I have always been a nerdy lover of books. Gigi, my super cute grandma, used to take me to the library every summer so that I could gather up a collection of books and read until I was rewarded with a fine, shiny medal, which I proudly wore.
At 22 years old, I still like to go to the library (or my friendly Amazon.com) to gather up a collection of books to read. The reward I claim is even better than a shiny medal. I gain insight into my world, myself, and everything in between.
And sometimes the reward, i.e. the insight, is a little bittersweet. In my reading today, I learned—or rather I learned to recognize—something slightly disturbing about myself: I often act from a sense of entitlement.
Why did it take me 22 years to figure this out? Because I grew up totally believing in equal opportunity and equal rights and all that American jazz. So for 22 years I’ve been making up excuses about why I “deserve” preferential treatment.
This is something the author of my Uprooting Racism book, Paul Kivel, taught me about myself. He lists a number of excuses in the book that I admit I have absolutely felt before:
1. I am better educated
2. I have more experience
3. I am more rational
4. My time is more valuable
5. I worked hard to get where I am
6. They probably don’t need as much to live on
7. I don’t actually have direct contact with them so I am not responsible
8. I need to get there on time
9. I’m doing more important things (this is my personal addition to his list)
These kinds of excuses are just the foundation of persistent inequality in our society. Most of us would never stand in a long line, see a person of color and think: “Because I’m white, I should be able to cut him/her.” We live in the twenty-first century.
But recognizing that we think in these more subtle terms of entitlement, as listed above, is almost worse because they’re so hard to be conscious of if they’re not brought to our attention. And furthermore, it’s kind of embarrassing to admit that we may think this way sometimes.
This sense of entitlement is a very surreptitious way of manifesting our latent beliefs that people really are unequal. I don’t mean in the sense of socioeconomics or politics (we all know that’s the case). I mean this sense of entitlement reveals a hidden belief that people are unequal at the human being level.
Let me paint a slightly humiliating picture. The time when my feeling of entitlement is most noticeable is when I’m in the car and I am in a serious hurry to get somewhere. If I’m in a hurry to get somewhere, it is obviously somewhere important that I need to be. So typically, I get extremely frustrated (and frustrated is a euphemism) when other people get in my way, go below or at the speed limit, or just look at me.
My thoughts, which are peppered with expletives I won’t write out, follow these lines: “Why the hell are you in the fast lane when you’re going the speed limit?” “I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE!” “DEAR GOD, YOU SHOULDN’T BE DRIVING!” “I don’t have all day, and you clearly don’t have anywhere to be.” “WHY ARE YOU ON THE ROAD?!”
And my actions follow these lines: I weave in and out of cars. I tail cars that won’t yield to me. I throw up my hands in the air to signal my frustration so they can see. I speed past people when they finally move over and then I glare hard core.
All of these thoughts and actions are just the manifestation of me thinking I deserve the road more than anyone else because I “have somewhere to be,” automatically assuming that no one else does because they’re not as important as I am.
That’s hard to admit, and I’m definitely not thinking that explicitly when I act or think that way. But we really do rarely look at the root of the reasons we say or do things. Beneath the superficial reasons, there is usually a much bigger reason for the way we act than we’re willing to admit.
But if we can come forward, see where we err—even when it is incredibly embarrassing in retrospect (like my road rage)—we can really begin to address the ways in which the culture of power is ingrained in us. That culture of power is characterized by a sense of entitlement at the expense of others.
Am I going to be an angel every time I drive in my car, even and especially when I’m late and in a hurry to get somewhere that is important to me, now that I recognize what my actions mean? Probably not likely. But I will certainly be more conscious and aware of what my actions imply about my beliefs.
It was the great Mahatma Gandhi that wisely said:
 Just the cutest, sweetest face I've ever seen. | Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.
| Fortunately, all of these things are in our control. With practice and dedication we can be and become exactly who we want to be.
I’m reading an excellent book right now called Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, by Paul Kivel. As you can imagine, the book is about the way in which white people benefit from our racist society, what the implications of being a person of color are, and how white people can really grapple with issues rather than stare, dumbfounded, at them. The other day, I was having a discussion with a group of people about—you guessed it—racial inequality. I was railing on about white privilege and the injustices that plague this country until one of the group members shrugged his shoulders, held up his hands, and said, “I’m not denying that any of that exists, but what am I supposed to do about it? I’m going to be an engineer. I have no say in these things.” I opened my mouth and said something to say something, but his question was actually thought-provoking, honest, and at the same time extremely saddening. Okay, I thought, so maybe people aren’t born to be activists for the rest of their lives. My friend is going to be an engineer, and let’s be real: most engineers don’t take up social activism on the side. So his question about what he was supposed to do to address issues of race and class in this country was legitimate—especially for someone who doesn’t study this stuff for fun (like I do…because I’m real fun). Moreover his question indicates a genuine (and expectable) misunderstanding about the root causes of social injustice. In America, because we are a materialistic society, we think about social justice in terms of resources allocation—the distribution of wealth, resources, social positions, jobs, etc. When we think of socioeconomic equality, we think about fettering out goods, services and money in a more equal way. Thinking in these terms is problematic for a couple reasons: 1. By thinking of social justice as the more equal distribution of certain resources, we take ourselves out of the picture. We think like this: As your normal, middle class white girl or boy, what could I possibly do about the allocation of resources? Isn’t that the government’s job? Isn’t that the job of big-time organizations and lobbies that focus on this stuff?
2. Associating justice exclusively with the distribution of wealth and resources misses a huge component of socioeconomic inequality: domination and oppression. Domination and oppression manifest themselves in the institutions that those in power—white middle and upper class Americans—create and maintain in the U.S. They are the results of age-old prejudices against people that are historically and presently perceived as “different” from what is white, male, and Christian. Here lies the answer about what we simpletons can do to address the issues of racism in this country: we can acknowledge that domination and oppression exist not just in the faceless “system” but in everyday social interactions that occur within the institutions we comprise. We—every single one of us, no matter whom we are or what we plan to do with our lives—can do something about racism in this country. It begins with recognizing that we have indeed crafted a culture of power and understanding what that culture’s message is to excluded groups. If we have the power to oppress we certainly have the power to stop. More on this later. Cheers!
I had a conversation with someone the other day about racism in America, because, frankly, if I’m around a person (or group of people) for more than an hour, I will start proselytizing about social justice. It’s what I do.
But the more I do “proselytize,” the more daunting the whole agent-of-social-change thing becomes. I don’t know if it’s because I live in Oklahoma or if the lack of racial diversity in Norman, Oklahoma, where I am currently residing, has anything to do with it, but any mention of White Privilege or systemic racism and I get snide comments, complete apathy, or a roll of the eyes.
Suddenly, because I care about equality and about reversing the systemic socioeconomic stratification of our society, I am a “radical.” That title alone prevents me from being taken seriously at all by some leftwing groups and individuals and by most if not all “moderate” or right of moderate groups and individuals.
Why does my unwavering passion for justice make me a “radical” when the very reason we created this nation was because “all men are created equal” and because a government should protect their “unalienable rights” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
(I get it that our dear Founding Fathers really weren’t talking about black people or Native Americans when they wrote those words but I think it’s safe to say that if they lived in this day and age, they would be. They were pretty progressive guys.)
The other day in class another incidence occurred whereby my peers surprised me by deeming me a “radical.” We were discussing—off topic, I’ll admit—the purpose of primary and secondary education in America in a small group of about five of us. Education in America is my thing—my obsession, as I’m sure you can tell if you read this blog. Therefore, when one of my peers said that the exclusive purpose of education was to prepare kids for college and/or the labor market, I jumped on him.
No, no, no, I said. The real and primary purpose of education in America is the ideological homogenization of students and the deliberate socioeconomic stratification of society based on class and race.
As soon as the words left my mouth, each of their faces contorted in this look of disgust and fury. They threw their arms up and lashed back:
"WHAT?"
"NO!"
"You’re a radical!"
"That’s a bit extreme…"
"You should probably leave the country if that’s the way you feel."
I was slightly taken aback at how vehement—and unified—their responses were. We weren’t in a science or math class, where students don’t really study society and therefore probably don’t learn much about it unless they make an extra effort. We were in a political science class that studies religion and the constitution. These people are supposed to have some idea of the way the world, let alone this country, really works.
Why, then, should it come as any kind of shocking surprise that the world isn’t as neat and fair as we’d like it to be? More importantly, why is even a mention of this idea so outlandish and radical that the entire issue was brushed aside as irrelevant and unworthy of discussion altogether?
The lack of a critical attitude toward our society and the apathy so many people have for the injustices they know exist is disheartening, to say the least.
In moments like these, I turn inward—to my roommate next door who does understand or to my boyfriend who does understand—so that I can forget that there are so many people who just don’t understand and don’t care to. But this in itself is detrimental because when I go back to the real world and discuss these issues with everyday people, I’m just unpleasantly surprised and even more frustrated at how backward mainstream mentality is.
Happy Monday, everybody.
The First Amendment to the Constitution provides for us one of the clearest examples of what our Founding Fathers wanted for this country. And perhaps even more than the First Amendment itself, but the history behind the making of it tells a grand story about our Founders’ values and hopes for their new nation.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and the petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
That collection of rights was deemed by the Founding Fathers to be the most important of all rights that the government is obligated to protect. Each of these rights, furthermore, gets to the heart of what is most central to the development of humanity: “what Justice Jackson termed the ‘sphere of intellect and spirit’”. This sphere is “at or near the heart of what makes us human. The protection of that sphere against unwarranted intrusion represents the most fundamental of all human liberties” (Galston, 2003, p. 127).
Why is it, then, that our public schools are allowed to be the premiere locus for government entanglement in the sphere of intellect and spirit?
The fact that the first priority of the Founding Fathers is preventing any establishment of religion and preventing the prohibition of religious free exercise reveals two things: 1) the Founders were terrified of a government controlled by religion; 2) the Founders wanted religions to flourish because man’s first duty is “to his Creator.”
The truth of the matter is, though, that our Constitution must adapt with the times. Religiosity, secularism, humanism, environmentalism, veganism, etc.—each of these is a manifestation of the intellectual and spiritual realm.
With the promotion of secularism in American institutions, so many life philosophies have sprung from it that take the place of deistic religions. The Constitution must adapt to this phenomenon in our society.
By forcing public schools to adopt a strictly secularist (and by that I mean non-religious) approach to education, we seriously restrict what students can and should learn. Moreover, we limit parents’ freedom to choose what their children should learn in schools.
Increasingly secularized public schools completely belie the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses in the First Amendment, because the government chooses to advance and support a specific intellectual/spiritual matter at the expense of what parents may deem far more important, necessary and preferable.
I strongly believe that the only way to uphold the values of the Founding Fathers is to privatize education and let our institutions reflect and respect the pluralistic nature of this nation. Homogenizing society was never one of the Founders’ values.
If we’re going to discuss education, we cannot leave out the family. Students are children first, which means they aren’t born in a classroom, they’re born into families. The family forms the first environment in which a young child develops. One of my dearly beloved professors and I have wonderful debates on a weekly basis about social justice and education—because I make him have these debates with me, and he kindly obliges (probably secretly rolling his eyes when I walk through the door). In my last post, I discussed the issue of teacher quality and the lack of strategies established at the state and federal level to consistently recruit, teach and develop excellent educators. But my professor decided to rail me in our discussion, insisting that, essentially, teachers are only half the story. Parents, he fervently asserted, parents are part of, if not the root of, the reason for students’ lack of achievement. While there is no doubt evidence that family environments have a crucial impact on a child’s cognitive and non-cognitive development, I think a concerted and genuine effort to bridge the gap between parents and educators can help to mitigate the challenges that parents and children from lower-income communities face. This requires incorporating social justice classes into teacher education, first and foremost. What often happens among white, middle class teachers is the otherization of parents from lower classes. This kind of otherization is, I believe, the result of a grave misunderstanding—a misunderstanding that is rooted in the fallacious meritocratic theory of success. When teachers harbor this kind of misconception of the “other,” i.e. parents from lower classes, they not only marginalize those parents further but they also maintain an ideology within the classroom that marginalizes those parents’ children. There is a serious and detrimental lack of cultural synchronization between teacher and child, and teacher and parent. Too often parents are dismissed as negligent or are perceived as not caring about their child’s success. This kind of assertion teems with misunderstanding and prejudice. For parents from the working class, caring about their child’s academic success—whether they’re doing well on tests, turning in their homeworking, behaving in class as the teacher demands, learning the essentials—is often not feasible in the way many educators would like. Not all parents have the time to check their child’s homework, study with their children for their tests, or give them a quiet room in which they can do their work. Many of these parents work multiple jobs, work the night shift, and/or just don’t have the resources. Furthermore, too many parents—especially those that come from lower-income communities—don’t understand the inherent value of school because they didn’t experience it. Many parents’ aspirations for their children are to land a job out of high school so they can contribute to the family income. Too many parents have been jaded by the system that has oppressed them—a system that is so ingrained into the fabric of American life that they don’t even think to fight it. The issue is so much bigger than just parents. I would venture to say that a tiny fraction of parents actually don’t care about their children. The majority just doesn’t have the time, the resources, or the hope that education will be their ticket out of poverty. The bigger issue—and the issue that future and current teachers alike absolutely must understand—is that our country and the institutional and social structures that comprise it are riddled with racism and classism, which ensures that people of color and the poor are locked out of middle class privileges. If our teachers learn only pedagogical methods in school and fail to learn and comprehend the social workings of this country (which seems like the very thing a school in conservative Oklahoma would leave out) then they are only half qualified (if even) for the profession. We cannot blame the oppressed for their own oppression.
I was fortunate to have mostly excellent teachers during my primary and secondary schooling. I went to private Catholic schools from pre-school to fifth grade, and therefore I was practically guaranteed a great education. I moved to a public school—one of the best ones in the state—in sixth grade and was fortunately placed on a more advanced track. My teachers, once again, were experienced, passionate and excellent. It wasn’t until seventh grade, when the public elementary schools around the district combined into one giant middle school building, and my mother had less of a say regarding which class I was placed in, that I experienced what it was like to have a teacher that taught me virtually nothing. In fact, that year, there were a few. My stories of these teachers, which I relayed to my mother, compelled her to pull me out of public school the next year and put me back into a private school, where she could rest assured I’d get top quality education—in every classroom in which I sat. When I went back to public school in high school, the teachers I had were exceptional. But once again, I was placed on the highest academic track offered. Since I was going to a school located in a wealthy suburban area, those teachers were unsurprisingly top notch. But think about how many teachers you had that taught you next to nothing, or had such low standards for you that school seemed to be a joke. If this country is to maintain a public education system—which I fervently oppose but will go along with for now—the national standard for teachers cannot remain where it is. More experienced teachers are far more likely “to concentrate in schools in which working conditions are easier” (Tooley). This also means that within a single school, the more experienced teachers will teach those students on higher academic tracks, ensuring that lower-academically tracked students will suffer the consequences of poorer quality teachers. I witnessed this in my own grade-A public school. There should not be such a huge disparity between the best and the worst teachers, but that there is isn’t surprising considering the facts. For one, becoming a teacher is not considered by American society to be a “prestigious” profession, like becoming a doctor, lawyer, or engineer is. This seems counterintuitive considering that teachers are the ones that make people eligible for these professions. OECD countries that scored the highest on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests—such as China, Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada—have much more focused, intentional and systematic methods of recruiting excellent students to become teachers. Such a strategy is utterly lacking in the United States on a national or state level. Perhaps even more importantly, the standard that students of education must meet to become teachers is abysmally low. The following statistics come from a research brief by Breakthrough Collaborative: · Only 23% of U.S. teachers come from the top third of the academic pool.
· Only 7% of public school teachers graduated from selective colleges.
· Only 14% of education majors had SAT or ACT scores in the top quartile, as compared to 26% of social sciences majors and 37% of math/science majors.
These statistics may give the impression that teaching is not an intellectually demanding profession, but such a notion couldn’t be further from the truth. Teachers are constantly required to adapt their plans; they must have exceptional communication skills; they must understand how the cognitive and non-cognitive development of a person works; they have to be organized and undaunted by pressure; they must have a breadth of knowledge in pedagogical methods for diverse learners; and they must have a deep social-cultural understanding of different races, ethnicities and religions.
While I fully agree that teachers are not paid half as much as they should be for all the work they must put in to be good and effective educators, becoming a teacher is a privilege. Becoming a teacher means having a first and direct impact on the next generation—on the future of this country and the world. Becoming a teacher means being endowed with the opportunity to change the trajectory of a person’s life.
Like being a brain surgeon, teaching is not a profession to take lightly. There are brilliant teachers that work in the most difficult public schools, teaching kids with the highest need. They aren’t compensated monetarily—and this is a huge flaw in the system—but they see their students’ success as compensation enough to continue putting in the effort to be great. These are the teachers that understand what it means to be a teacher and where the reward in this profession lies.
If education has been deemed so important as to provide it freely for all children ages five to 18 and, furthermore, to mandate it, how is it possible that we do not take the recruitment, education and professional development of future teachers more seriously?
Poor quality teachers are one of the greatest injustices afforded to students, because a great teacher can compensate for a lack of material resources. As we think about the reformation of education, we must remember that our teachers are the foundational first step in the creation of a vibrant and thriving economy, society and world.
Bibliography
The Alchemy of Effectiveness: The Path from High Potential Candidates to Highly Effective Teachers. Research Brief, Breakthrough Collaborative, Breakthrough Collaborative, 2011.
Tooley, James, Kenneth R. Howe, and Harry Brighouse. Educational Equality. Edited by Graham Haydon. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010.
The students that stood on that stage in front of the rest of the graduating class, indeed, would be top students during their four-year college careers. We were the ones that would go on to become doctors, engineers, architects, educators, law school students, and dentists, to name a few. Our schooling experience had been specifically designed to put us ahead of everyone else. It had set us up to be leaders and to be far more successful than the average student.
For the fractional top percent of students in high schools around the country, the tracking system can be a saving grace. But, meanwhile, the vast majority of students that are not on the highest academic track are being denied critical educational opportunities. They are asked to meet a standard that falls far short of excellence. This is not to say that students on lower academic tracks cannot succeed academically in college or in their careers. They absolutely can—and do. But these are exceptional cases. The question is this: Why do we let some faceless bureaucratic institution decide which children are worthy of high investment and which ones are not? Think like a parent: You have a child that you love and adore with all your heart. He is, after all, a part of you. You have placed him in what you know to be a good public school just outside your neighborhood. You know that your Johnny is a smart, smart boy. He asks questions, he is articulate, and he always says he wants to be a pilot (Johnny has an obsession with airplanes). But Johnny has real difficulty sitting still and focusing on one task, let alone taking long, standardized tests. He also gets into trouble in class pretty often because he’s a talker. He’s probably not the best reader, you know that, but you also know he’s smart enough to become an excellent reader. His best subject is math, but because he’s not great at taking long tests, he often scores poorly on his math tests. But you know he understands the material. He just needs practice with his work ethic and focus. When presented with the option of whether you’d like to place your son on the lower or higher academic track, what do you choose? Do you choose to lower the standards so that he does well with ease? Or do you choose to raise the standards so that he is challenged and forced to learn more? Unfortunately, it isn’t your choice. And most likely, Johnny will be placed on a lower academic track. For those persistent parents that do know how the system works, there may be a chance that they have more of a say. But ultimately the decision that will dictate your child’s future is made by that faceless bureaucratic institution. The fact of the matter is that “there is overwhelming research evidence that tracking students by ability has no educational benefit for students and in fact is deleterious to academic achievement, extracurricular participation, self-concept, peer relationships, career aspirations and motivation” ( Black Students and School Failure, Irvine, p. 10). Despite all the evidence against its benefit, tracking still functions as a means of differentiating education in our public schools. There is no doubt, and empirical evidence proves, that all people are endowed with different strengths and weaknesses. The tracking system, however, does not differentiate on this basis. If this were the case, schools would group students by these strengths and weaknesses so that they were in classes that catered to them. Instead of differentiating the means and methods of educating students based on their strengths and weaknesses, schools differentiate based on the standards applied to those students. The end result is that the graduating class comprises students on the stage, who are starting college with a college-level educational background; and students on the floor, who barely made it through high school or just breezed by, and lack critical skills they’ll need if they even go to college. And that’s not to mention those students—about 100 out of my initial class of around 800—that drop out entirely and never graduate. I can’t help but think that our education system in America is built to perpetuate and worsen the widening gap between rich and poor, white and people of color. This is the reality—that the increasing achievement gaps in education reflect the growing disparity in our nation as a whole. The statistics, the data, the evidence are all there, but absolutely nothing that addresses the root of the issue is being done. I’m convinced there is a lack of action for a reason.
When we moved into a real house for the first time, my mother was determined that we should live in the district of the best public school around. And so we did.
For two years, I went to public school before my mother became dissatisfied and sent me, once again, to a private school. I stayed there for a year and a half before money got really tight and I was forced to go back to my public school in the middle of my sophomore year. But having come from all the best schools, and having a mother who was very much involved in my school experience, I was unquestionably placed on the advanced track.
While my other peers were learning how to get by, I was learning how to write college-level essays. While they were bored in class, my teachers constantly challenged me. While they were locked in a classroom culture that devalued achievement, I was surrounded by students with ambition and motivation. While my other peers were expected to pass, I was expected to excel.
I graduated in the top two percent of my class of over 700 students. On the stage of my high school graduation, where all the top students sat, were the same students that had been plucked by the system and placed on the advanced track.
One of the most fundamental problems with the tracking system in primary and secondary education is that it systematically creates and maintains our stratified society. This system deems some students worthy of the best education and some students worthy of the worst. It challenges some students to exceed what is expected of them, and it limits other students to achieve the bare minimum. The immediate implications of this tracking system are that only a fraction of the students that graduate are ready for college. The medium-term implications are that the standard in colleges, specifically state universities, becomes lowered because so great a percentage of the students don’t have the basic skills necessary for college-level success. To compound the problem, people of color and the poor tend to be placed on the lowest academic tracks. For example, black students, “ particularly black male students, are three times as likely to be in class for the educable mentally retarded as are white students, but only one-half as likely to be in class for the gifted or talented” ( Black Students and School Failure, Irvine, p. 11). Researchers have concluded that “ two-thirds or more of high-ability, high [socioeconomic status] students were in the academic track, but only one-half of the high-ability, low [socioeconomic status] students were enrolled in the academic track” (11). This is an example of the re-segregation taking place in schools today, in which students of color are placed on different academic tracks because of pervasive, conscious and/or subconscious racist beliefs of their inferiority. The immediate impact of the tracking system in primary and secondary education is displayed in college enrollment and dropout rates. In 2010, 60.5 percent of white students enrolled in college, compared to a mere 14.5 percent of black students, 13 percent of Hispanic students, 6.1 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander students, and .9 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native students. Moreover, many of those students of color that do make it to college find that they are not prepared—academically, financially or socially—for college. Only 20.4 percent of black students, 27.9 percent of Hispanic students, and 21.8 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native students graduated from college in 2008. The graduation rates for Asian/Pacific Islander and white students were 45 percent and 41.1 percent, respectively. Programs with a mission to equalize education are not enough. They are a painkiller rather than an antibiotic. The problem is much deeper, much more complex and far too multi-faceted for certain ingredients in the prescription to make any real, lasting difference. Our schools need holistic reformation. It is more than just misallocation or unfair distribution of resources in the education system. There is something else going on—something far more intentional than we’d like to believe. We must realize our education system is actively promoting hierarchies based on racial and ethnic discrimination while hiding behind the glossy shield of programs with “good intentions.”
My mother experienced a setback—a teen mom with no education above a high school diploma, she would seemingly be relegated to menial jobs.
But she wasn’t. She was swooped up by a law firm that wanted a beautiful, young girl to serve as its secretary. The pay wasn’t great, but it was steady and salaried. She wasn’t excited to go to work every day, but she wasn’t miserable. And she was still imbued with the values of the middle class: go to school, climb the social ladder. Since she didn’t get the opportunity, her daughter would.
It was a financial struggle, but she sent me to the best schools in our state—starting at age two. I went through private schools from pre-school through fifth grade. In the meantime, our family had grown. She had married for a short time and had a second daughter, almost six years younger than me. Not long after, she got divorced, then later married a young Mexican man who didn’t have even a high school education. In no time, they had two more girls, ten and eleven years younger than me.
So many of us have stories of our parents or grandparents carrying themselves from rags to riches, or at least from rags to something much better. They are powerful stories of struggle and hardship, and they are sources of many families’ well-deserved pride. Manuel, my stepfather, came to the U.S. when he was just 17 years old. He didn’t know more than “hello” when he got here, and even still today, though he is fluent in English, he can’t spell a thing to save his life. He learned English on the fly while he lived in Texas, but it was a struggle to gain respect from his peers. They were unkind to the Mexican boy that couldn’t speak English. He became one of the nearly 45 percent of Hispanic students that do not graduate from high school. He is a quintessential example of the vulnerability of first-generation Hispanic immigrants. I met Manuel when he was just twenty-one years old. Family dynamics and an illusory competition for my mother’s love, as well as a stiff resistance against each other’s cultures, tainted our relationship in the beginning. But as I have grown older and learned more about him and about the American system that he’s fought, I have nurtured a deep appreciation and respect for him. This is a man who has worked hard for everything he has now. For years, his jobs have entailed waking up at four in the morning and working until sometimes eight at night. He works no less than six days a week—finding jobs on the weekend as a handy man for people with whom he has made connections. Manuel may not have a college degree, or a high school diploma, but he is an extraordinarily intelligent man. He has developed fluency not only in two different languages but in two different cultures. He is well liked by everyone in his circles of Mexican friends, and he is well liked by everyone in his circles of white, middle-class friends. Indeed, he has instilled within our family the value of working hard. That is the culture of Mexico that he and nearly 12 million other Mexican-born U.S. residents have brought to this country. It is a culture that should be celebrated, lifted up and encouraged. We should, for not only the benefit of the individual but of this country, show the value of education to students like Manuel while we have the chance. There is a show on Disney called Handy Manny about a Hispanic man that works as a handy man. He carries his talking tools along with him to different jobs around the town. Everyone loves Handy Manny—he can fix absolutely anything. While this show is certainly cheery and rosy, it portrays a stereotypical image of a Hispanic man as a manual laborer. It teaches young Hispanic boys that their hard work and intelligence is best expended on fixing things around the house. We should not be advocating that a portion of our population be automatically relegated to jobs entailing manual labor and paying the lowest wages. These people could be our next engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, business-owners, and beyond—jobs that increase their pay substantially, give them more time to spend with their families, and allow them to actuate their potential fully. Immigrant populations from around the globe have, throughout our history, formed the backbone of this country. Without them, we would be utterly immobile, paralyzed as a nation and an economy. If our biggest complaint is that these people take advantage of welfare, don’t pay taxes, use up our resources (arguments that largely ignore reality and context), let’s give them educational opportunities that put them in a place so that they can rise above poverty . We need people like my stepfather Manuel. We have lessons to learn from people like Arturo, Omar, Isabel—people I know that have come from poverty and given up everything back home so that they could come here and make lives for themselves and their families. Let us remember why these immigrants come: because they want their children to have better lives than the one they had back home. My littlest sisters, the daughters of Manuel, will grow up, get a good education, go to college and become anything they want to become. That’s why he came. We should never forget the value of these people, nor should we forget the depth and breadth of their potential.
When my family came to the United States, they endured the struggles of immigrants who’d left everything behind on their island home. But they left as upper middle class white Jamaican Anglophiles and arrived, fairly well-received, as middle class whites with strange accents but similar cultural nuances. Assimilation was not exceptionally difficult. America was certainly a far cry from the slow and steady pace of island life, but they still enjoyed certain middle-class luxuries.
My mother was raised in this context. Both her parents worked—one as a teacher the other as an airplane auditor. They had a nice home in Denver, Colorado. They weren’t rich but certainly not poor. Just average, middle-class people.
They moved to Oklahoma when my mother was a teenager, and she became pregnant at the age of 18. It was only then that their middle-class life was rocked by the crises that lower-income families face regularly. My mother experienced a setback—a teen mom with no education above a high school diploma, she would seemingly be relegated to menial jobs.
A great majority of people in this country would say that racism is abhorrent. But what most people don’t understand is that racism is more than just overt prejudice against people of color. Certainly, we can all agree that facial racism unfortunately does still exist, just as it did in the past. But there is an even more dangerous aspect of racism that is easy to ignore if you don’t know how to see it. It’s a kind of racism that remains hidden because it is so deeply embedded into the system and into American ideology. There is a distinction to be made between prejudice and racism. The semantics are important because word meanings translate into ways of thinking and perceiving. I subscribe to David Wellman’s definition of racism as a “system of advantage based on race.” This definition implies that it is not necessary to “embrace overtly prejudicial thinking” in order to be part of the racist system. The system incorporates “cultural messages and institutional policies and practices as well as beliefs and actions of individuals” that place people of color at a disadvantage, writes Beverly Tatum in her book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? This system has produced and maintained “White Privilege.” As white men and women we benefit from a racist system. Without doubt, we do not benefit equally—there are too many other “isms” at play: sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, heterosexism, etc. Nonetheless, we are beneficiaries whether we know it or not. What is most striking about systemic racism is that the consequences are particularly dire. Poverty rates for people of color, specifically black and Hispanic people, are more than twice that of white people in America. “ In 2010, 27.4 percent of blacks and 26.6 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.1 percent of Asians.” Welfare programs, affirmative action policies and the War on Drugs have done little—if anything at all—to get at the root of the issue. They instead slap a Band-Aid onto the problem, hoping that covering it up will solve it. In reality, the primary source of the poverty trap lies within public schools and the public school system, which fail to provide children of color and children from low-income families the skills and attention they need to succeed. Instead, schools promote the maintenance of the status quo, which belies the tenets of the American Dream touted by citizens and immigrants alike. The American Dream is about social mobility, and it relies on the premise that we live in a meritocracy. For many this might be at least partially true. For instance, for me, it has been. My mother raised me as a struggling single parent for much of my life, but I’ve been able to work hard, get good scholarships, go to college and graduate with three majors and with highest honors. Even so, my hard work has only done part of it for me. I have also enjoyed white, heterosexual privilege. But the reality for too many other people is that hard work and good decisions are often not enough to realize that great American Dream. The idea that social mobility is a possibility for all is nice. However, it is only an idea right now. Realizing this is the first step to making it a reality. But we have a long, long way to go.
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