Читать книгу Still Invisible? - Elvin J. Dowling - Страница 15

Nicknamed the "City of Lakes" and nestled on the banks of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, the great midwestern city of Minneapolis, Minnesota is a diverse and cosmopolitan locale that boasts a long history of diversity. Having first been inhabited by a group of permanent Native American settlers, the Dakota tribe, in the 1500's, Minneapolis has historically opened its portals to citizens from all around the world that have converged upon the "Twin Cities" to make it their home. With that being said, however, even this traditionally progressive city found itself at a crossroads when it was suddenly confronted with the fact that its African-American boys were being unduly punished in schools, facing suspension and expulsion at rates higher than all other students.

In her article, "A Superintendent in Minnesota Has Banned Black Kids from Being Suspended Without Her Permission," Krisytle Crossman noted the bold action being taken by a solitary school administrator who had come to her own conclusion that "enough was enough"! "Minneapolis, Minnesota superintendent Bernadeia Johnson is making sure that students of color are getting the same treatment as white students when it comes to suspension in their schools," Crossman begins. "Black children are suspended ten times more than white students and she wants to make sure that changes. In order to do so she has come up with new guidelines for her schools" (Crossman). For example, when a school in Johnson’s district requested the suspension of a student in which the student's actions did not result in harm or violence, principals and other disciplinary administrators had to have Johnson's authorization before doing so. "The guidelines that were set out by Johnson were part of an agreement with the Civil Rights office at the U.S. Department of Education... Johnson is setting an example for school districts all over the nation in showing that the suspension rates for students of color are far too high and something needs to be done about it," Crossman continued. "Some students never recover from these punishments and end up feeling like they are already labeled as bad kids, so why not continue with the bad behavior. This lands them in prison at early ages." (Crossman).

According to a report in the New York Times, young African-American males are almost certainly destined to an economic reality in which they will earn less than their white counterparts, even if they come from wealthy families and well to do neighborhoods. In their article, "Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys", journalists Emily Badger and her colleagues from the Times revealed the stark economic futures facing Black males in America. "White boys who grow up rich are likely to remain that way. Black boys raised at the top, however, are more likely to become poor than to stay wealthy in their own adult households. Even when children grow up next to each other with parents who earn similar incomes, Black boys fare worse than white boys in 99 percent of America. And the gaps only worsen in the kind of neighborhoods that promise low poverty and good schools" (Badger).

As sociologists struggle to explain these persistent economic gaps, they have also been startled to discover that the social gulf of acceptance for Black males puts them at a distinct disadvantage from nearly every other group in American society, to include African-American females. “One of the most popular liberal post-racial ideas is the idea that the fundamental problem is class and not race, and clearly this study explodes that idea,” said Ibram Kendi, a professor and director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. “But for whatever reason, we’re unwilling to stare racism in the face (Badger)." In fact, in an effort to disprove the notion that there are areas in America in which poor Black boys do as well as whites, researchers sought to pinpoint neighborhoods in which this is, indeed, the case, but this proved to be a nearly impossible task because said enclaves are few and far between. "The few neighborhoods that met this standard were in areas that showed less discrimination in surveys and tests of racial bias. They mostly had low poverty rates. And, intriguingly, these pockets — including parts of the Maryland suburbs of Washington, and corners of Queens and the Bronx — were the places where many lower-income Black children had fathers at home. Poor Black boys did well in such places, whether their own fathers were present or not (Badger)." The data went on to reveal that, while African-American females also face the persistent negative effects of racism, African-American males experience racism differently and, oftentimes, in ways that are more violent and intrusive. "As early as preschool, they [Black males] are more likely to be disciplined in school. They are [also] pulled over or detained and searched by police officers more often" (Badger). In fact, the research lays bare the fact that there is a significant and material difference in the level of challenges Black males face. “It’s not just being Black but being male that has been hyper-stereotyped in this negative way, in which we’ve made Black men scary, intimidating, with a propensity toward violence,” said Noelle Hurd, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia (Badger)."

In a study produced by the University of Iowa, researchers have affirmed what African-American parents have decried for generations: Black boys are seen as an inherent threat to nonwhites. According to the study, people were more likely to associate threatening words and weapons with the images of young Black boys. The results were similar to that of the first experiment; participants were more likely to associate images of guns with Black faces - regardless of whether the faces belonged to an adult or a child. What is more, subjects were more likely to mistakenly identify tools as guns after seeing an image of a Black adult or child. According to Matthew Lynch, in his article for The Edvocate, "Black Boys Are Seen as More Threatening Than White Boys", white males, in particular, may tend to be triggered by the very image of Black males, even as young as preschoolers. "The team enrolled 131 white college students in a second experiment, in which participants were shown faces of Black and white adults, alongside the images of tools or a gun" the study observed (Lynch). "Further analysis using a process-dissociation procedure revealed that it was unintentional racial bias that drove participants to associate threatening objects with Black faces," it continued. "Our findings suggest that, although young children are typically viewed as harmless and innocent, seeing faces of 5-year-old Black boys appears to trigger thoughts of guns and violence." It is important to note, however, that this less than earth-shattering empirical research also revealed that, when scratching deeper beneath the surface, an even more disturbing revelation emerges. "Their research also revealed that the racial prejudices we show against Black men really begins much earlier. The study found that racial stereotypes are first felt by Black men when they are just boys (Lynch)".

During the experiments conducted amongst the participants, pictures of small children were displayed, one Black, the other white. Next they were shown a picture of two items, one being a gun and the other a toy. Finally, they were asked to associate either object to each of the children in question. As they were shown the images of the children, the students were also given pictures of a gun or a toy. The results revealed that the participants were more likely to associate the gun with the Black boy and the toy with the white boy, indicating an inherent bias that the subjects may not have even been aware they possessed. What's more, however, the lasting impact that these underlying biases have on Black males is one that impacts them, more often than not, their entire lives.

Perhaps the most persistent fear that African-American parents of school-aged children have is the gnawing sense that the "system" is always a step behind them waiting for their children to make a misstep, so that they can swoop in and make free labor of them as a critical component of the American penal system. As a teacher that steadfastly held the interests of all of his students as a high priority and a personal commitment, Gregory Diggs knew heading into the educational field, that the cards were stacked against his students of color, particularly African-American boys, regardless of what he did to help stem the tide. "The education of our children does not start at school; it starts at home. We are now starting to have more and more early childhood education programs that are aligned with school curriculums and that's good, but as soon as your child can walk and talk you should be engaging them in education and learning activities even before they come to school, and then we definitely should be involved as soon as they're going to school." The challenge, however, with this philosophy is the fact that, even when African-American parents do their best to steer their children in the right direction, there are systemic obstacles intentionally designed to funnel them into the grips of the government, regardless of their efforts.

Notwithstanding the fact that race plays an integral role in the life challenges faced by Black boys in America, the issue of economic inequality, often experienced at birth is one that cannot be understated. According to Emily Badger, in a Washington Post article chronicling another extensive report on the lives and experiences of inner city Black youths entitled, "What Your First Grade Life Says About the Rest of It," young Black boys have very little opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty, incarceration, disenfranchisement and early death that they are confronted with from birth. In a twenty year longitudinal study of nearly 800 Baltimore public schools entitled "The Long Shadow," researchers Karl Alexander and Doris Entwisle uncovered an unsettling dynamic that impacted the vast majority of these students their entire lives: if you are a poor Black kids, chances are you will become a poor Black adult--if you make it to adulthood, that is. In fact, the students of the study weren’t just faceless subjects, as the researchers became emotionally invested in their individual wellbeing, having closely followed their life's trajectory over an extended period of time. "In a typical survey project, you knock on doors, you make calls, you ask questions, you get your answers, and you go away. This wasn’t like that. We were with these kids a long, long time" ("First Grade").

Throughout the course of the study, both Alexander and Entwisle continued to reach out to the students, sending annual birthday cards, conducting impromptu visits and phone calls, with the goal of tracking the students’ progress and looking for any patterns of similarities that may emerge. "Over time, their lives were constrained — or cushioned — by the circumstances they were born into, by the employment and education prospects of their parents, by the addictions or job contacts that would become their economic inheritance", the researchers intoned ("First Grade"). "[T]he threads running through all those numbers and conversations: The families and neighborhoods these children were born into cast a heavy influence over the rest of their lives, from how they fared in the first grade to what they became as grownups" ("First Grade"). And though many of the students ultimately acquired midlevel jobs and stable households as adults, those limited examples of success came primarily as a result of those isolated examples leveraging their limited networks and resources to help pry open the doors of economic opportunity.

In her much-heralded viral TED Talk, "How We're Priming Some Kids for College--Others for Prison," urban ethnologist Alice Goffman helped to lay bare the stark realities facing America's minority youth. "It's poor kids that we're sending to prison, too many drawn from African-American and Latino communities so that prison now stands firmly between the young people trying to make it and the fulfillment of the American Dream," Goffman declared. "The problem's actually a bit worse than this," she continued, "because we're not just sending poor kids to prison, we're saddling poor kids with court fees, with probation, parole restrictions and low-level warrants. We're asking them to live in halfway houses and on house arrest, and we're asking them to negotiate a police force that is entering poor communities of color, not for the purposes of promoting public safety, but to make arrest counts, to line city coffers." With these systemic challenges facing Black males in America, it’s any wonder anyone can succeed under the weight of such oppression.

With that being said, however, the issues that Black males face even at an early age, must also be viewed from the prism of personal responsibility and the necessary accountability it takes to acknowledge the role Black males often play in how their narrative is shaped and ultimately viewed by others. "I don't have any quarrel with the notion that Black folks tend to harm each other more than any other race. With that being said, however, I do have a problem when people try to cast it as there being something pathologically wrong with Black folks because that's just not true," he quickly denoted. "I believe that as we work on our educational issues in this country, those of us who are are educated must try to lend our talents and knowledge in service to our community, so that we can better those that don't have the same opportunities as us. So, my suggestion is that we continue to work with each other and promote those things that we know will maximize the opportunities for success for our young people and for our families and for our community."

To that end, for people like Gregory Diggs, a ready remedy, or at least a soothing antidote, to the sting of systemic disadvantage lies in the importance of individual mentorship. "I have mentored on many different levels, and professionally I've worked for a couple of mentoring organizations, so I have been integral in developing programs and providing services and training around mentorship and I do believe that mentoring is important," Diggs declared. "Again, the thing for me is making sure as we experience whatever success that we have as Black people, we try to make time to share those experiences with those who are less fortunate. That, I believe, is how we can try to make an effort to help our whole community to have the best possible outcomes."

Yet, in spite of overwhelming evidence leading even the most skeptical of rational thinkers to conclude that there is a systemic disadvantage for Black males in America, one cannot help but acknowledge the impact of racial privilege in this country. In an economic policy report for the Washington Post, journalist Max Ehrenfreund demonstrated the inherent advantages that even the poorest of white children have over young boys and girls of color in America. "A stark new finding epitomizes that reality: In recent decades, rich Black kids have been more likely to go to prison than poor white kids. "Race trumps class, at least when it comes to incarceration," said Darrick Hamilton of the New School, one of the researchers who produced the study" (Ehrenfreund). Hamilton, along with his colleagues Khaing Zaw and William Darity of Duke University, in analyzing "The Long Shadow", the aforementioned longitudinal study conducted in Baltimore, concluded that, in many ways, discrimination against African-Americas and other minority groups, was not only complicated but steeped in economic inequality.

"The researchers grouped participants in the survey by their race and their household wealth as of 1985 and then looked back through the data to see how many people in each group ultimately went to prison" (Ehrenfreund). "About 2.7 percent of the poorest white young people — those whose household wealth was in the poorest 10th of the distribution in 1985, when they were between 20 and 28 years old — ultimately went to prison", the study noted. "In the next 10th, 3.1 percent ultimately went to prison. The households of young people in both of these groups had more debts than assets. In other words, their wealth was negative. All the same, their chances of being imprisoned were far less than those of Black youth from much more affluent circumstances" (Ehrenfreund). "About 10 percent of affluent Black youths in 1985 would eventually go to prison. Only the very wealthiest Black youth — those whose household wealth in 1985 exceeded $69,000 in 2012 dollars — had a better chance of avoiding prison than the poorest white youth. Among Black young people in this group, 2.4 percent were incarcerated" (Ehrenfreund). In short, economic status does not trump racial privilege when it comes to the long arm of the law in America. And should Black males defy the odds and avoid the criminal justice system altogether, they are still less likely to accumulate wealth than their white counterparts, regardless of their economic station in life.