Structural Racism

What? Before listening to the podcast, watching the video, and reading the readings for this week, I honestly didn’t know that much about structural racism. Structural racism was something I had always heard about, but wasn’t an issue I could ever speak up on because I didn’t really understand what differentiated it from racism. After listening to the podcast, watching the video and reading the readings, I understood the difference. In doing a quick search on the definition of racism on Google, it is known as: “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.” Structural racism, while still obviously being racism, is racism reinforced and often allowed by institutional, historical, cultural, and interpersonal practices, groups, and people within a society.

The education system perpetuates the marginalization of people of color while in a way supporting these people of color at the same time. In the beginning of the podcast “The Problem We All Live With,” Nicole Hannah-Jones speaks of the one thing that she noticed really worked to “cut the achievement gap between black and white students” by half: integration. The education system has seemingly often tried to support their students of color who are sadly grouped into the “bad school” category (with most of the “good schools” being primarily white) with things like magnet programs, focuses on literacy, high schools where kids could earn college credits, improving teacher quality, replacing the principal, and more testing, but none of that ever seemed to actually work. The “bad schools” stayed behind while the “good schools” stayed ahead. They were improving test scores, but the students of color weren’t performing “on par” with the white kids in the schools and district. Integration, on the other hand, works because it “gets black kids in the same facilities as white kids and therefore, gives them access to the same things those kids get — quality teachers and quality instruction.” While integration works, the most common issue with it is that most people think that it’s been tried before and it didn’t work out, so they just give up on the idea of it as a whole. This is a structural issue and not simply individuals “not trying hard enough” because while studies show that kids who are behind in a class where everyone is behind simply don’t catch up, while kids who are behind in a class where some are ahead and some are behind do, integration isn’t happening all on its own. Students, families, and the schools themselves, in being these “good” (primarily White) and “bad” (primarily Black and Latino) desegregate themselves, perpetuating the marginalization of people of color in the education system.

The criminal justice system perpetuates the marginalization of people of color similarly, and even seemingly stemming from the marginalization of people of color in the education system: “Our public-school system sees black and brown children as violent, disruptive, unpredictable future criminals.” (So you want to talk about race?) The term “school-to-prison pipeline” was specifically made because of the perpetuated marginalization of people of color in the education and criminal justice systems and literally refers to the people of color who “are funneled directly and indirectly from our schools into our prison industrial complex, contributing to devastating levels of mass incarceration that lead to one in three black men and one in six Latino men going to prison in their lifetimes, in addition to increased levels of incarceration for women of color.” This is a structural issue and not about individuals not “trying hard enough” because it isn’t a group of people making this happen. It is racial bias of school administration and teachers, lack of cultural sensitivity for black and brown children, the pathologizing of black children, zero tolerance policies, and increased police presence in schools. Society itself is causing the marginalization of people of color, it isn’t just people not trying hard enough to fix it.

So What? At my community partner site, Canal Alliance, structural racism may impact the people there because they themselves are considered “brown” people, who along with black people are the ones primarily affected by structural racism itself, in the ways described above with the education and criminal justice system examples. The “Who We Are” portion of the Canal Alliance website says that “Canal Alliance exists to break the generational cycle of poverty for Latino immigrants and their families by lifting barriers to their success. . . . We believe everyone has the right to achieve their dreams.” While I do believe that Canal Alliance is helping to better the lives of these children, one structure I noticed that may negatively affect the people I am working with is the ratio of adults to children. It does seem as if there are a lot of kids because they can get out of hand a lot and refuse to listen to the volunteers, like the first day I went and three girls were climbing on tables and countertops.

Beside the structures of Canal Alliance itself, the structural racism these kids face and the school-to-prison pipeline is a real possibility that they face because of the color of their skin and their race. One of the readings from this week supplies tips to address and confront the school-to-prison pipeline in conversation: include the school-to-prison pipeline in your broader discussions of racial inequality and oppression, talking to schools and school boards, recognizing the achievements of black and brown children, normalizing black and brown childhoods, challenging language that stereotypes black and brown kids, discuss deeper causes of defiant and antisocial behavior in black and brown youth, don’t erase disabled black and brown youth, and challenging the legitimacy of white-centered education. (So You Want To Talk About Race)

Now What? It is so important to analyze the structural causes of social issues because without recognizing, analyzing, and understanding the causes, we have no way to stop it or no way to figure out how to fight it. Since the start of this semester, the readings, videos, and podcasts we have had to read for critical reflections have shifted my thinking into thinking more in the bigger picture. For example, this week’s topic of structural racism was never really something I felt I could speak on simply because I didn’t understand it. I always saw racism as hateful people with hateful ideas and hateful practices, but I never realized it wasn’t just a group of people — society itself was encouraging structural racism even if it wasn’t purposeful — it just happens. It didn’t happen because “people weren’t trying hard enough to stop it,” it was being perpetuated by a bigger force than one group of people. My work with Canal Alliance has made me see how extremely lucky I have been with my education. These kids are at a disadvantage from the start — and not by their own doing, simply because of their skin color. I hope one day we can live in a world where everyone can be entitled to their own education, regardless of race, gender, sexual identity, or any other “defining trait.”