Being Careful Observers
Critical Reflection #6
What?: In cities like Oakland where far-reaching social change is underway, and where there are still huge issues of poverty, inequality, and social justice to be addressed, public education needs to consider the developmental needs and tendencies of children at their various stages of development, through helping them act autonomously while also having the ability to collaborate, cooperate, and handle and resolve conflicts with diverse groups of people. In the intro to “Everyday Racism”, Pollock writes, “We collectively define ‘racism’ as any act that, even unwittingly, tolerates, accepts, or reinforces racially unequal opportunities for children to lean and thrive” (Pollock, pg.1). Thus suggesting that to meet the learning needs and aspirations of individuals, it is important that society contribute to the socialization of enlightened, responsible and constructively critical citizens.
When a public-school system based on equity and “equality of opportunity” is embedded within a capitalistic society, it can be a little disorienting for students, parents, and teachers. You see students enter the building through the same door, yet there may be a “second door” that is systematically stratified. This is the importance of addressing racism at a societal level instead of an individual one. If we cannot talk about racism in schools, then how are students supposed to think about what difference and equality looks like and should look like. As said by Toni Morrison, “Expensively kept, economically unsound, a spurious and useless political asset in election campaigns, racism is as healthy today as it was during the enlightenment” (Ladson-Billings, pg.4). Everything that is going on now should be troubling to all of us, because they are not isolated incidents. We live in a world where institutional racism exists and is broadcasted to the entire would through smartphones and exhibited through a racialized criminal-justice system.
Thus, the work really begins “In education [where] rejecting false notions of human difference and actively treating people as equally worthy, complicated, and capable” (Pollock,pg.4), is key to exposing the destructive environment totally unknown to many Americans, mostly white Americans.
So What?: In the article, “It’s Not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture:The Problem with Teacher Education,” by Gloria Ladson-Billings, the author states that,“The problem of culture in teaching is not merely one of exclusion. it is also one of overdetermination”(pg.1). The author discusses how teachers simultaneously use the term “culture” in a classroom environment as both the problem and answer to the teachers’ struggles with their students. The problem of looking to “culture” as the answer to an individual’s behavior, intelligence, or performance, only reinforces institutional racism. It misinforms people who believe a certain action or saying is “right” or “okay.”
The effect of this is that students, predominately those of color, have to start each school day navigating their way through racial profiling. Blaming a person’s culture for how they learn and perform only supports the argument of racialized inequality in American schools. Being a person of color, you are constantly being targeted just because you are a person of color. It harms, because it is like being an open door where being harassed, stopped,or arrested is welcomed. As the author explains it, “Not understanding culture and its role in shaping our thoughts and behavior is not limited to teacher education students. Most members of the dominant society rarely acknowledge themselves as cultural beings. They have no reason to. Culture is that exotic element possessed by “minorities.” It is what it means to be nonwhite. It is also the convenient explanation for why some students cannot achieve success in the classroom” (Ladon-Billings, pg.4). It opens up the door for us to think about some of the interventions that we can do at the school level: talking to students about how to process stress, as well as the interpersonal work that we have to do, thinking about what everyday racism looks like.
Now What?: At my community partner, RotaCare clinic, I do not necessarily see acts of people being “colorblind” or celebrating diversity. I do believe that RotaCare is proud to be able to serve and provide free health services to a community that cannot afford health care and would not be able to if it were not for a clinic such as this. With that being said, RotaCare is also aware of the community they “host” and target, because if they didn’t, I do not think they would know how to combat and identify contributing factors to the population’s health and behavior.
Issues of race and class are always present whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. However, the great thing is that there is more than one way to respond to and discuss the issues of everyday racism, because, “The goal is not to figure out which people to blame, but rather to analyze precisely how various actors might help undo the disparity” (Pollock,pg.16).
