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