Ghanaian leader Dr. Kwame Nkrumah once said, “The history of a nation is, unfortunately, too easily written as the history of its dominant class.” This issue has become more and more prevalent in the past couple of years as students are realizing the censoring of history is infringing on their rights. States like Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma have been criticized because of their controversial curriculum revisions. Many public school history curriculums sugarcoat or omit America’s wrongdoings to create a more patriotic America for students; however, the youth of America deserve to receive a realistic and wholesome education that properly represents minority groups in order to prevent the spread of ignorance in adulthood.
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Today’s textbooks and curriculums fail to mention important minority contributors, or even undermine the hard work they put forth to better the United States as a country. According to Nicolas Ferroni, “Our textbook mentions eight white males for every one African American, woman, Jew, and one figure from other various minority groups”(Ferroni). This is indubitably because of systematic racism still present in the U.S. today. Writers Anthony L. Brown and Keffrelyn D. Brown cite that a book called Whitewash by Ntozake Shange “challenges the commonly held assumption that racism is a fixture of the past”(Brown). Because of the abundance of white heroes, the addition of African American figures or other minority figures seems obligatory. In turn, the small amount of diverse figures leads minority groups to conclude that their people had none or very little contribution to the success of America (Ferroni). It is a necessity to teach about minority contributions especially to minority children themselves. If not taught, these children then develop internalized racism, and start to loathe the color of skin they were born with, or religion they were born into. In addition, when not taught about diverse contributions, white students believe that minorities had nothing to do with America’s success …show more content…
The actions of the Indians were ‘violent’ while no such adjective describes the behavior of the Spaniards who merely ‘conquered them’”(Peterson). In elementary texts, the authors refer to the servants of the rich, powerful, and noble simply as “workers.” In a quote about sugarcoating, Bob Peterson states, “This tendency to downplay conflict and not show how people disagreed-- even within social movements-- takes the drama and story out of our nation’s rich history.” The incorporation of minority groups in history class will assist in trying to combat the country’s growing problem of racism and sexism. If boys learned more about the great contributions women made for the advancement of America, their sexist tendencies would dwindle. This works the same for racism. “By teaching all students about gay, Muslim, Asian, and Latino history in America, we will NOT ‘make’ students gay, Muslim, or even Latino; we will make them tolerant and understanding”
Minorities, African American and Latinos, in America are faced with challenges daily in white society. There are many obstacles minorities experience such as: being judged based on race, stereotyped, or worst being discriminated against by peers. Sadly, minorities can’t seem to escape to harsh realities society created. Citizens in the white society categorize humans by their race to socially construct the achievements and legitimate political goals. Minorities struggles with these goals due to the challenges they experience. The location of these challenges can occur in various places including on the job and/or at school. You may be under the impression that such challenges occurs within the adult minority groups. However, this applies to minority children as well. When the children are face with
Many of the stereotypes we encounter and hold today were formed because of events in the past, which were formed to rationalize and justify past social and political agendas. Many of the stereotypes that we now hold today were learned long ago and have been passed from one generation to the next. This book has forever inspired me to believe in the value of each child and discourage racist attitudes wherever I encounter them. Gregory Howard Williams encountered many hurdles growing up and successfully defeated them all. He could have easily confirmed the expectations of his negative peers and developed into a self-fulfilling prophecy, but instead he chose to shun his stereotypes and triumph over incredible odds.
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
American minorities made up a significant amount of America’s population in the 1920s and 1930s, estimated to be around 11.9 million people, according to . However, even with all those people, there still was harsh segregation going on. Caucasians made African-Americans work for them as slaves, farmers, babysitters, and many other things in that line. Then when World War II came, “World War II required the reunification and mobilization of Americans as never before” (Module2). They needed to cooperate on many things, even if they didn’t want to. These minorities mainly refer to African, Asian, and Mexican-Americans. They all suffered much pain as they were treated as if they weren’t even human beings. They were separated, looked down upon, and wasn’t given much respect because they had a different culture or their skin color was different. However, the lives of American minorities changed forever as World War 2 impacted them significantly with segregation problems, socially, and in their working lives, both at that time and for generations after.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) began in the field of law and has been used as a theoretical framework in educational research for over 15 years (Savas, 2014). Gloria-Ladson-Bilings and William F.Tate IV’s wrote an article, “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education”, in 1995 and began the use of Critical Race Theory as a lens for future studies in education. The first tenet of CRT looks at race and racism through historical contexts. To explore this tenet, I will take a brief glance back to the beginning of our country and the beginning of white as a superior race.
Many people try to think “back to the good old days,” when really they were not that good for most people who had no rights. With the advancement in technology, we were forced to open our eyes to what is going on in the world around us and the disadvantaged people face throughout the world. As a society once we start to working on damage control to clean up the mess we got into we can finally have true change. The damage control will take time and effort from all people involved on either end of the situation. One major move I feel we can make is by giving honest history lessons that cover every part of our history in schools. I feel that American History and World History should be more emphasized on in our school systems and curriculum. If the students get the full education of our history and how we got to where we are, then moving on will become easier. We expect for children to lead us into a bigger and better future, but how can we expect that without the truth coming to light for our diverse culture. We cannot expect to make this country better without knowing their full history and the mistakes we have made in our past. Looking for another way to move forward, Essence asked Dr. Joy DeGruy on what we could do moving forward, her answer was, “…more research, support, and assistance are needed to produce vital healing…that exceeds the injury
Racism and ethnicity continue to affect the sector of education in most parts of the world. More often, it influences adults and children’s experiences in education at all levels and in various ways. These include professional employment, academic performance, parental involvement, social interactions, assessment issues, and curriculum development. Certainly, the terms racism and ethnicity identify as problematic and arise socially. Therefore, many people fail to recognize that racism is a perception about the color of the skin and traditions of a particular group of people. Racism and ethnicity exist in quite blatant and subtle forms. As such, racism and ethnicity usually lead to negative consequences for the group that does not belong to the dominant culture. The contemporary racism originated from various avenues, one of it being the society norms and upbringing. Indeed, as children grow, they exclusively rely on their parents or guardians to learn new things. Moreover, part of the upbringing involves teaching the children things about the society and the
Even though extraordinary changes have been made in the past to achieve racial equality, America is still racist, especially in schools. In the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” written by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch is criticized for defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. During the 1930s, the time this novel took place, America was a very segregated country. At the time when Harper Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird," America was fighting a civil rights movement. The events of racism in “To Kill a Mockingbird” reflect the time period.
In public schools, students are subjected to acts of institutional racism that may change how they interact with other students. In the short story “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by Packer, readers are allowed to view firsthand how institutionalized racism affects Dina, who is the main character in the story. Packer states “As a person of color, you shouldn’t have to fit in any white, patriarchal system” (Drinking Coffee Elsewhere 117). The article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” by Brodbelt states “first, the attitudes of teachers toward minority group pupils” (Brodbelt 699). Like the ideas in the article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” Dina encounters institutionalized oppression on orientation day at Yale.
Racism (n): the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other race (Wordnet search, 1), a controversial topic in today’s society, a subject that many people try to sweep under the rug, but yet a detrimental problem that has been present in America since the colonial era. Will this dilemma come to a halt? Can all Americans see each other as equals despite their skin color and nationality; and what role has it played in past generations versus today’s generations and how will it affect our future? Has this on going way of thinking gotten better or worse? These are questions raised when many think about the subject; especially members of American ethnic groups and backgrounds, because most have dealt with racial discrimination in their life time.
Dating back to the beginning of times people have always been looked at different depending on the color of their skin or what your religion, race, or beliefs may be. It is in our human nature to not like people for certain things that they are. Many will argue that in this day in age we are no longer at a race war but how can you be so sure when you actually open your eyes and see reality. Rapper Kanye West once said “racism is still alive, they just be concealing it” and these words are everything but false. You must ask yourself the real question about racism and it is how could you ever cure such a thing in people’s minds? People are free to think and believe what ever they would like and old habits such as racism will never change in people.
For as long as I can remember, racial injustice has been the topic of discussion amongst the American nation. A nation commercializing itself as being free and having equality for all, however, one questions how this is true when every other day on the news we hear about the injustices and discriminations of one race over another. Eula Biss published an essay called “White Debt” which unveils her thoughts on discrimination and what she believes white Americans owe, the debt they owe, to a dark past that essentially provided what is out there today. Ta-Nehisi Coates published “Between the World and Me,” offering his perspective about “the Dream” that Americans want, the fear that he faced being black growing up and that black bodies are what
The time has come again to celebrate the achievements of all black men and women who have chipped in to form the Black society. There are television programs about the African Queens and Kings who never set sail for America, but are acknowledged as the pillars of our identity. In addition, our black school children finally get to hear about the history of their ancestors instead of hearing about Columbus and the founding of America. The great founding of America briefly includes the slavery period and the Antebellum south, but readily excludes both black men and women, such as George Washington Carver, Langston Hughes, and Mary Bethune. These men and women have contributed greatly to American society. However, many of us only know brief histories regarding these excellent black men and women, because many of our teachers have posters with brief synopses describing the achievements of such men and women. The Black students at this University need to realize that the accomplishments of African Americans cannot be limited to one month per year, but should be recognized everyday of every year both in our schools and in our homes.
Racism is the mistreatment of a group of people on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, place of origin, or ancestry. The term racism may also denote a blind and unreasoning hatred, envy, or prejudice (Dimensions of Racism). Racism has had a strong effect on society. Despite the many efforts made to alleviate racism, what is the future of African Americans' Racism's long history, important leaders, current status, and future outlook will be the main factors in determining how to combat racism. Racism is still present in many societies, although many people are doing their best to put an end to racism and its somewhat tragic ordeals.
This quote is symbolic of the expressed opinions and ideology of the founding fathers of America. History, especially the history of the American educational system, paints a contradictory portrait. Idealistic visions of equity and cultural integration are constantly bantered about; however, they are rarely implemented and materialized. All men are indeed created equal, but not all men are treated equally. For years, educators and society as a whole have performed a great disservice to minorities in the public school sector. If each student is of equal value, worth, and merit, then each student should have equal access and exposure to culturally reflective learning opportunities. In the past, minorities have had a muted voice because of the attitude of the majority. Maxine Greene summarizes a scene from E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, after which she poses questions that many minorities have no doubt asked silently or loud. “Why is he unseen? Why were there no Negroes, no immigrants? More than likely because of the condition of the minds of those in power, minds that bestowed upon many others the same invisibility that Ellison’s narrator encounters” (Greene,1995, p. 159). Multicultural education is needed because it seeks to eradicate “invisibility” and give voice, power, and validation to the contributions and achievements of people with varied hues, backgrounds, and experiences.