Text Response #1: Hand-outs 2.24.09

The readings for this week highlighting the privilege in our society that goes to the white men and women, who have ultimately been the oppressor is not talked about in our society. Beverly Daniel Tatum likens racism to a “moving walkway” in that “unless [you] are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyor belt-unless [you] are actively antiracist-[you] will find [yourself] carried along with the others” (p. 81). During the years of slavery, to be antiracist you had to be a public abolitionist, during the civil rights movement an active social justice advocate; but what sort of action is required today? Racism runs deep and wide in our society, and it is more than what one person can fight at one time. Paula Harris mentioned the inequality in the school system in her “Living in the Truth About White History and Racism,” contrasting the success of white versus nonwhite students in school. Harris remarks, “under all the circumstances, white kids do better in school” (p. 99). Racism in high schools can be as blatant as all white students in the advanced placement courses and the nonwhite students in “special ed” or remedial classes (p. 99). To make a difference in a school setting, the example of Harris’ sister, Holly, assessing the testing situation of her Latino students who all failed the preliminary test of sequencing (p. 104). She believed that her students were smarter than the test “proved” them to be, so she asked for a reevaluation. How many other teachers would be willing to give their students more than a passing glance? One way to combat the “unaware/covert racism” is to push for culturally proficient testing for the younger children of multiethnic origin. How many children are written off as special ed in the crucial developmental years just because of a test misinterpreting their cultural differences for lacking mental ability? This type of racism is a crime that affects children before they even have enough self-esteem to recognize the inequality. It stunts their intellectual growth which leads to a less advantaged life.