The Problem with Our Educational System and Color
Something that I learned about structural racism from the podcast, video, and readings is that structural racism predisposes children of color to a life of poverty and crime due to a lack and denial of resources such as jobs, education, and opportunities. The educational system and criminal justice systems go hand in hand to perpetuate the marginalization of people of color. The schools do this by suspending and expelling children of color more frequently and unneccessarily compared to their white classmates. By taking away their education as a form of punishment, the school districts are indirectly funneling them into a life of violent crimes which eventually leads to their mass incarceration (So you want to talk about race? 125). This mass incarceration is the reason why the majority of people in jail are people of color such as blacks and Latinos. This further adds to peoples stereotypes and biases that people of color are violent and criminals, which all contributes to the problem of structural racism.
This is a structural issue because these children of color from a young age see that they are not given the same opportunities as their white counter parts and begin to lose hope in the education system. This leads them to to become distraught and angry which are completely normal reactions, but the teachers later deem the student as “violent” and a “danger to faculty and students” leading the child to unnecessary suspensions and expulsions. By denying them of an education, they deny them at any chance of success later in life (So you want to talk about race? 126). This is not a “why don’t they try hard enough” situation because these children of color are not being given the same resources as white children. Due to where they live, most of which is in low income communities, these students are forced to go to underfunded schools with unqualified educators and a lack of resources. Starting in childhood, they are unable to perform well in school because they were never given a good basis of education (The Problem We All Live With 15:12).
Structural racism is something that can be seen in every low income community or in neighborhoods with people of color. At Canal Alliance, they serve low income families living in the canal, most of which are undocumented and of Latin descent. I can see structural racism affecting the students that I work with because all of them live in a low income community in Marin county. Mostly all of their parents are immigrants who do not have an education higher than a high school diploma. As a first generation college student myself, I can attest to how difficult it is to be the first in your family to go to college. This is mostly because of the lack of resources we have compared to students whose parents went to college.
The Canal Alliance mission seeks to address and eliminate the infinite cycle of poverty and education by helping these students go to school, graduate from college, and get out of a life of poverty. By receiving their college degree, these students will be breaking the cycle of having their children grow up in a low income community as well. By bringing these children out of poverty, they are helping their future generations out of poverty as well.
The Canal Alliance also helps with legal services for undocumented immigrants living in their community. By helping immigrants become documented, they are also exposing them to an infinite number of resources and opportunities that they did not have before. This leads to the opportunity for better jobs and access to a higher income which can help families get out of poverty. As discussed in the video “ Ending the Cradle to Prison Pipeline” the solution to the problem of the incarceration of minorities is to offer them jobs and resources so that we can help to eliminate this problem. A counter argument was that there are plenty of jobs and resources, but unfortunately these people are not qualified for these jobs due to a lack of education (4:20). This all leads back to what is the endless cycle of education and poverty. By giving people of color a proper education from the start, you are giving them the opportunity to be able to get a better job, make more money, and move out of low income communities.
Since the start of this semester, I have changed my perspective greatly on how I perceive low income communities. I used to think that everyone can get out of poverty by working hard and and getting an education, but I now see that that is not the case. People of color are not given the same resources or opportunities as white people are which leads to their poverty. Even if a person of color does go to college and get an education, it is still harder for them to get a job because all an employer sees is the color of their skin. People of color have always had to work twice as hard and only ever recieve half of the credit. As stated in So you want to talk about race? “the truth is that everyday achievements of black and brown children are more likely to go unnoticed, while their shortcomings are more likely to be called out” (130). This applies to adults as well, because even when people of color grow up to become successful adults, they are still seen as less than their white counterparts.
I believe that my work at the Canal Alliance has enhanced my understanding of structural issues. I have now seen first hand how much harder these children have to work in order to do well in school and how exhausting it can be at times. These students go to school all day and then have to come to tutoring for hours to further enhance their education, but their day doesn’t end there, because they still have to go home and fulfill any duties that they have there as well. The one thing that all of these children have in common is that they are all people of color who come from a low income community. By attending the Canal Alliance UP! Program, they are being given the opportunity to build a better life for themselves and be able to get them and their family out of poverty.
