So lots of data came out this week suggesting that the achievement gap is closing between black and Latino children and white children. When looking at statistics on achievement gaps, it seems safe to say that empirical data at its best, is subject to skepticism. This is because there is always data beneath the data. Empirical data is stratified; therefore, we are always forced to look at the underlying reasons for the concluding data. If this new data is the result of children being taught to take a standardized test, then the data is contradictory and ambiguous. It fails to prove or disprove anything. The continued racial stratification of the data leaves me confused. Do they believe that race does play a role in education from a perspective of genotype, or do they believe that there are underlying sociological factors that contribute to the way that different races are educated and ultimately affected by educational practices in the United States? We need to do a much better job in presenting data that is conflicting. We should be sure to point out the contradictions and affirm the limitations of the data.
What empirical data fails to capture is the stigma of racism and the achievement deficit it carries. Racism has created a legacy of false expectations and failed hopes that haunt those on the receiving end of negative stereotypes, and it colors the lens through which we view the world. When a people have been failed over and over again by a system, whether the system is education, health care, religion, or economics… people tend to lose hope. They tend to expect the worst, or at the very least, they do not expect the most favorable outcome. They learn to live with disappointment and futility, and sometimes, to expect the worse just represents a shorter fall from disappointment. Racism seems to overpower the majority of criteria that we might otherwise deem pertinent to success. "Researchers Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips say that reducing the black-white test score gap 'would do more to move America toward racial equality than any politically plausible alternative'" They presuppose that smaller classrooms and better trained teachers are an answer to overcoming some of the ills intimated by the data. Grace Kao and Jennifer S. Thompson site the heterogeneity of students in America as a reason to believe that there is no single quick fix and no one model that would suffice to close the achievement gap. Personally I fight against these issues day in and day out. I don’t always want to see the world as tainted, but so often the world seems to see me as tainted. Racism-racial ideology, is just that powerful, and that is beyond my control. What I can control is my desire not to give in, not to allow internal oppression or “oppositional identity” to prevail. I still believe in that now cliche adage, “each one, teach one.” I believe that we can all still make a difference “in spite of” not “because of” the empirical data.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Race Matters
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2 comments:
Well, it is time for me to jump in and add my "two cents". I don't quite know where to start because you bring up so many issues that touch me both personally and professionally. I can't say that I am an expert in the field of education per se, but I can easily find the applications of your ideas and even your struggles in the professional field in which I currently serve, health; and even more experientially in the "field" of my own life as an African American woman.
I find that everyday as I look at the health statistics of "my people" I come face to face with the consequences of hundreds of years of racism both overt and now the more insidious covert kind. I read the literature and examine the data that over and over again describes “us” as the "disproportionately affected" but fails to acknowledge that we sit on the receiving end of a healthcare system that exacerbates or even better yet creates disparity after disparity. Similarly in health as it appears from your statements about education, the data limitations are no different. The data if left to the numbers in the charts says “we goin’ die” and that’s it. The data does appropriately suggest that we are dying sooner and younger than everyone else. We are living with worse conditions, diagnosed later at the more extreme end of whatever disease spectrum is being presented and I could go on and on but I think you get the picture. As in education, there is more than the stratification of numbers according to the demographics of race, sex, and age to consider.
You pose a question in the midst of your dialogue that asks whether “they believe race does play a role in education from a perspective of genotype, or do they believe that there are underlying sociological factors that contribute to the way that different races are educated and ultimately affected…”. Well, you never really answered the question maybe because it is rhetorical in nature but in health the answer maybe a little more complicated but the resounding answer is “yes” and “yes again”. Yes, part of the reason “we” are doing so poorly rests with the difference in the way certain diseases genotypically present in us. Although it would be very easy to stop at “our genes made us do it”, there is another side to the story and it is the same story that seemingly impacts how our children are educated; it is a poorly devised, inherently flawed system that was created to keep us on the receiving end of poorly funded clinics and hospital; health providers who could not find work anywhere else; a public health system that was reactive instead of proactive, oftentimes using us as subjects of insidious clinical trials, etc. etc… That is what we are up against.
The last thing I will say is in reference to your very eloquently made statement that “racism has created a legacy of false expectations and failed hopes that haunt those on the receiving end..”, this statement leads me to think that we are obviously in a constant uphill battle but before we move forward to “overcome” we must acknowledge that the past is a factor and it is not just that “blacks folks just don’t want to take care of themselves”. That would be an easy out and take society as a whole off the hook. In a book by Harriet A. Washington entitled , Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present, she details the years and years of abuse that African Americans have suffered at the hands of the “medical establishment”, from the forced sterilization of female slaves, to the Tuskegee experiment to the placement of the now-defunct Norplant device in Baltimore-area teens under the guise of contraception but really turned out to be a means of keeping the “underclass” in check; the system has failed “us” over and over again.
I said all of that to say, that I agree ‘Race Matters’ whether it is the educational system, healthcare system, social service system, legislative system, judiciary system; I am sorry to have to report to Martin, Malcolm, Rosa, “Race still Matters”!!!!
This is a great response... some random thoughts... racism is pervasive, and no matter what field one works in, we will see the residue of racism... you make that very clear.
You raise some important issues regarding healthcare... Many diseases today are identified as being connected to race when this is a complete fallacy... Take sickle cell for instance. Many believe that this is an African American disease, when this is absolutely false:
---Since its identification in 1910, sickle cell anemia has been characterized as a “black” disease, despite its occurrence in people of Greek, Italian, Indian, and Latin American ancestry.---
Reference: http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/18-4Lewontin.html
The Fallacy of Racial Medicine
by Richard Lewontin
Race is being used to force many young African American women in low risk groups to expose themselves to radiation by taking mammograms... Please comment on this practice...
No matter how hard we try, we cannot seem to escape "race."
In reference to your comments about genes, please respond to this... A study of gene sequences from mitochondrial DNA samples from multiple ethnic groups indicates that we are much more alike, genotypically, than we are different. The premise here is that race is not biological construct, its a social construct, and we are all in fact part of one race... that being the "human race." This is consistent with your comments about the underlying sociology of African Americans that impact sickness and diseases... and I guess healthcare in general...
My last question for you is, how would you teach a young healthcare professional to be "anti-racist?"
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