[quote name='Spokker']I'm not sure how the education system has failed the black community. We spend ungodly sums on education in this country, and not just for whites.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/24/us-usa-education-spending-idUSN2438214220070524
Montana is the 46th richest state as of 2000. If DC and other inner city schools are so poor, it's not for a lack of tax-payer funding. DC per pupil spending for 2010 was around $28,000. For comparison, Harvard tuition is ~$32,000.[/QUOTE]
Putting more money in the k-12 system doesn't put computers in homes, provide internet access, feed food-insecure familes, give jobs with living wages to parents, give adequate housing, clean up impovervished areas, and a plethora of other things that have seemingly nothing to do with education, but are related to a student's peristence rate...and these are just economic barriers without even address race yet.
But if with all this money, DC and inner city schools are so bad, the money may be better spent on a voucher system and schools could compete for students. I guarantee the cost would go down and quality would go up. Good teachers will be retained and hired while bad teachers will be disciplined or let go. Why do we continue to cling to the current public school system?
Charter schools and privatizing the education system leads to more disparity. Privatizing also leads to cherry-picking students and public schools don't and shouldn't have that luxury. And where would those vouchers go to? Obviously private schools that have far better resources, which would further depress already economically depressed areas.
You mean remedial education and special ed programs are more expensive? No shit.
Systemic racism, indeed. And to bring it somewhat in line with the first derail about immigration, these black students don't even have to learn English as a second language! They often fail to learn it as a first
I'm no linguist, but inflections and regional dialects come from somewhere. We all have accents and some accents are much harder to understand than others if you're not familiar with them. I've heard some Irish accents that were nearly unintelligible, but that don't mean they weren't speaking "proper" english. Language evolves and english is a mongrel language anyways.
Your issue is more about cultural capital anyways, which is more based on socio-economic class. It's not just a "black thing." Insinuating that it is, is what makes it racist. Poverty affects different groups differently because racism operates within classes as well.
Now, let me remind you that I don't feel that racism does not exist. There are certainly people like me who keep black people down by posting on the Internet, but I reject the argument that racism, direct, indirect, systemic or what have you, is 100% or even 50% responsible for the black-white gap. Ending racism, if such a thing were even possible in this universe, is a lofty but unattainable goal that has so far not borne fruit. Some of the short to medium term goals I would focus on is ending minimum wage, phasing out welfare in all but the most serious situations and moving toward a school voucher program. Finally, I would ask black neighborhoods to clean up their acts.
The black/white gap was created by intentional laws and direct socio-economic assistance for whites and against black people(and many other races and ethnicities) since before the inception of this country. Things like the New Deal, social security, FHA, GI Bill, and most programs were not able to be used if you weren't white. Suburbs and ghettos didn't "naturally" occur and the urban decay that plagues most black communites aren't by accident either. Regardless of intention, what we see today is a result of past and on-going discrimination. We might've made it unacceptable for whites to call black people n****rs in everyday conversation, but language has evolved to get around those problems like blaming nebulous things like "culture" without acknowledging how that culture develops from external social pressures.
I will agree that policies are somewhat paternalistic, but to point out social policies directed to help disenfranchised groups as infantilistic is simplistic reasoning at best. No one gets to where they are alone and everyone that suceeds gets there with lots of help whether it's individual, generational, or societal and it always a combination of all three and more.
[quote name='BigT']Good post. My reflections on this are as follows:
* Overall, in society, we have a problem that education (either theoretical or practical) is not highly valued. This is a problem that cuts across all parts of society, but, as with most things, the poor are more deleteriously affected because they don't have resources to fall back on (e.g., a rich kid goofs off and can still get by leeching off of his parents; a poor kid goofs off and then has nothing to fall back on... well, probably nothing that is legal). It is really sad nowadays... most young people (OMG, I'm getting old...) don't have any useful skills and are more concerned with facebook, twitter, or pointless entertainment rather than the pursuit of such skills. Even in advanced graduate studies, I am often disappointed by the lack of knowledge (and more importantly) the lack of a motivation to learn that is demonstrated.[/QUOTE]
And what do you think is the reason for preoccupation with social media and lack of motivation for education? I'm guessing the marketing industry that uses billions of dollars and behavioral sciences to influence people into doing things isn't on your list of reasons.
* More money and more gov't intervention is unlikely to provide the solution. Certainly, having enough basic resources is important, but after that, no one can force another to learn. You can lead a horse to water...
The state of education in the US has less to do with money and more to do with other environmental factors. Providing basic resources is important, but the US has been cutting them down for decades, so "enough" isn't really there.
* There are certainly racist people in the world and in this country. However, I can tell you that they do not run the lower and higher education systems. There are tons of opportunities for minorities to attend college and an admission committee's wet dream is to have a good amount of minorities get positions. If a black person is dedicated and wishes to obtain a higher education in this country, all doors are open!
Overt racism of the past exists in smaller occurances, but racism has evolved beyond that. Cynical admissions policies often pad their diversity numbers with international students and hardly ever admit people of color from the neighborhoods. And once those students get to those institutions, there is little in the form of support specifically tailored to them. This goes from college to doctoral studies.
Going to school and getting a higher education is one thing, but entering the job force is another. White males being the highest earners with white women earning the second most at 25% less is another serious problem that seriously hampers socio-economic mobility for most people of color. Saying that Oprah is a billionaire, so anyone can do it if they work hard enough is outright foolish and unrealistic.
ed up for someone to go around and slash people's asses. I've been to these malls before so I know the area well.
