Children start learning about racism from a young age; they won’t fully understand what it means until later on in life. Racism, by definition, is power that operates through overt or covert policies that favor white people and are biased against people of color. It’s difficult to give a 9 or 10 year old all of the explicit facts about racism that occurred in our country’s history. By not telling them all of the facts, they are lead to believe that America is “good” in a sense, yet there is nothing good about dehumanizing a specific group of people, which is why the hard facts must be taught in our education systems. Learning about racism will help children, who will be our future, learn that they cannot relive the same mistakes that were made …show more content…
People tend to make jokes, slurs, and stereotypes about other races. Members of a specific race will hear the same negative comments so often that they’ll eventually start to believe them. According to Claude M. Steele, “...a person’s personal performance can be detrimentally affected by the psychological triggering of negative stereotypes assigned to one’s social group identity” (606). These comments will start to take an emotional toll on one’s brain and will cause a person to use the negative comments that hurt them towards people who are of the same race. It’s an endless cycle of being dehumanized, accepting the dehumanization, and then dehumanizing someone. It’s important that children know that this type of behavior was occurring in America and although Americans cannot right all their wrongs, they can still learn from their mistakes. To add on, people are aware that using slurs and stereotypes to create others feel inferior is wrong, but that does not stop them. The authors say that, “Majority of people will use racial commentary to deny equality in the safety of their own home with friends and close acquaintances” (605). The same people will embrace equality in public in order to make themselves feel better about what they say in private. Children need to learn that the only way to achieve equality is to be striving for it
The second major role teachers can play in educating students about racism is through exactly that, education. "A lot has been written about the nature of prejudice, and racism, the many ways in which it is manifested, how it is transmitted and perpetuated, and even the stages that individuals go though in overcoming it's effects" (Hacker 192). If teachers would find this information, believe in it and share it with the children, then hopefully a few, if not all the views of the students will change. "Everyone needs this body of knowledge" (193).
Black students account nationally for 34% of all suspensions (Mazama). Black students in America are faced with a struggle as they begin to go into school systems. Some students will go into an urban school system and will be surrounded by many minorities and others will attend rural school areas in the south. African American students who live in the south experience a great amount of racism from their peers, their peers parents, teachers, and other school officials. The issue occurs when students of a majority race don't know how to communicate or peacefully get along with students of a minority race. This can be an act of calling a student out of their name or acting violently towards them. Students should not have to worry about whether they are safe at school all because of something they can’t help. Racism needs to be taken out of schools all across the the world. They way we do this is to educate students about black history and how their actions may trigger a student of color.
Is an author’s main purpose of writing only to entertain his readers? Authors sometimes use their literature to demonstrate their opinions about a certain issue. One of these topics may be racial and ethnic discrimination. We see how authors express their views about racism through the literatures “Walk Well, My Brother”, “Lark Song”, and “Cowboys and Indians”.
When young children do express thoughts of race or being bias, it is often dismissed as either bad parenting, child not knowing what they are talking about, or simply bad behavior in children. Research clearly shows that children not only recognize race from a very young age, but also develop racial biases by age’s three to five that do not necessarily resemble the racial attitudes of adults in their lives (Aboud 2008). Three- to five-year-olds in a racially and ethnically diverse day care center used racial categories to identify themselves and others, to include or exclude children from activities, and to negotiate power in their own social/play networks (Van Ausdale & Feagin 2001).
What factors supported racism in the United States in the time of Jackie Robinson’s birth?
Racism in our society has a long deeply rooted history. It has been in every part of our society and appears not to be getting any better. In order to fully understand racism one must look at the root cause of racism and the effects it has on an individual and a group. One must also look at the big picture of why there is the need for one group of people to think they are more superior than another and how it continues to progress. Experiencing racism is a traumatic experience and is something
Some People tend to laugh and feed on putting someone down based on their race and some may not even know they are being racist at all. The fact is that your behavior towards someone can be racist even when you may be “Joking” or “Messing around.” The matter of fact is the racial comments were still made and still have a hurtful message. In the essays we read we were given a real life example of how even unintentional racial comments can still be harmful to someone and shouldn’t be used as a cultural norm. One imperative stride to lessening the racist culture in America is to incorporate educational programs for our youth to show them that we are all created equal and racism has no place in our society. These measures can help raise equality and counter the impacts of any prejudice or dogmatism that happens in the children’s homes by helping them see and comprehend what generalizations and racism are and that they ought to be stayed away from. The adults and leaders in the lives of the youngsters are the illustrations that the kids look up to and will determine how they will act when they are older. By instructing the kids at a young age about the threats of generalization and racism, we can limit the transference of bigotry to the future
My study displays how people from several categories have differing opinions about racists teaching in the education system. It can help determine peoples’ attitudes toward race in the schools. However, there were some of the limitations to my study. One was that I could not interview and interact with the respondents personally. I was not able to ask in depth questions as to why people felt a certain way about racist teachers. Also, I wanted to know if the respondents surveyed ever had any interaction with a teacher that was deemed to have racist attitudes towards them or a family member. It would have been nice to study the information based on location of the respondents polled. This would further help understand the attitudes people have towards race based off of geographical location. There are some behaviors that people perceive to be racist and talking with people individually would help get all of this information. I ran multiple cross-tabulations to help me in my study on allowing racist teachers in the education system. These were using the independent variable allowing racist to teach and the dependent variables, education, race and sex.
IN THE U.S, race is learned through socialization. children are socialized to abide by perceptions of race: White-having opportunities, Asian-being smart, Black- being resilient in fighting racism. for example, African American children learn from their parents, peers, teachers how to take pride in being black and warned about racial inequalities. The parents have to psychologically prepare their children for encountering racial injustice and becoming the subject of racial stereotypes in the future. The racist representation of minorities in media can affect their self-esteem, which is they need to receive positive messages from socialization agents.
Growing up in America, it is not uncommon for people of color to experience racism. Although there is a wide spread of areas people face this inequality, children and young adults spend most of their time at school. Therefor racism in the learning environment has an extreme impact. A Huffington Post article talks about this racism and the different levels children will face while growing up. This article begins by stating that a great number of people, like academic John McWhorter and Harvard professors William Julius Wilson and Roland Fryer, believe that racism has declined tremendously or that it is gone entirely (Cokley, 2016). This article explains why racism is not dead, but instead thriving and a part of millions of black Americans’ lives
1 Cynthia Silva Parker defines racism as “a system of oppression created to justify social, political, and economic hierarchy.” It is presented as one of the major problems to our society. Each person has their own understanding of racism and what they believe defines it. People develop an unconscious bias to racism based on surroundings and other social or environmental factors. Parker says this unconscious bias turns into a conscious bias and affects decision making based on the individual. One of the examples she gives is, “It can be the difference between a teacher sending a student to the principal’s office or not.” To change people from developing this bias each kid has be taught the same in every school but of course this is very hard
Throughout this class, Religion, Race, and Discrimination in America, we have learned how racism came about with many different theories. Religion can be defined as, a belief or worship in a higher power, normally a God or Gods. Race can be defined as social grouping or form of peoplehood that is marked by traits that are perceived to be biologically inherited. (Prentiss Introduction, slide 9) With race and religion people or groups of people can justify the discrimination of others because other groups do not share the same beliefs or traits they do. The theory of racism that will be discussed below is colonialism. Three case studies will be provided to show how colonialism created religious communities in the U.S., racial identities, and the efforts to resist racism.
Most people seem to think that racism in schools died years ago. This thought could not be more wrong. Racism can be seen in schools now more than it ever has been and it needs to be stopped because it affects the way students learn and their success. The world is full of stories and incidents that have occurred involving discrimination and the effects they have on students.
Have you ever been to Africa?" John asked his African-American friend, Kenny, whose parents and grandparents are American-born. Now some would assume that this is automatically racist, considering John’s most likely asking Kenny this question due to his race. Racism is a major problem in America and all around the world, affecting the lives of many people. Not knowing about a race or culture often can spring assumptions that could offend people while forming ideas about groups of people based on prior experiences are usually not a good way to obtain more knowledge. However truly hating a race is the most extreme version of racism, as it could lead to harassment and/or violence. Racism is divided into the subsets of ignorance, prejudice, and true racial hate, which are listed from the least to most extreme.
It is my hypothesis that diverse backgrounds have a great effect on the ability for a student to learn. I am not suggesting that a student from one background is less likely to learn than the student from a completely different background. I do predict that if educators do not take to heart the diverse backgrounds of their students at both the lower and upper levels of education than the student will suffer in one degree or another.