By Ricky Castillo
As young children we are embedded with the idea that you can achieve anything that you set your mind to. Our society subconsciously buys into this idea of a meritocracy, which is the theory that people become successful due to a combination of hard work and pure talent – and not due to privilege or wealth. I was 10 years old when I read my first Dr. Seuss book. I was invited into a world that held this belief of an achieved equality. For years I always stayed with one quote in particular, “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” Only till I left a predominantly white public school in inner New Jersey, I realized that was a lie. I quickly came to the conclusion that this idea was racist because many people can’t choose what they want to do because of structural racism. I remember rushing home and ripping the pages from the book, “Oh the Places You’ll Go”. I had strongly believed in this idea because of the neighborhood I lived in and because a topic like race was never discussed at my local public school.
On January 6th, 2021, in an attempt to overturn former President Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of supporters participated in rioting and violent attacks against the capital. These people have been branded as insurrectionist and racist. This fact holds true in many circles but doesn’t solve the reality of what led up to this event. I call it a failure to educate. I was 10 years old and bravely believed that equality has been accomplished, that racism is a myth, and that through hard work anyone, of any race, color or gender, can achieve their goals. These instructions, protesters, rioters believed in something as bravely as I did.
Racism is a problem that has existed in our nation for centuries. The justice department found that the police had been called to respond to reports of black men sitting in a Starbucks, black people barbecuing in a park, black people picking up litter along a highway, black women leaving an Airbnb, a black woman napping, a black real estate investor checking on his property. According to the Justice Department’s 2016 report on the Baltimore Police Department, some supervisors had even instructed officers to specifically target African Americans and Hispanics for enforcement. Politicians and officials often see this problem of racially charged discimination in communities and focus on changing the minds of these police officers. “Cultural sensitivity” programs have attempted to tackle latent prejudices and implicit biases ignoring the structures that produce and perpetuate the mind set. Program after program attempts to take a stab at this problem we call “racism” but have all failed.
My question is what new program will we come up with next, to deal with these insurrectionist and truly racist people. LREI prides itself on producing active citizens that will create meaningful change in the world. Students are taught to act not only in service to themselves, but to the larger community as well. This institution really pushes against those in the nation who are one dimensional and motivated only by self interest. I would argue that in many ways LREI is a partial blueprint to the solution to racism. It is a big responsibility to put on the shoulders of one progressive private school in lower Manhattan. It isn’t a complete blueprint but a school that is able to have conversations about race and privilege and create a setting of different perspectives is one that is clearly attempting to fight against racism. Many scholars say that education is at the heart of what went wrong in Washington — as well as the tunnel through which the U.S. can exit a dark place.
What happened at Washington was as complicated as an event like that can be. In the weeks after, politicians, analysts, and news reporters attempted to come up with a reason for why people would commit such violent actions. At 10 years old I was given a book and I believed all the knowledge inside it and I let it dictate the way I would compose myself in my everyday life. In a way these people were given the same thing and the same choice. They received various pieces of information from Trump, cults, social media, media outlets or even their next door neighbor. They believed these brave and patriotic ideas, they trusted conspiracy theories as facts. And it turns out that if you tell someone their facts are wrong, you don’t usually win them over; you just entrench their false belief. Andrew Delbanco, a leader in liberal arts education, notes, “In the long run, the only force that can save democracy is an educated citizenry — citizens, that is, who know enough to resist the kind of lies and incitements spewed out by the current president and his enablers.”
Racism exists. As much as people might say it doesn’t, it does. That is a fact that can not be ignored. I believe that as a society, we have become so uncomfortable with talking about race and calling racism out. As a society we must ask when did phrases like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias,” become slurs for white Americans? In a survey, I conducted, white working class students across New York City responded with the idea that these phrases downplayed their struggles and threatened them. At LREI we have conversations about racism in assemblies, in classrooms, in affinity groups and in morning meetings. As simple and straightforward as it sounds, a willingness to talk about race is a really hard step to take in our current education system. What LREI fails to do, is furthering itself from the problem of racial segregation in the New York City’s school system. Jonathan Kozol, a progressive activist, remarks, “An integrated school setting is more likely to promote positive ehtnic attitudes among all children than one that is racially homogenous”. What is surprising is that LREI proves this statement partially wrong. LREI, in a way, has been able to promote positive ehtnic attitudes. Schools across the United States following in this pattern would have a heavy and influential impact on the way students and future adults compose themselves in their everyday lives.
We need to develop a way to have a conversation about white privilege and racism that doesn’t make some people feel condemned. White Americans need to work within their own communities and schools to combat prejudice. Schools must provide people with examples that break stereotypes, ask students to think about people of color as individuals rather than as a group, and allow them to step into the shoes of people of color. Ideally, schools and communities need to be integrated and teach civility in order to break the walls of segregation and hatred.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003773643/a-conversation-with-white-people-on-race.html
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/01/08/capitol-riots-failure-educate