“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression” (Jefferson, 1801). This is a quote from Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States. This quote will be rephrased and repeated throughout history, and its main idea is still extremely prevalent in today’s politics.
The problem of equality, while a modern problem, makes its way from the beginning of human history. Today’s generation is by no means the first that tries to do something about it, to bring about change, or to achieve equality. The issue of equal rights is an ongoing process of revising laws and mindsets of the majority. As Jefferson said in his first inaugural address in 1801, democracy works by the majority vote, but that doesn’t mean that the minority can be completely ignored. The word equality itself represents the state of having equal rights and opportunities, and is not specific to a unique group of people, but rather extends to include everyone. The definition of the word makes the idea that equality is only a right of a certain group is counterintuitive. The majority must, therefore, respect the equal rights of the minority. But if we are created equal, then why do we continue having civil rights movements? Since Jefferson’s time, the various civil rights movements took place to the point in time where explicit discrimination against minorities is no longer acceptable among white people. Nevertheless, strong automatic preference for white people still exists in the United States. In this paper, I wish to discuss how differences in language, culture, and education affect lives of minorities in the predominantly white country of numerous freedoms and continue to contribute to the civil rights issues prevalent in today’s political climate.
In his article on the reasons why white people are uncomfortable saying that black lives matter, John Halstead (2016) brings an objective argument that clearly targets white people and challenges their unconscious bias. Halstead (2016) begins his article with a clear and bold statement, “Dear fellow white people, let’s have an honest talk about why we say All Lives Matter.” Such an introduction clearly identifies people of the white race as the target audience, and the somewhat condescending tone implies a critical view of the audience. The author starts his article by showing that he considers himself a part of the majority, thus establishing his credibility and objectivity, as he will continue by criticizing norms within his own social group. The author further shows that a large majority of white people are “colorblind” and was taught to avoid seeing color since early ages because it is a part of our culture. In the article, “colorblindness” is defined as “the luxury of not paying attention to race.” This proves clearly not to be the case for black people, who are constantly reminded of their race and place in the society. This absence of colorblindness in black people implicitly suggest how they are not like white people, that their lives are different, and escalates to the subconscious idea that they do not matter as much. People are uncomfortable with saying or seeing “Black Lives Matter” because that undermines the importance of white lives since the attention that the movement attracts implicitly suggests that black lives matter more. There is some truth in that. That phrase indeed conveys the message that black lives matter more, but the full message would be that black lives matter more than they do currently, not necessarily that they matter more than white lives. One of the main reasons that the author believes white people started saying “All Lives Matter” has to do with the fact that such phrases that emphasize a minority group bring attention to the fact that there are differences and unequal treatment. The question remains – why would white people get defensive about that? This is mostly because the majority of white people strongly believe that they are not racist, partially because they truly believe they are not, but also because being racist in our society is highly frowned upon. As Halstead (2016) suggests, since white people participate in racism by omission, then to prevent it we should embrace our discomforts by recognizing that we are not “colorblind”, by preventing even unconscious biases, and by spreading awareness about institutional racism. I would like to narrow Halstead approaches and focus specifically on classroom practices, as I believe it would be more efficient to change schooling practices in order to raise a better generation rather than forcing the older and more socially developed citizens to change.
Halstead is not the first person who is trying to raise awareness about racial prejudice and “colorblindness”. Hill Collins (2009) described the color-blind ideology of the new racism as a byproduct of a continuous fight for racial equality within the educational system. This is similar to how Halstead noted that white people no longer believe that racism still exists while showing signs of covert racial discrimination. Hill Collins (2009) suggests how her “domains-of-power framework” could be applied to issues of race and oppositional culture in public education. The structural domain would focus on creating safe and free learning spaces where children are encouraged to express their thoughts, opinions, and political views. The disciplinary domain would focus on counter-surveillance and view teaching and learning as subversive activities. Surveillance is “a technique of modern power relations” where people with greater power would watch over people with less (Hill Collins, 2009). Surveillance is a great way to establish racial relationships in everyday life. The cultural domain would focus on so popular and most influential mass media and be teaching media literacy in order to create your own frameworks of the world rather than blindly accepting views of others, maybe even influential people. The last domain-of-power identified by Hill Collins (2009) is an interpersonal domain which would focus primarily on teaching kids how to be responsible for their own lives.
New educational reforms are development almost every year and yet there seems to be that more are coming in the following years. Oaks and Rogers (2007) explored why reform efforts and movements towards equalizing education produced poor results. There are some fundamentally flawed assumptions about educational equality that include the assumption that working solely within the educational system is enough to produce a significant change. Current educational reforms do not challenge nor shake the social norms associated with group identity and group variability. According to Oaks and Rogers (2007) findings, most people assume that educational opportunity is a type of scarce resource that lower income groups or people of color could never get. The major problem of reform efforts and movements is that “new rules, structures, and practices either ‘fit’ within the prevailing logic or they are not powerful enough to counter the multiple forces that maintain the unequal status quo” (Oaks and Rogers, 2007, p.196). In other words, schooling practices for equality and inclusion should also focus on group variability of children and the situation at home.
Involving parents in the schooling process could be a difficult task depending on their socioeconomic status, but parents are a critically important part of their children’s schooling. The upper-middle-class parents saw education as “a shared enterprise and scrutinized, monitored, and supplemented the school experience of their children” (Lareau, 1987, p.81). Working-class parents “were reluctant to contact the school, tended to intervene over nonacademic matters, and were uncomfortable in their interactions in the school” (Lareau, 1987, p.78). I would like to share my experience with parent-school interactions. I am raised by a single working mother who would leave for work at 8 am and come back home after 9 pm. My mother never came to school meetings and only asked me about my school performance. She placed me in hands of teachers to school me and make a good citizen out of me because she had to work hard to raise me and make my future a little better. There are different home stations and even though parents are important in schooling, those who solely rely on teachers should not be shamed. Lareau’s (1987) findings reveal how group variability is an important factor in classroom practices and shows us another possible factor to consider for future societal reforms.
Let us consider another major factor of racism prevention in schools. Teachers and student-teacher interactions are essential in forming children’s developing minds. Teachers act as authority figures to which children look up to for guidance. The truth is that teachers are humans and could also possess an unconscious preference for one group over the other. Teachers must recognize that there are different groups with their unique group identities, meaning that the educational approach could not be universal. According to Ogbu (1978), there are involuntary minorities who were colonized or enslaved and later incorporated into white society against their will. Those historical events still affect the students of today because “involuntary minorities have persistent high rates of school failure and social adjustment problems because they have greater difficulty crossing cultural boundaries due to an oppositional cultural frame of reference and oppositional identity” (Ogbu, 1978, p.334). Unfortunately, as Foley (1990) discovered, pedagogical style may have reflected implicit biases that were occurring during that time that only emphasized class privileges and practiced roles. Teachers showed lowered expectations and endless negotiation ritual through the Making Out Game where children wanted to get the best grades for the least amount of work and effort. Teachers should avoid focusing on a single subset of children in the classroom and try to engage even the silent rebellions in the back or at least establish basis for an equal outcome. A teacher should always try to develop a balanced environment in class without placing preferences on a single individual or group. “Such a teacher stood neither over students with superior airs nor on their level as a buddy” (Foley, 1990, p.134). Overlooking the differences between oppressed groups and the majority could cost overlooked kids to develop insufficient social and communicative skills for living rather than “dozing off in the back” (Foley, 1990).
An ideal educational system would incorporate democratic schooling. Such democratic teaching would create a safe and honest environment in which students have equal opportunities for making decisions about school organization, school assignments, and curriculum. From the early stages, we could teach children how to think critically and independently about various social issues in order to improve their immediate environment (from school to county, to state, and eventually the entire country). With the influence of social media, parents and teachers should encourage kids to question everything and especially ask questions about the validity of information to develop the habits of a thinking democratic citizen. The problem of “colorblindness” discussed by Halstead (2016) would disappear when the future generation of citizens starts considering how things could be changed and why they should care. To raise a different generation that could solve what we could not and create a true country with equal opportunities and freedoms, we need to consider different factors such as language, culture, and education.