“Race” you to graduation

What? Before our class last Monday I had never heard the phrase “race does not exist”. To me, it has always been something that just was. Upon reading this article and taking this class I was one of the students that would have said race is biological and not societal, but now I understand that race is just another way to categorize human beings. Pollock makes one of his main purposes distinctly defined by stating that, “Interactions in educational settings help build or dismantle racial “achievement gaps”’ (xviii, Pollock). In the classroom, there is an inherent stigma about a child’s academic abilities based on their race. Some examples are that all Asians are supposedly smart, or that black kids are dumb. The problem about this is that intelligence has nothing to do with race. Intelligence is a factor of the brain, and what it can easily and not so easily comprehend. The color of our skin has no real correlation to how our brain comprehends literature or how we understand calculus. Another problem of using race to define intelligence is that is places a generalized label on a race. So, if one student goes out of the norm of that racial group then they are viewed as an outlier or as abnormal just because they do not fit the basic criteria society has given that certain group of people.

Pollock also mentions that the advice to be “colorblind”, to “celebrate” other’s diversity, and to “recognize” theirs and our “race” is not as helpful as we think (xvii). To be colorblind means to ignore someone’s identity. Race may not be a scientifically backed construct, but it is something that people identify with and to ignore someone’s race it to ignore their identity and the experiences they have had in correlation to identifying with that race. Celebrating another’s racial diversity may make someone feel like a spectacle. Kind of like they are put on show at a carnival. A visual of this could be like the Ishi, who would be put on display so that people could come out and see the “wild man”. Acknowledging diversity has the potential to make others feel like the “wild man”.

Recognizing race also sets us apart from one another. It shows that I am not like you and you are not like me. In some retrospect self-identification is greatly acceptable, but to define oneself as white or not white is a problem, because it reinforces the idea that one race is superior or inferior to another.

So what? Using culture to explain why a child acts a certain way or succeeds in the classroom is harmful to a student and all other students of the same culture and cane allow them to systematically fail. One of Ladson-Billings students blamed black children being loud in the classroom on their culture. She then asked her students if she thought that the children might have been loud simply because they are children, and it dawned on her student that that may be the actual reason. Children tend to be loud, it is their nature. It’s not because it is part of their “black culture”. The student’s excuse of culture reinforces institutionalized racism, without using the term “race”. Saying culture sounds so much nicer than race, but culture often comes with the race you identify with and that leads to people basing their opinions of you on your skin tone rather than something like age. It is beneficial for to be treated as racial group members when the time calls for it. An example would be during Black History month. The black community strongly relates to the history that month celebrates, because that is their history and it shows the struggles their ancestors have gone through. An example of hindering a person by identifying someone as a racial group member is the travel ban Trump has put in action. He is banning Muslims from the country, and apparently Muslims look a certain way so if you look like that then you are a Muslim. This is a problem because not all Muslims are brown with facial hair or a woman wearing a hijab. It unreasonable to think that we can put someone in a group and judge them based on what group we think they belong to when we do not even know them at all.

Now what? At my community partner, Ritter House, I have not really witnessed any form of acting “colorblind” or “celebrating” another’s diversity. The people that work there are just there to do their part for the people that come in asking for our services. There is not one main racial group of people that Ritter House chooses to serve. Whoever comes in and fills out a form is welcome to the food pantry. The hardest part of beginning a courageous conversation would be to just give someone the opportunity to talk about race. There is a lot of tension and animosity behind the conversation of race that can really offend a person. Being uncomfortable is something that will happen no matter what when a discussion of race is brought up. To be successful in that we have to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, and that phrase in itself sounds impossible. If someone were to try to have a racial discussion at my community partner I would be open to it. I don’t really see it going wrong, but I also don’t really see any conversation like that happening, because the people that come to Ritter House are there for the food and the company of the community they have built with the other homeless of San Rafael. They have created their own family no matter their race. They have experiences that each other can relate to, and that is where their bond is the strongest.