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PINKO
Registered: Aug 2000
Location: LfuckinA
Posts: 3350 |
 It's not necessarily racism...
Coming away from Gorilla Biscuit's thread on racism, I thought I'd branch off and give a bit of how I see it. I know I posted a bit in there about some of the experiences I've gone through. But the following is what finally got me thinking about this being a bit bigger. By the by, it was also after I finished writing this back in 97 that I truly came out and said, "Damnit, yes, I am a Pinko!"
Capitalism has made it this way. What will take it away?
With the rapid growing minority population and their high drop out rates, one must look for reasons to this problem. One of the main reasons for this is the institution of racism. In order to fully comprehend how this affects our children, we must first define racism. The old equation, prejudice plus power equals racism continues to reign true in today's society. However, we must look deeper and also at why racism is continually passed down through generations. Along with the reasons why it still exists, the educator must also find new ways of erasing the problem of racism.
The term racism is too broad to apply to the schooling system. It could mean racism against all minority groups or from minority groups, etc. We must look at it in terms of its relevance to schools today. Therefore, two specific forms that often overlap, institutional and individual racism shall be discussed. Institutional racism relies on the power of economics. It "is manifested through established laws, customs, and practices that reflect and produce racial inequalities in society" (Donaldson 15). The people with the economic power have the ability to lobby lawmakers into passing laws that keep the working class under control of the dollar. There is a need for institutional racism in order to maintain a large pool of cheap labor. Institutional racism is a form of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer. It is manifested in our schools today by ability tracking and inadequate school funding to those neighborhoods populated by a majority of minorities. This type of racism is often over looked because "it is very difficult for those who do not suffer such discrimination to understand the plight of the victims" (Donaldson 16). However, one way in which institutional racism can be uncovered is the use of ability tracking.
Ability tracking, under the guise of putting students in their ability levels, actually holds back a student's potential. Although these programs are supposed to focus on the student's own intellectual work, the academic level in which they are placed is often decided by culturally biased standardized tests. Students in these groups learn racism through a hidden curriculum in their often euro-centric texts. With this as their basis of learning, the minority students are prepared to "fail while it [the euro-centric curriculum and institutional racism] prepares the white students to succeed" (Donaldson 16). Yet another way to uncover institutional racism is to look at school funding.
School funding in areas heavily populated by minorities is much lower than that of the more upscale white neighborhoods. This does not allow for an equal education. The minority student goes to a school with less qualified teachers, textbooks with pages missing, and buildings in need of major repairs. For example, in the city of New York in 1987, the average expenditure per pupil was "$5,500 while in the suburbs of New York funding levels rose above $11,000, with the highest districts in the state at $15,000" (Donaldson 17). The schools in more affluent neighborhoods have more educational programs such as the arts and foreign languages while the inner-city schools struggle just to get through basic math. These students do not only suffer this grand-scale, underscored institutional racism, they also face individual racism from teachers and other students.
Individual racism often has its roots in institutional racism. The racism taught by the ones in power to the students passes on through generations when the students become the ones in power. The positive affects that it can have are that minority students who are actually able to break free and come into power can fight against the racism and oppression through education. However, the negative aspects are much greater in that the students who learn it will most likely pass it on. Individual racism is manifested through “individual bigotry, racial slurs, graffiti, violence, and biased instruction” (Donaldson 17). Often times, when acts of bigotry are reported across the nation’s schools, they tend to be dismissed as isolated incidents. In our schools today, individual racism is an hidden act manifested through harsher sanctions against minorities, more active attention to whites, euro-centric course materials, inequality of instruction time, and a list that can go on for pages (Donaldson 18). What are the reasons for these racist attitudes? How is it that racism can still be alive and flourishing in the United States today?
The answers to these questions are not easy and even educational researchers are divided amongst the reasons. One possible reason, according to conservative researchers is the “issue of educability of minorities” (McCarthy 4). With this idea, the victim is often to blame citing “pathological constructions of minority cognitive capacities, child-rearing practices, family structures, and linguistic styles” (McCarthy 5). Thinking along these lines puts the minority student into a group of trouble makers and deviants. It is also a rather racist view on racism in today’s schools. A better understood reason is the
neo-Marxist view that racism is caused by working class oppression. According to these researchers, “there is a structural relationship between a racially differentiated school curriculum and a discontinuous labor market” (McCarthy 5). Mainstream (conservative) researchers stress the causal role of values and individual agency. However, the neo-Marxists look at the relationship between schools and the economy’s need for certain types of labor. And while it makes sense to say that an end to oppression of the working class will end racism in schools, these researchers offer no plausible solution to the problem other than the dismantling of capitalism. However, the answer can be found in their very own research.
These liberal researchers tend to avoid looking at biological reasons as the only reason for this inequality in education. They place importance on the patterns of the social environments of both the minority and majority groups. Herein lies a possible solution, while looking at these two groups there is chance to find a common ground. Teaching of multicultural studies is important in colleges and universities and it should be in primary and secondary schools as well. Educators claim that many “minority youth were culturally deprived” (McCarthy 27). Children come from environments where they learn only a euro-centric education and lose their own heritage. What needs to be done is to educate students on all the cultures around them. “Teachers should be equipped to prepare all their children for life in a multi-racial society” (Gaine 164). Another part of the problem is that this statement does not hold true.
Many teachers come out of college with only the respect of the students in their classroom. The institutional racism that has been established, does not allow for a teacher to have very much say in changes affecting the entire school (Gaine 165). Teachers come out of college with fresh ideas but after time under the institutional racism, they change and become followers. They cannot express what they believe to be good ideas when they are still able to think without the “big brother” of capitalism watching them. In order to change racism in schools, what must happen is a change from the top to the bottom.
Institutional racism begets individual racism and for this reason, we must first change the institution. Schools are supposed to educate people, not laborers. Schools must stop thinking of their students as future doctors, lawyers, or laborers, and start looking at them as people. Currently, a school will use biased, standardized tests to place a minority student in an ability group that will prepare him for work as an auto-mechanic while he might want and have the potential to become a brain surgeon. An end to the racism of the institution against its own students will help to bring an end to individual racism. The educators must also be educated on the issue of race and culture. “Over half of the new entrants to the profession [teaching] have only trained as teachers for a year…having already taken degrees in their specialist subjects” (Gaine165). This is a problem because even though a good teacher needs to have mastery of the subject matter they teach, they are not fully trained to teach individuals. That is, they are trained to teach math, science, English and other subjects but are ill-equipped when it comes to teaching students to become non-racist members of society. An intensive course in multicultural studies should be part of the credential process, in which the student teacher does field-work with minority students. This solution, though not an easy one, may be the only way we can go. Education is the only way to put a stop to racism but when racism is present in education, it will never stop.
Works Cited
Donaldson, Karen B. McLean. Through Students' Eyes: Combating Racism in United States Schools. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1996.
Gaine, Chris. No Problem Here: A Practical Approach to Education and "Race" in White
Schools. London: Anchor Brendon Ltd., 1987.
McCarthy, Cameron. Race and Curriculum: Social Inequality and the Theories and Politics of Difference in Contemporary Research on Schooling. Philadelphia: Falmer Press, 1990.
__________________
"It is very easy to hate a Nazi, a guardian in a Gulag. But the real danger is not them. It is the decent people who compromise with evil." --Jacobo Timerman (Argentinian author)
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05-23-2002 05:43 AM
