access to certain educational and job opportunities. The members of this community may have to travel far outside of their predominantly African American neighborhood in order to get to work each day.

Collins proposes that this structural domain of power causes there to be societal and physical structures that are designed to promote certain individuals over others. Tenants in Golden Gate Village originally moved to the area during World War II and these African American workers were left to take over the businesses in the area that the White owners had left. African Americans were left with the land that the dominants had left behind. Unfortunately, this may have caused them to be crushed by other industries, run by dominant individuals, that do not necessarily favor them. Whites may have and may still resent these businesses and this can cause the success of the African American businesses to collapse which leads to greater poverty in certain communities such as Golden Gate Village. The tenants in Marin City were born into this structure and organized into these housing areas with no control. This caused them to become segregated within a specific city and caused them to have higher rates of poverty than others. Overall, it is important to recognize that privilege may result in oppression of others and that this structural domain of power may be what is causing the segregation within some housing and schools.