Racial identity is a topic that many of us try to avoid. When brought up in discussion, we tend to brush it off, ignore it, or deny it. This issue has been a problem that the United States academic system has been facing since the development of this country. The more we dismiss this as a problem, the more it will have an effect on us. In the educational system, the government does what it can to provide a safe, comfortable environment for us as students to learn in. In order for it to be fully comfortable and to have the ideal learning space, the issue of racial identity must be addressed. When this issue is acknowledged, most times it is in relation to minorities, but there is always to sides to every story. Yes, it is important to recognize that the problems or issues will not be the same in comparison to the majority group but it is important to note that there is a story for each racial group. Racial identity will help each group gain a deeper, fuller understanding of each other. Having a deeper understanding of each other’s racial identity will allow us truly have the ideal learning space that we all need.
Racial identity is defined as: “a sense of belonging to a community of people who share a similar, specific heritage” and as “the identity of a group, culture or an individual, influenced by one’s belonging to a group or culture” . In many different academic institutions in the United States, there is a cultural and racial difference that cannot be ignore when we look into the breakdown of races and culture that are represented in our school system; we can see that the majority leads tremendously. According to the Tanenbaum’s Religion and Diversity in Schools fact sheet in 2006, 56% of the public school diversity popul...
... middle of paper ...
... the United States is making an effort to diversify many branches under the academic system but it isn’t enough. Race also needs to be dealt with in the curriculum as well as the population. If race continues to be an issue among the academic system, it will only get worst. The key components in this racial development are the ability to acknowledge the problem, understand it, and being willing to change the problem. Once we go through this process of racial identity, we can properly deal with race as an issue and move on from it as a community.
Works Cited
http://www.mccc.edu/pdf/cmn214/Class%203/Racial%20identity%20development.pdf
http://her.hepg.org/content/146k5v980r703023/fulltext.pdf
http://studentdevelopmenttheory.wordpress.com/racial-identity-development/
http://www.afs.org/blog/icl/?p=3606
https://www.tanenbaum.org/sites/
This scholarly article discusses a study done on biracial identity development in children. The article discusses “the similarities and differences between Black and White racial identity development in the United States and address special challenges for the biracial child.” I hope to use it as a source when discussing the struggle to form an specific identity
In Schooltalk: Rethinking What We Say About - and to - Students Every Day, Mica Pollock provides readers with fact-based information to “flip the script” of the misrepresentation of students in the education setting. Pollock demonstrates how race, gender, and ethnic labels can be detrimental to student achievement. She, then, dives in to 600 years of myths regarding social race labels and how they continue to affect humans today. By correcting race, gender, and ethnicity label myths in our minds, we can effectively advocate for these students. To conclude the book, Pollock focuses on how to devise a plan to correct our own misconceptions and foster a supportive environment for diverse students. Throughout
One of Beverly Tatum's major topics of discussion is racial identity. Racial identity is the meaning each of us has constructed or is constructing about what it means to be a white person or a person of color in a race-conscious society. (Tatum, pp Xvii) She talks about how many parents hesitate to talk to their children about racism because of embarrassment and the awkwardness of the subject. I agree with her when she says that parents don't want to talk about racism when they don't see a problem. They don't want to create fear or racism where none may exist. It is touchy subject because if not gone about right, you can perhaps steer someone the wrong way. Another theory she has on racial identity is that other people are the mirror in which we see ourselves. (tatum pp18) 'The parts of our identity that do capture our attention are those that other people notice, and that reflects back to us.'; (Tatum pp21) What she means by this is that what other people tell us we are like is what we believe. If you are told you are stupid enough you might start to question your intelligence. When people are searching for their identity normally the questions 'who am I now?'; 'Who was I before?'; and 'who will I become'; are the first that come to mind. When a person starts to answer these questions their answers will influence their beliefs, type of work, where they may live, partners, as well as morals. She also mentions an experiment where she asked her students to describe themselves in sixty seconds. Most used descriptive words like friendly, shy, intelligent, but students of color usually state there racial or ethnic group, while white students rarely, if ever mention that they are white. Women usually mention that they are female while males usually don't think to say that they are males. The same situation appeared to take place when the topic of religious beliefs came up. The Jewish students mentioned being Je...
With regards to the opinion that the existence of HBCUs is in fact, a mellowed form of racism, one must first remember the history behind the origins of HBCUs Many people believe that these institutions have outlived their purpose because we live in a fully integrated society and these institutions stand as hallmarks of segregation. However, by thinking this way is not an analyzing the complete picture because one must bear in mind that HBCUs are old and hallowed institutions of higher learning established in a time when talented, desiring and tenacious Afric...
First, I will discuss the influences of different definitions of diversity in cultural unification. The major problem concerning this issue is that many people differ in the real meaning of the concept and how they view their personal involvement. Brook argues that “we do not really care about diversity all that much in America, even though we talk about it a great deal” (306). However, they are the general, erroneous interpretations of diversity that are really creating this wrong image of indifference. According to Kira Hudson Banks in her research entitled “A Qualitative Investigation of Students’ Perceptions of Diversity,” many people defined diversity as race and do not include other types of diversity (153).
Prior to beginning my readings on white racial identity, I did not pay much attention to my white race. If someone had asked me to describe my appearance I would have said short blond hair, blue eyes, average stature, etc. One of the last things I would have noted was the color of my skin. Growing up in overwhelmingly white communities, I never thought to use the color of my skin to differentiate myself from others. Over the course of this dialogue I have learned that my white racial identity is one of the most defining aspects of my appearance in this society. There is a certain level of privilege that I am afforded based solely on the color of my skin. According to Peggy McIntosh, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks” (71). All these objects listed by McIntosh are things I have access to and certainly take for granted. Due to a history of non-white racial oppression, which transformed into decades of racial discrimination that still lingers today, the white race has dominated our society in terms of resources and prosperity. The ideas of wealth, higher-level education and ambition to succeed are all traits commonly linked to people of the white race that collectively define privilege. The aspect of privilege can also produce disadvantages for people of the white race as well. In the book Promoting Diversity and Justice, the author D. Goodman notes that people of advantage groups develop a sense of superiority, which will sometimes lead them to wonder if, “their achievements were based on privilege or merit” (107). Along with a diminished sense of accomplishment, the cost ...
“There is exactly one sentence about why schools should want to discriminate… It reads, ‘When the state’s most elite universities are less diverse, [a school official] said, it doesn’t provide our students with a level of diversity they need in order to learn about other cultures and other communities’…And that’s supposed to outweigh all these costs of discrimination; It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination.”
The issue of whether HBCU’s are still needed have been occurring constantly in today’s nation. HBCU’s have been in existence for almost two centuries now. Their principal mission is to educate African Americans, and they have. HBCU’s graduate more than 50% of “African American” professionals and public school teachers. But, HBCU’s have been facing challenges such as their decrease in diversity, financing, and graduate rates which has caused a speculation of their importance in today’s communities. I believe that HBCU’s are still needed.
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic achievement of minority children. Instead of addressing educational discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it takes to make a d... ... middle of paper ... ...
For my summary, I am writing to teachers who will relay information back to high school students through the addition of racism to their cirriculum. My purpose is to convince the teachers that racial identity is a crucial topic that high school students need to be more aware of. The advantage of informing high school students of the role that racism plays throughout society is to assist the students in being less racist and treating non-whites fair. Racial identity is a very secluded topic among people today. For this reason, many students are not aware of racism or the effect it may have on the relationships between blacks and whites. Through my summary I am hoping to be able to help my audience talk about racial identity in the least offensive
Importantly, if individuals, especially school officials, took this article into consideration, schools would become a more welcoming and assimilating environment for multiracial adolescents. Contradictory to that, if individuals don’t take this writing seriously, society will continue on a one sided path to viewing multiracial individuals and racism in societies will not make that one step closer to being
Introduction We live in a society where race is seen as a vital part of our personalities, the lack of racial identity is very often an important factor which prevents people from not having their own identity (Omi & Winant, 1993). Racism is extremely ingrained in our society and it seems ordinary (Delgado & Stefanic, 2000). However, many people denounce the expression of any racist belief as immoral (Miles & Brown, 2003) highlighting the complicated nature of racism. Critical Race Theory tries to shed light on the issue of racism, claiming that racism is ingrained in our society both in legal, cultural, and psychological aspects of social life (Tate, 1997). This essay provides us with the opportunity to explore this theory and its influence in the field of education.
“An array of knowledges, skills, abilities and contacts possessed and used by Communities of Color to survive and resist racism and other forms of oppression” encompasses the main idea of Community Cultural Wealth. It is vital to understand that students will step foot into the classroom with a variety of cultures zipped up in their backpacks, and it is our job as educators to make sure that equality is instilled/taught in our classrooms. The second a student feels a sense of discrimination, whether from ourselves or their fellow classmate(s), is when the safe and comforting environment of the classroom begins to diminish. Here I will discuss just how important it is to see the differences amongst students as an advantage
Those efforts improve students' learning and experiences by cultivating key behaviors and knowledge and by providing a unique educational context. Published in the American Educational Research Journal, this paper gives insight into how racial diversity stretches beyond educational engagement and social composition. The significant difference made by diversity-related efforts, such as hybridized racial interactions and policies, is fully explored. The findings of the study presented can be generalized to the argument of institutional racism, as this piece presents rationale against it. The limitations of this paper are the insufficient detail regarding educational context needed to illustrate the steps institutions can take to apply diversity.
What is identity? Identity is an unbound formation which is created by racial construction and gender construction within an individual’s society even though it is often seen as a controlled piece of oneself. In Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum’s piece, “The Complexity of Identity: ‘Who Am I?’, Tatum asserts that identity is formed by “individual characteristics, family dynamics, historical factors, and social and political contexts” (Tatum 105). Tatum’s piece, “The Complexity of Identity: ‘Who Am I?’” creates a better understanding of how major obstacles such as racism and sexism shape our self identity.