Racing through education

Overt racism has been a running thread in our society, woven through many practices, dating back to the days of pre-colonisation in the 16^th century. Historical accounts of the indigenous people of the land, or the ‘other,’ written by European explorers and seamen, explain the fear of the unknown. These fears created an arbitrary divide between people based on the colour of their skin. Through religious practices, education systems and forms of social control, those in power in the Western world were able to spread biological assumptions and ‘commonsense’ statements about people’s intelligence, personality types and worldviews to the wider, western social sphere. The savagery, barbarism and brutality that occurred throughout history helped create, maintain and reinforce the hegemonic discourses and ideologies that are still apparent in the 21^st century. The defining emotion that is consistent is fear. I would like to question, though what the true motives and fears were? I believe an initial introduction to an individual, or a group of people, who live in a different context, partake in different social and cultural practices and contest dominant western ideologies and beliefs may spark some incongruence and raise some questions within oneself. These challenges though, or fears of a different perspective on life, should never just be met with resistance or perceived from a higher ground, as we are all human, and despite institutions, such as governmental, religion and education systems telling some people they are worth more or have a right to stand on a higher ground than others, the truth is, each individual’s outlook on life is as valuable as the next. It is all relative. So, with this in mind, I would like to ask another question. How is it that many education systems today are still covering up and manipulating the history of colonisation and the savagery and corruption of Western culture? Surely, if our very own practices that inform generations of youth are perpetuating dominant western hegemonic discourses, then our youth are being taught ignorance through bias history teachings. Although many practices do encourage critical evaluation of racial discourse and history, the injustices and histories are often taught from a western perspective. This graph shows the statistical distribution of schoolteachers by race and ethnicity in 2007-2008.

Sadly, I’m not even surprised at how high the percentile is of white, non-Hispanic teachers, and how underrepresented teachers of colour are. I think even though many white, western teachers do hold a well-rounded view of the injustices and inequalities of social practices, often they are still taught within a western framework and informed by their own ideologies and beliefs. It is important to see the disparity and gap between white, non-Hispanic teachers and ‘other’ ethnicities closing, so the younger generations are informed through a diverse range of cultural and social approaches, and a ‘colour-blind,’ denial to racism isn’t adopted. I would love to hear about anyone’s view on this, and whether anyone has experienced prejudice on unjust racial ground in an education system before.

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009324/tables/sass0708_2009324_t12n_02.asp

http://politicalblindspot.com/study-finds-white-americans-believe-they-experience-more-racism-than-african-americans/