Part I. Concept Paper
As people of color, we all know almost all odds are stacked against us to react success. I have learned throughout the quarter many tactics this country and its oppressors have constantly used to keep people of color in the lower class. From slavery, to the Jim Crow era, and now with police brutality, along with many other things that have gotten attention with the use of cell phones; this is a problem of racism has no signs of stopping. We have joined forces to stop these injustices; the social movements like The Brown Berets, The Black Lives Matter Movement, The Civil Rights Movement and AIM were highlighted in The Chapter 6 Powerpoint. They all stood up against the wrongdoings of this country and achieved some of their goals, but we still live in a racist country, and that will probably never change. This quarter we have learned about inequalities and how racism has affected every person of color; with knowledge comes power, but what if the information is just too much to bare?
One of the main topics me learned about during the second half of the quarter has been Institutionalized racism. Institutionalized racism is defined in the article “Tracing the Development of Institutional Racism” by Shawn Benjamin, “It is defined as any policy, practice, economic structure, or political structure that places minority groups at a disadvantage in relation to the white community.” This type of racism is hard to defeat because it is especially hard to detect, it is built into our laws and in our schools. Schools have always been racist and has been a device to keep us oppressed. We have learned this from the powerpoint in chapter seven; Amerikkkan schools being segregated until Brown vs Board of Education because of Plessy vs Ferguson which declare “separate but equality”, which was not equal at all.
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Before The Brown vs Board of Education law was passed, the government not only gave Black children got a lower level of education to make us ignorant, but gave Black people a lower standard of life. This was to keep us oppressed, be less likely revolt against them, and to fall into the white man’s stereotypes.
Even though segregation is a thing of the past because of Brown vs Board of Education, the stereotypes behind it still exist in school life over sixty years later. Stereotype threat clearly shows the lasting effects of the dehumanization and discrimination of Black people. Stereotype threat is a term made from Steele and Aronson after doing a study on Black and white students; “… showed in several experiments that Black college freshmen and sophomores performed more poorly on standardized tests than White students when their race was emphasized. When race was not emphasized, however, Black students performed better and equivalently with white students”, highlighted in the excerpts and adaptations from Reducing Stereotype Threat.org named, “Stereotype Threat: An Overview”. I remember taking standardized test as a child and having to fill out my ethnic background before starting the test; if it was proven in 1955 to affect the test results of Black student why were they still doing it in the 2000s? It almost seems like they administrators of the test, the government, want to see Black students fail. The effects of stereotype threat can be a lot more than just a bad grade on a test, it can discourage Black students from going to school because they do not think they are smart enough. When Black childrens stop going to school, they have no other option then turn to the streets or raise themselves because shown in chapter 9 powerpoint “Crime and Criminal Justice” 66 percent of them live in a single parent household.
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Their parent can not stay home and watch them because they have to work to keep a roof over their head. This two things can lead to prison time; our oppressors know that and continue to use it to their advantage. We can do are best to beat the prevalent stereotype threat, the article “Reducing Stereotype Threat” outlines ways we can detach the negative connotation from our ethnicity while taking these test and performing at school. Doing simple task like moving the questions about ethnicity to the end of the test so it cannot affect your test taking skills or creating practice test to take some of the anxiety of the unknown away.
As a black woman i was taught early that i have to live life differently from a white counterpart because i am Black, you never want to feed into the stereotypes so you have to behave a certain way. I never thought about how much the color of my skin has so much to do with my everyday life until i watched the film “Whitewashed: Unmasking the Word White”. Hearing these white people answering the question how often they think about being white shocked me; almost all of their answers were never. They never have to act a certain way to not seem too white, or worry about having people follow them around the store. Honestly realizing how their privilege has such a big negative effect on my life and majority of white people won’t even recognize it angry. They have control over me and there is nothing i can do about it. Another way white people have an upper hand is through media, whether it be on the big or little screen is dominated by white people. In the film, “Racial Stereotypes in Media” the narrator said, “visibility is not necessarily lead to equality.”
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I thought that was a perfect way to say it, when a Black actor does get a chance on the screen he is always the thug or comic relief, never the star. Just because there is a Black person the the TV screen it does not mean anything if he or she is feeding into the stereotypes.
Lastly, one of the major issue plaguing the Black community is poverty, which leads to a life of crime, and incarnation. The powerpoint in chapter 8, “Economic Inequality and the Role of the State” by Dr. Fitzgerald gives statistics on how Black people’s financial stability is disproportionate to every other race. For the past 50 years brown people have been below the average of all races’ income by anywhere from 10,000-15,000 dollars, with black people being the lowest of all the races including hispanic. In addition, Blacks are the lowest percent of all races to be a homeowner and have the highest unemployment rate, the list goes on. This has nothing to do with Black people’s work ethics, their education, or qualifications; it has everything to do with a system made to work against us. In the film “Economic Justice for All?” it is highlighted that Black people make 64 cents to the white man’s dollar, a Black man or woman could work just has hard or probably even harder than their white counterpart and still earn less because of the color of their skin. This is one of the reasons one might turn to a life of crime; why work hard to not receive the money you deserve and not be able to provide for your family when you could make fast money on the street and give your family what they need. Sadly, once one gets this mentality, just to provide for their family, it is hard to break because of that it leads many people of color to a life in and out of prison. In the about page on “The New Jim Crow” website it explains how becoming a criminal turns you into a second class citizen, “denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.”
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Once you are convicted of a felony you will forever live with a scarlet letter; you cannot vote and, jobs can and will legally discriminate against because of your criminal past. It will be hard to be a regular citizen even if you want, and going back to the need to provide for your family you will end up on that same criminal path again.
Michelle Alexander in her speech at the 30th Annual George E. Kent Lecture, said while talking about the true problems in Black communities, “At bottom what makes a community safe is not the number of guns, but the number of good schools, the number of good jobs, the number of educational opportunities, the number of opportunities people have for living a decent life. Those are the numbers that matter most.” I believe this is a perfect quote to sum up my learning during this course. People of color are living in a world of inequalities because of the color of the skin. They do not receive good schooling, or good jobs like their white counterpart does, they have to work twice as hard just to be equal in this country. It is not about the drug and the guns which the oppressor loves to focus on, it is about the lack of resources and support.