Questioning the System

Imagine that you were a victim of a treacherous crime. A crime committed at your own school by your own fellow classmates. The crime? Breaking and entering your vehicle. The consequence? A verbal warning. The reasoning? Skin color. The criminals are 3.8, Caucasian, Flag team members, and you are a 3.2, African-American, multi-club member. Due to the fact that the Caucasian girls were in good standing with the adminstration, the principal decided to let the students off the hook, and forget about the whole thing. Expect you haven't forgotten. You were victimized. Taken advantage of because your opinions and rights were of no value, and had no influence to the decision of disciplinary actions. By using their power in rank, your school leaders helped to force and support what is known as: institutional racism.

Those accepted, established, evident, visible, and respected forces, social arrangements, institutions, structures, policies, precedents and systems of social relations that operate and are manipulated in such a way as to allow, support, or acquiesce to acts of individual racism and to deprive certain racially identified catergories within a society a chance to share, have equal access to, or have equal opportunity to acquire those things, material and nonmaterial, that are defined as desirable and necessary for rising in an hierarchical class society while that society is dependent, in part, upon that group they deprive for their labor and loyalty. Institutional racism is more subtle, less visible, and less identifiable but no less destructive to human life and human dignity than individual acts of racism. Institutional racism deprives a racially identified group, equal access to an treatment in education, medical care, law, politics, housing, etc.

As you can see institutional is prevalent everywhere, yet we are afarid to question the system. The reason we're afarid is because it might threaten or jeopardize our postions in institutions and society. If we are not able to set aside our fears, than social injustices will continue to occur everywhere, especially in education.

In school were taught that the world's accomplishments were done by Europeans which supports white supremacy in education. History teaches us about the so called "discoverer" of America, Christopher Columbus, a murderer, a theif, and a rapist. By celebrating Columbus with an official holiday, it sends the message that even the most immoral acts of a white person deserve praise. So why don't we learn about the beliefs of Malcolm X, or Frederick Douglass, famous black leaders? Its only on special occasions or certain holidays that we hear about the accomplishments of a black person, and their works should certainly be attributed to the advancement of African Americans. In high school, were required to take European based history courses, and if we wanted to know anything other than that, we had to seek the info. elsewhere, because the Shoreline School District didnt have multicultural studies courses or even African American history. We were forced into learning about a history other than our own. On the subject of Black History, the month of February is set aside for the celebration of blacks, and also other ethnic minorites. By recognizing Black History Month, we praise and recognize the struggles and trials African Americans have had to overcome thus far, but at my high school, Shorewood, that idea was not well supported. With our assmeblies produced and ran by students, putting in there own time, teachers must also sacifice their valuable class time, seeing that the assembly wasn't required or even supported by the faculty and 75 percent of the white student body. Sports assemblies were mandatory, and also morally, and financiakky supported by the school. Doesn't that send a message to the students that something as important as Black History, really isn't? It taught me that student learning about history of other cultures wasn't necessary and even denying them their privilege to gain knowledge of a history other than those of European descent.

Racism doesn't just come in color form, there are prejudices in everything. In education we have fought for the separation of Church and State, in order to keep anything religiously affiliated out of the classroom. If this is true, why do we have "winter breaks" around a Christian holiday; Christmas and not a Jewish holiday; Chanukah? Jewish students in my high school were only allowed a maximum of nine excused absences in order to celebrate their religious holiday, but Christian students were able to relax and not worry about absences because their "winter break" just happens to be at the same time as their religious holiday. While there are quiet forces trying to changes things, the government continues to back these unethical issues I have posed, which makes them even more difficult for us to prevent.

Oppression is very diffucult and very painful. Unless we can recognize it, we cannot help it.