Introduction
The United States educational system has failed to properly address the cultural and educational needs of Black youth and this continues to be one of the most convoluted and undervalued problems in U.S. society today. Thus, the educational progress and success of Black youth relies on educational researchers, administrators, and policymakers to recognize and acknowledge how intergenerational discrimination, segregation and oppression has impacted Black youth and their learning. More specifically, it is important to consider how an Afrocentric education would empower, transform, and liberate Black youth and promote academic success. The present literature explores how intergenerational segregation, discrimination, deculturization, and harassment has impacted Black youth and their learning, and how an Afrocentric Education could mediate those negative effects, and promote academic success.
Impact of Intergenerational Discrimination, Segregation, and Oppression on Black Youth and their Learning
Education is one of the most pervasive mediums for the initiation, experience, and replication of racism as a dehumanizing practice in every area of knowing. Education, in theory, systemizes and imparts the sum total of the psychological, cultural, and biological dimensions of society, formally beginning for most Americans by age five. David Livingstone Smith (2011) discusses the ways schooling, as an observable cultural and social model that encourages and discourages the practice of social performance, dehumanizes as well as traumatizes students of color. In fact, historically and even today, men and women have used education as a way to strip away the culture, language, values, beliefs, and resources from those who are not White or of European descent as a way to push their own ‘White’ agenda. Two methods by which education can be used as a method of social control is to “deny a population the knowledge necessary to protect its political and economic rights and to economically advance in society; the other is segregation” (Spring, 2018, pp. 154). This quotes reflects the education system in the United States, which is deeply rooted in segregation, deculturization, discrimination, harassment, additionally, additionally, it is structured around the cultural frame of reference of European Americans.
The current system has failed to properly address the cultural and educational needs of those who are not White or of European descent. It has also failed to acknowledge how these negative historical experiences of dominated groups (i.e., segregation, deculturization, discrimination, harassment) in public schools have impacted Black youth and their learning. In fact, in four hundred years since slaves were forced to settle in the United States, there has been little research, literature, or redress for the ways in which the American institution of slavery, particularly the denial of education, proliferated Black inferiority. The vast majority of enslaved men and women were kept servile with little education beyond their necessary job function within plantation life. Literacy, for many slaves, resulted in death. Death was casually threatened and often exacted upon literate slaves. The result of these unacknowledged issues is that Black children continue to suffer in U.S. public schools. In fact, racial and ethnic inequalities are evident and persistent (Peguero & Shaffer, 2015).
Racism and oppression uniquely impact the lives of boys and young men of color. One of the most glaring examples is their disparate experiences and outcomes within school systems. What has been named “achievement gap” or “racial gap in acheivemnt, refers to racial disparities in school test scores, grades, drop-out, graduation rates, and other indicators of academic performance (Noguera & Akom, 2000). Contemporary depictions of an achievement gap do not convey the long legacy of perversion that disguises educational inequity as deficit, innate abilities. It attempts to instead suggest something novel, a new social problem or reality (Cross, 2007, pp. 249). The achievement gap is not new or novel. The achievement gap is a repackaged White supremist ideology that forces Black students to continue to bear the brunt of hundreds of years of racist education policies and practices that have perpetually undermined and limited their academic successes and then blames them for their academic underachievement. Ultimately, it is a metaphor used to imply Blacks’ innate intellectual ineptitude that explains their academic underperformance when compared to academic standards set by their White peers. By ignoring historical and contemporary existence of racist structural systems foundational to education organizations, educator bring into their classrooms a characteristic of superficial racial intolerance.
Afrocentric Education
Much of the literature and media concerning the academic achievement of Black youth has focused on negative factors such as lower levels of academic self-efficacy, school disengagement, and school dropout (Peguero & Shaffer, 2015; Kozol, 2005; Spencer, Noll, Stoltzfus, & Harpalani, 2001; Kao & Thompson, 2003). While it is important to address academic vulnerabilities and risks of Black youth in the United States, centralizing the focus on academic struggles of Black youth reinforces societal prejudices and stereotypes (Shin, 2011). More importantly, it distorts the reality that despite the unacknowledged cultural risks, obstacles, and social barriers, Black youth can thrive and succeed academically (Nicholas, Helms, Jernigan, Sass, Skyzypek, & DeSilva, 2008). For instance, Shin (2011) found that Black children with a stronger awareness and connection to their cultural values also indicated more confidence in their abilities to succeed academically. Such research is crucial for accurately distinguishing factors that elicit academic success in Black youth so that interventions can be implemented into school curriculum. Therefore, it is important to consider how an Afrocentric education would empower, transform, and liberate Black youth and promote academic success.
Although there have been many attempts at implementing programs and projects into the school curriculum to help Black children, such interventions have failed at offering an educational experience that empowers and liberates members of the Black community. “Getting ahead of in the economic and social system is not a matter of being white but of learning to believe in oneself and one’s cultural traditions” (Spring, 2018, pp. 201). An Afrocentric, African centered, education is an approach that requires educators to “center” themselves ideologically, on the cultural past, present, and future of African people (Shockley & Fredrick, 2010). From an Afrocentric perspective, historical and cultural studies of Blacks require deep engagement with African history and culture because Blacks’ roots are in Africa. Therefore, in order to fully grasp the history and culture of Black education, the African roots must be understood (Shockley & Fredrick, 2010). The belief is that Eurocentric schooling is oppressive and debilitates the growth, development, and life opportunities of Black children (Shockley & Fredrick, 2010). Ultimately, Blacks are miseducated because they are not properly taught how to construct, possess, protect, and control the resources within their own communities. Further, Afrocentric educationalists believe that without the knowledge of African cultures, Black children partake in an alien and alienating process of schooling (Shockley & Fredrick, 2010).
The goal of an Afrocentric education is to encourage Blacks to culturally immerse themselves into their African cultural. Afrocentric educationists attempt to create an education for Black children where the focus is on loving oneself and practicing one’s own culture. Afrocentric educationists stress appropriate cultural practice as the most important element for empowering and transforming Black communities (Shockley & Fredrick, 2010). Further, they believe that educators should be equipped with knowledge that relates to an Afrocentric understanding of culture because within African culture lies the answers to many of the challenges Black people face. Black children need to belong to an educational system that recognizes their abilities and culture, and draws upon these strengths and incorporates them into teaching and learning processes (Nicolas et al., 2008). This finding is consistent with Shin (2011) findings that children who reported having a stronger awareness culture also indicated more confidence in their abilities to succeed and overcome academic challenges.
Discussion
Much of the scholarship focused on the academic achievement of African American youth has failed to accurately situate these issues from a sociohistorical context (Nicolas et al., 2008; Spencer, 2005). Thus, the educational progress and success of Black youth relies on educational researchers, administrators, and policymakers to become culturally conscious and to acknowledge intergenerational discrimination, segregation and hate crime and how it has impacted Black youth and their learning. More specifically, how an Afrocentric education would empower, transform, and liberate Black youth and promote academic success.
The reality is that education in the united states is deeply rooted in segregation, deculturization, discrimination, harassment, additionally, it is structured around the cultural frame of reference of European Americans. In order to truly adopt and implement education equity, edcuators and policymakers need to actively reject themes of American nationalism that exists in U.S. public schools today, and should be more concerned with empowering and transmitting racial pride and enhancing students’ knowledge of culture and history and its significance to contemporary history. Additionally, efforts should be made to protect language and cultural rights.
As a white educator, it is important for me to recognize my role in the culture of power and advocate for systems of education that empower, liberate, transform learners of dominated groups. Similarly, it is important for me to actively reject themes of American nationalism that exists in U.S. public schools today, specifically, an ethnocentric education that is structured around the cultural frame of reference of European Americans. Due to negative historical experiences of dominated groups (i.e., segregation, deculturization, discrimination, harassment) in the public schools, these individuals have a negative cultural frame of reference and feelings about schools. As a result, many of these students interpret their educational experience through a cultural frame of reference that is quick to note prejudice and unfair treatment. In fact, as an undergraduate student, I volunteered as a teacher assistant at an urban elementary school in Minneapolis. I witnessed inequalities and the impact of societal prejudices and stereotypes on the academic achievement of Black youth. I also witnessed the tendency of educators to attribute behaviors of most African-American students as dysfunctional, bad, and uncultured rather than to assume they might be related to academic giftedness or boredom.
“Getting ahead of in the economic and social system is not a matter of being white but of learning to believe in oneself and one’s cultural traditions” (Spring, 2018, pp. 201). Educators, policymakers, administrators should be concerned with empowering and transmitting racial pride and enhancing students’ knowledge of culture and history and its significance to contemporary history. Additionally, efforts should be made to protect language and cultural rights.
As Spring (2018) stated, "by believing schools could give everyone an equal opportunity to achieve wealth and power, one could ignore blatant social, economic, and political inequalities." It is idealistic to believe and assume that education alone can destroy barriers of inequality and systems of oppression. One example of this is that majority of the best local schools are typically situated in wealthy housing districts, where individuals of low-income families are unable to purchase housing. This form of economic segregation in schooling contributes to inequalities in education outcomes. From this standpoint, schools reinforces social stratification and contributes to intergenerational immobility.