Greetings from Nowhere Accurate Racial Education Matters

i grew up relatively privileged

there’s my neighborhood this was the

park where i used to run

and this is my high school the 25th best

high school in the state of georgia

according to niche.com not everyone has

a grade over there

but a lot of kids are just like me

meaning privilege

i loved it there to be honest i had a

lot of fun my last two years in high

school

but like any place in america where

there is a lot of privilege

of course you guessed it racism messed

it up

the summer after my junior year of high

school i thought it would be funny to

take a picture with a confederate flag

as like a sticking it to the man kind of

event

turns out it wasn’t and after the flurry

of internet hate

i was left thinking how is it that i’m

16 been in school for 12 years

no one feel the pain of racism every day

and yet still don’t understand

really how it works or what i can do to

change it

today i want to answer that question and

in the process i hope to eliminate

a few things that we need to change

about the way we teach race

in public schools and make some

suggestions on how we can do just that

in 1975 john he williams deborah l bess

and donna a boswell updated the

preschool

racial attitude measurement a test

constructed to detect racial bias in

preschool-aged children

in their landmark research they found

that ingrid racial bias could be found

in students as young as three or four

years

old and that anti-black discrimination

could be found in a disproportionate

amount of students regardless of race

in fact later research by francis abu

and annabeth doyle

and more recently in research from the

university of toronto and in an

updated version of the preschool racial

attitude measure known as the racial

attitudes

index found that in-group racial bias

could be found in

infants as young as six to nine months

old they also found that

in elementary school children racial

bias peaks around the age of six

before falling to a stable level by

around the age of nine

there’s a lot going on in a child’s mind

during this time

and our k-12 education system is

designed to complement this development

and shape it in a positive direction

how then do our schools teach about race

and racial bias

at a time when students are constructing

their racial identity

and later when they have a more firm

understanding of it and are learning to

live in the world with this knowledge

let’s take a look in early elementary

schools students learn for the first

time

about the declaration of independence

our civil rights heroes

the virtue of equality and how in this

country we celebrate our cultural

differences

later we learn about segregation and the

civil war

and how we often fail to live up to

these ideals

the main message broadcast to elementary

school students

about race can be summed up in this

single statement

even though we don’t always treat each

other as equals it’s important to

remember that we are still

all equal well once students understand

this

there is a natural next question which

would be

why don’t we treat each other as equals

this is where the problems begin

instead of answering that question in

middle school and high school

we learn about slavery and abolition

segregation

jim crow and the civil rights struggle

all important history

but what we do not learn or even discuss

is how racism affects us in this country

every day today we don’t talk about the

codification of white values into our

legal and academic systems

or even explain what white privilege

means we don’t talk about the

ramifications of the gi bill

or the federal housing act or redlining

on who could and couldn’t build

generational wealth in this country

we don’t talk about the war on drugs or

coin cell probe

or our medical system’s inability to

adequately serve black areas

and it’s not that this question why

don’t we treat each other as equals

doesn’t have answers as i just listed a

small sample of

there are several specific identifiable

and tangible levers that continue to

perpetuate racism in this country

and it’s not that these levers are

difficult to comprehend either

for example let’s take a look at how i

came to learn about the prison

industrial complex

my freshman year of high school i was

listening to kanye west’s six studio

album jesus

in between claiming to be god several

times

on the song newsletters kanye raps

meanwhile the dea

teamed up with the cca they trying to

lock up they trying to make new

slaves i didn’t know the cca was

but it took me all the five minutes to

go on rap genius found a short article

from the american civil liberties union

and have a pretty basic understanding of

the prison industrial complex

i wanted to talk to my friends about it

but they didn’t know the cca was either

so i went to some of the adults in my

life hoping that they would know more

and guess what they didn’t

that’s not to say they didn’t know

something was wrong with the prison

system they knew something was up

they could even tell you that the

problem was racialized but what they

could not tell you were the details

of how race and the prison system were

together

they couldn’t tell you how racism and

incarceration were intertwined

this shadowy abstract understanding of

racism is a state that few americans

grow out of

we know racism is a problem we know it

exists but

we don’t really know how it works or how

we perpetuate it

and here’s a problem with this for black

people and other people of color

being denied an understanding of racism

denies us the opportunity to effectively

fight against it and even worse it keeps

us from knowing how to cope with the

pain that racism causes

when we internalize it for white people

it prevents them from understanding

something they may never experience

themselves or even actively discourage

from experiencing

and yet continues to exist and rip apart

our society

even worse without ever understanding

what causes racism

and after years without seeing or

feeling its effects there’s a growing

number of white adults who don’t think

that racism exists

and we have data on this in a

longitudinal study from umam

jayakumar published in the harvard

educational review researchers found

that the belief that racial bias is no

longer a major factor in the united

states today

sees a 10 increase in white adults in

the first six years

out of college this increases reserve

regardless of the amount of diversity

experienced

to these adults during their time in

early childhood or in college

in another study from tufts university

and the harvard business school

researchers found a gap in the way that

black and white adults perceive racial

discrimination

among white adults there is a strong

correlation between

a decrease in anti-black discrimination

and an increase in

anti-white discrimination as if

discrimination is the zero-sum game

where

a decrease on one end necessitates an

increase on the other

this is a result of a lack of

understanding of what causes racism

mixed with the more public efforts made

to mitigate

structural racism the result

a minority but notable group of white

adults who believe

that efforts to curb structural racism

in this country

are overcompensating and have begun to

discriminate against

white people i can go over many

other ramifications of this way of

thinking but

for the sake of brevity let’s just think

about one

this may i’ll be graduating with 1600

other brilliant minds

they’ll go on to lead companies and make

world-changing discoveries and

be the force behind countless positive

innovations they’ll work as political

scientific social and spiritual leaders

wherever they end up

and their professional opinions will

hold weight in matters that will affect

thousands if not millions of people for

the vast majority of my classmates

their race education ended with the

incomplete curriculum presented to them

during their time in k-12 education

these leaders will be running for

political office filing lawsuits

writing legislation and voting on topics

that require some baseline knowledge

of the system of race and power in the

united states today

a baseline knowledge they do not have of

based on knowledge that was kept from

them

there’s a reason that federal local and

state governments continue

to pass policy that perpetuates

structural racism

there’s a reason that it took until the

year 2020 for city united states to even

attempt

creating a reparations plan for its

black residents there’s a reason that it

took the lawsuit against harvard over

affirmative action over five

years to eventually get shut down as

long as our education system keeps us in

the dark about the details of racial

oppression

we are powerless to effectively fight

against it

after the events of this summer i saw a

lot of this on social media

and i applaud you for stepping out of

your comfort zone it’s important to

continue to learn about race and

how it works in this country so lucky

for you

i have some things everyone can start

doing right now to start combating

racism

first for families and educators i

challenge you to begin to brush up on

resources that explain

what racism is and how it works is start

teaching your students what racism is

how it came to be and how it is

perpetuated

a quick google search will help you find

resources but some that i would suggest

include facing history.org the concept

of race

ibram x kennedy’s how to be anti-racist

and pbs’s race

the power of illusion remember that

there isn’t some elixir to not being

racist

not being racist means making non-racist

choices every day

and this baseline knowledge is the

necessary roadmap needed to make those

decisions

the earlier in your students lives that

they have this roadmap

the more natural making the right

decision will feel

second for my students 8 9

10 11 12 13 14.

don’t settle for half-baked answers on

racial questions if something doesn’t

make sense to you

ask do your own research be respectful

be curious but most of all don’t let

anyone disrespect your intellect

they’re a lot more perceptive than a lot

of adults like to give you credit for

and it’s important that you don’t let

that be stifled

finally for my education policy makers

for those in charge of designing

curricula

it means anyone from the good people the

college board to

local politicians and school board

members to even mr miguel cordona

my plea to use to take a serious look at

the way race and power

are intertwined in this country and

begin to integrate that understanding

into curricula and testing requirements

ultimately any changes we make to the

way we teach kids about race in this

country

aren’t your hands it’s important that we

do a better job with the next generation

than we’ve done with ourselves

like any problem racism won’t go away if

we just don’t look at it

so let’s stop using that strategy and

let’s teach our kids to do the same

thank you