Mind Over What Matters: Education of Race in Schools

I have to admit, going into Suzanne’s class at the beginning of the semester I assumed I had a fair grasp of the racial disparities within our society – but boy is my face red!   

Throughout this paper I have gained significant understanding of inferential racism and how it is perpetuating inequality across institutional frameworks in New Zealand. Suzanne has made some insightful points throughout the course regarding the danger in inferential racism is that so largely goes unnoticed due to the embedded ideologies and I couldn’t agree more! From subtle micro-aggressions like choosing to cross the street when a person of colour is walking towards you, experiencing Hollywood whitewashing as scroll through Netflix’ ‘recommended for you’ section or seeing damaging stereotypes used in mainstream media to depict minority groups as dangerous members of society its evident that the discussion of racism is far from over.

This course has opened my eyes to the everyday encounters we all have with racial disparities and I think having the awareness of such structures currently in place is the first step to challenging these outdated and harmful ideologies. For this reason I believe that this paper should be a compulsory component of the New Zealand high-school education curriculum. Raising awareness and recognising that there is an array of problems still needing to be overcome is something we should be informing young Kiwi’s of sooner rather than later. Think of how impactful this information would be to a young child learning social normalities of high school alongside the appropriate ways to treat everyone on this planet as equal and worthy citizens?  

While I understand this is an idealist viewpoint to hold, it is worth acknowledging ways to address racial issues beyond what we currently have in place. We are unable to strive for equality without first obtaining appropriate education and education is impossible without context of events. I think it should be a requirement to learn about the global history of race relations regarding the mistakes of past actions, emphasizing the need to avoid a relapse of such events occurring in the future. If math and science are considered vital components of our current national education programme, I believe so too should this.