Racism, and the overwhelming idea of culture

WHAT?: What defines racism is not mainly defined by the perspective you portray individuals as, but by the actions that come along with it, and how frequent these actions persist. Racism is the stereotypical view of other races that involves the thought that your race is superior, and all other races you find unpleasant are looked upon as inferior. A less serious version would be stereotypical jokes, which all humans use from time to time so technically we all are unconsciously racist. If an individual is being racist, the intention is always to either jokingly degrade, or seriously degrade the other individual. In previous years, the serious degrade always followed negative actions, which were highly directed to the African American,Chinese, and Mexican communities that were in the United States. Serious acts of racism were revolved around the African American population, and some examples are slavery, and also lynching. All of this racist information leads to the problem with using culture in our education system, which promotes ideas about failure in every aspect. Ladson-billing in It’s Not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture, states, “ the problem of culture in teaching is not merely one of exclusion. It is also one of overdetermination. What I mean by this is that culture is randomly and regularly used to explain everything”(104). What Billing means by this is by any problems that persist in our school system which range from school behavior, discipline and failure, all of these tie into the culture of the student. An example would be how teachers immediately portray African American students. They believe just because of the color of their skin, it validates the reason why they are behaving badly. What teachers fail to realize are the other social economic factors that may come into place such as “is the student depressed because of their economic status” or “ is the student loud and obnoxious since they are 9 years old?”. The reason culture is a bad way to classify situations is because culture is not a good reason to define a students performance in anything, since many other factors could be a contribution.

SO WHAT?: the first thing Billings wanted us to do was give prospective teachers an opportunity to interact with children and adolescents in non-school settings. I can definitely learn lots about culture with my experience at CCCSF. Although CCCSF is a cultural program revolved around the hispanic culture, it is still open to kids all around the community of all cultures. I believe that the more I continue to go to CCCSF, the more I will contradict my own cultural and beliefs, and will ultimately change how I view individuals. Billings quotes “As they begin to recognize the cultural underpinnings of their own beliefs, attitudes, and practices, they may become more open to the power of culture to shape the learning and experiences of the students they will teach” (109).

NOW WHAT?: I feel even outside of CCCSF I have always celebrated the idea of cultural diversity. There are certain situations when treating people as a racial group that help such as comfortability. Having a group of people with similar interests and the same race can be a huge benefit towards happiness and can also create lasting friendships. The bad thing about having racial groups could be that one group recognizes their differences as superior to others. If students were to ever have questions about race to me, such as why are hispanics portrayed as not being able to read, I will tell them that the color of your skin does not define your potential as a student. What defines your potential is the amount of work you are willing to put to get to where you wanna be.