Chapter 3- Equality of Educational Opportunity

        This has been the most insightful chapter of the book thus far for me. The socially constructed view of race has been eye opening. All other concepts in education that make the most sense to me as a history major have a logical progression in the form of a series of events leading up to a particular ending or goal. For most of my college career have have understood that race has been a social issue that was created out of the unfounded myth that there was something inherently inferior about people who were not “white.” However, I never understood how the definition of white was actually the catalyst for how we actually view other people. Often times in history we discuss the importance of an “other” in order to create a valid sense of self. The path for whites to remain dominant in American society is similar to struggles elsewhere. For instance, when one considers the Holocaust the first thing that most students, teachers, or citizens think of is the Nazi extermination of the Jews. looking deeper into this issue one can find that the reason the Final Solution was so successful and practical (while grotesquely horrific) was that anti-Semitism already existed in Germany for a long period of time. The cultural context was ripe for Hitler and other Nazi leaders to exploit anti-Jewish sentiment in order to create a made up enemy. The end result of this strategy was not in fact complete extermination of the Jews. The real goal of this process was to create a sense of German identity and patriotism by creating a dichotomy between what was Aryan and what was not.

            Though the elite American path towards white dominance did not result in the concentrated genocide of the Jews, the example serves as a striking parallel to the Nazi propaganda campaign. All legislation determining what white really meant was in fact a veiled effort to show what white was not. During the beginning of the struggle the government said that light-skinned meant white because that made it very easy to exclude the main threat to white dominance- free black people. After this was challenged by lighter skinned minorities from non-black cultures, a cultural and linguistic side of argument came about. This was again challenged so that the definition became Caucasian. When this definition “accidentally” included those of Middle Eastern decent, Americans made the definition of white something that the common man believed was white. So there became an incredibly vague definition for something that very specifically affects many people’s daily lives.

 The issue of citizenship and the ideas of whiteness are necessarily as important as what they represent. If we go along with the idea that racism is prejudice with power then it seems impossible for one to not understand the oppression of minorities without understanding that the need to oppress was based on the need to create a more inferior “other” out of the minorities. Out of these unfounded beliefs about race came separation. The best analogy I know to understand this concept was told to me a few years ago: Imagine that there are ten strangers trapped in a cave for a month with only each other to depend upon. The people will develop a close bond with one another over that course of time. Even after being rescued, there will be a firm connection for the rest of their lives as a direct result of sharing this experience with one another. They may have inside jokes, nicknames, or specific struggles that they can only express to one another. This is the same way that culture emerges in different ethic groups that are currently living in the U.S. When a group of people (large or small) is excluded from outside influence or their needs are not being met, they bond with one another and find a way to be proud of what they have in common. Currently attached to this idea is now a stigma that the culture came before the exclusion and the ethnic groups have now begun excluding themselves. To the layman this seems perfectly logical and well thought out. However, if we examine race as something that we are born into as opposed to something that is innate within our biology and look at the history of how these uniquely Americanized ethnic cultures have developed, we can understand the perspective of those in minority groups.

Since we can see this as something that comes at us instead of something coming out at us, it is easy to understand how children as young as two and three develop ethnic identities that are often times very negative. The following video shows a great example of this practice:

            This clip shows us how early on the grand narrative comes into play during a child’s life. Aside from teaching students to be conscious of what they have or have not been given, this discussion should make us aware of “otherness” on a larger scale. When asked what the normal type of student was at the high school I work at I responded “White and poor.” The outcasts at this school are the handful of minority students as well as the wealthier white children. Students who dress well and are perceived as having white collar parents often have trouble making social connections to others since they believe they are not like the other students. This is only one example of how we should constantly be aware of otherness in the classroom. There is always a process that leads us the perspective that we have, and to correct the problem there must be a digestion of information and synthesis of ideas in order to make a difference.