El Choque/ The Clash

    The Dumas reading, Against the Dark: Antiblackness in Education Policy and Discourse, mentioned that the 2060 US Census estimates that white people will no longer be the majority of the nation's population.  Intriguing... However, I am left to contemplate if this is indeed the case, how is it that mainstream white society still has all the power in the United States?  Ironic as it may be, it is our reality. Why? Systemic racism is the answer.

    Not only does the black population experience racial disparity but so do the brown populations as well.  In the video, Precious Knowledge: Fighting for Mexican American Studies in Arizona Schools, the message is clear~ public education plays a major role in how structural racism works. How? Some of the adults who choose a profession in education are the same ones who attribute cultural behavior for the disparities that exist in our country.  

    The video mentioned that 50% of Hispanics drop out of school, but does this mean that they are damaged, disengaged, dysfunctional, lazy and unteachable in the eyes of the educational system? Absolutely not but yet this is how they are perceived.  At a faculty meeting at the high school in Arizona, an educator said exactly these things.  He also mentioned that learning was irrelevant to the Chicanos lives; therefore, making them unteachable. What???

    The attitudes of teachers like this are what makes students like Gilbert state, " I hated education.  They're so against me.  They want me to drop out."  This is how the "gears" that Tricia Rosen spoke of start to work together and become compounded.  A lack of a quality education leads to a path of poverty, poor housing, poor health, and eventually criminal injustice.  

     If the powers that be really cared to listen, the fix is easy: "Teach students to read the world" (Pablo Freire). Permit students of color to learn about their ethnicities, to learn who they are and where they came from.  Empower students.  Let them study what they care about and once that seed is planted, watch that seed grow into something beautiful.  We saw this with the Chicano students standing up to the superintendent and the senator by peacefully protesting to keep their Mexican Raza courses.  We saw this with the graduation rate for the Hispanic  students skyrocketed to 93%.  

    You would think that the superintendent and the district of Arizona would applaud this, but it's quite the contrary. A person of color who strives to move ahead, is quickly reminded, "You'll never win-our country is ours," meaning there is no place for Black or Browns to truly get ahead in mainstream society.  Instead, they have to stay in their lane and/or play the part of a second class citizen.  And if you fight back for what's right, the protagonist becomes the antagonist. Just like the educators of the Raza were accused of teaching hatred/Anti American and Revolutionary actions. They were even compared to the Ku Klux Clan. Ridiculous!

    So, a quality education can become a crime for Black and Brown folks because it instills fear. To quote Cesar Chavez~ When social change begins, it can not be reversed; you can not uneducate a person who has learned to read; you can not humiliate the person who feels pride and you can not oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.  

       To me, this notion of pride resonates with what Gloria Anzalduza proclaimed in Borderlands: Towards a New  Consciousness, that the coming together of two cultures is a step towards liberation from cultural domination. For her, a Mestiza learns to juggle cultures- to be Indian in Mexican culture and to be a Mexican from an Anglo point of view, making her a prisoner in her duality by creating a deep sense of racial shame because of who they are.   The suffrage and pain stems from the fact that the Mexican has never been allowed to be  fully themselves. So, unfortunately, the myth of the melting pot is just that: a myth.  Not every culture wants to assimilate into the American culture at the risk of losing who they are and where they came from.  

    For example, in my first TESL class, I read an article by Camila Arze Torrres Gotia who talked about this Melting Pot myth in her article, Colonizing Wild Tongues.  She strongly voiced her opinions on why we should rethink schools.   As she argues, "Colonization is the problem. It makes you believe that you are better and smarter if you adopt the ways of the colonizers. It made me believe that if I sounded like Debbie and Ashley I could have their life and their opportunities.  But I wasn’t Debbie and Ashley. I was Camila. Not Camille and not Camilla, even though that is what I let teachers call me. I would always be “other” in the United States." 

    C'mon now.  It's 2020 and Black and Brown people are fed up with being the "other."  Our time is NOW!