Post #8

12/22/14

Life in the Bedford Hills prison seems so monotonous, it could drive one insane. While

this section talks about Elaine’s grief, the grief and sense of imprisonment her children

and mother are experiencing while she’s in prison are what are really being highlighted.

Elaine was able to tell that her children were missing her presence as they developed

into young adults. It was hard on all of them. Fortunately for Apache, who ended up

being the consistent role model for the twenty years, he found an outlet in basketball.

The drug dealers respected that and he was able to stay away from the trade. He was

also able to travel and see that there is more out there than the New York City housing

projects and the Bedford Hills prison. Jamel on the other hand has gone in the other

direction. He’s gotten himself involved in the drug trade as a twelve year old, already

carrying a gun. Jamel feels a lot of anger over the absence of his mother and then of his

brother Apache. The saddest part of it is that, Yvonne eventually stops disciplining him

for coming home after dealing, because she recognizes that he is the breadwinner of

the family at 12 years old.

Again reflecting on the field trip I attended to the prison, the separation between parents and children is a very difficult thing to deal with. I heard speakers talk about how they weren’t around to see their kids, or grandchildren born, or to attend the funeral of their mom or dad. It’s sad. It can have serious consequences on the children as we see with Jamel. I don’t think teenagers in a supportive household always recognize how important it is to have someone rooting for you, to have someone who is genuinely invested in your success. Jamel doesn’t have that now, especially with Apache gone, so all he has to look up to are the dealers around his housing complex. And what law enforcement has to realize is, by putting people like Elaine in jail for 20+ years has a poor impact on her kids, which will raise another generation of “criminals”. Hey, maybe that’s what they want because it’s a business like anything else. I just don’t understand how you can look at a twelve year old who is starting to deal drugs to support his family and not question what’s going on.

Post #7

12/22/14

“For Elaine, the nights were the hardest, when she was locked in her cell, lying on her prison cot in the dark. Sleeping alone felt strange. Growing up, she had always slept with her mother or a sister...In those early months at Bedford, she spent the last hours of every day crying into her pillow.” Also, before arriving at Bedford Hills, Elaine had never been a thief. However, once she was in prison ironically, she became a skilled thief. I see her shoplifting as warranted. The prison doesn’t provide women enough sanitary napkins. She would occasionally smoke smuggled marijuana in the prison yard with fellow inmates. She describes her high as enhancing her focus on the fence that separates her from the outside world. The faint sound of cars passing reminded her that there was lives being lived outside of the walls she’s trapped in ( her “concrete cage”). Getting high in the past had made her laugh a lot and feel cheerful but on the inside now she only felt more depressed and frustrated. When she wasn’t smoking she was still pondering what she had done that deserved a 20-to-life sentence in a maximum security prison. Her “crime” can’t even be compared to the ones committed by her fellow inmates.

I had a strong emotional response to Elaine’s early experiences in prison. Last week I went to the Norfolk County Correctional--medium security prison on a field trip. After talking with some of the inmates, I realized how rigid it is in prison. You have to wake up at a certain time everyday. If you oversleep you get a “ticket”. You are trapped in this building for an insane amount of time. As my classmates and I got up to leave the prison and the inmates got up to return to their cells or prison jobs, it hit me how fortunate I am to have the freedom to have control over my life. I’m very aware of that now. So I have empathy for Elaine during those long tearful nights. I was also angered to read that Elaine and the other inmates aren’t provided with enough sanitary resources. I mean, if you have to steal in order to keep your personal hygiene at a healthy level, than that’s not fair treatment. It’s dehumanizing in a sense. To cage people up and not provide them with vital sanitary items.

Post Based on Reading - #6

12/14/14                          Reading Post #6

In post #5 I mentioned the awful public defense lawyers Elaine was paired with, and how not being able to afford bail hurt her. Now, I want to bring up the other key downfall to Elaine’s trial. Judge Clyne was a forceful judge. He enjoyed sending people to prison. Judges need to be impartial to the case if a trial is to go properly. Clyne is described as “cleaning scum off the street like a sponge”. The idea that he sees people who are going to trial as “scum” is disgusting. People who commit a misdemeanor are just people who lost their way. There is context behind the prevalence of drug trade in Elaine’s neighborhood. Clyne is obviously ignorant to that. To quote the Race Reels video from the other night, throwing so many people in jail is like alleviating a cough of someone suffering from pneumonia. Stopping the cough momentarily doesn’t heal the infected lung. All these arrests aren’t getting to the root of the problem. If someone had improved the circumstances that Elaine was living in, she wouldn’t ever consider carrying cocaine. Later on, Judge Clyne was mocking Elaine in court, it was just ridiculously unprofessional

Between my public speaking theme of racial injustice/incarceration and my social justice class, I’ve learned how the criminal justice system really works. You would think that they are after criminals, but they’re not. They are after money just like any other business. That means the incentive of the war on drugs is, the more prisoners that the police and judges get into jail, the more money they make for “doing their job”. Drug convictions alone accounted for about 2/3 of the increase of the federal prison population and over half of the state prison population between 1985 and 2000. Drug convictions have increased more than 1000% since the drug war began. People of color are targeted in this drug war, while the use of drugs is nearly equal across the races. After serving time, the system wrecks an ex-convicts outside life. People convicted of committing a felony cannot get food stamps, are discriminated against in housing, are denied other public benefits, are denied the right to vote. Our country cripples ex-convicts economically and socially to the point where they can barely survive outside of prison. Consequently, about 70% of those released form prison return because the challenges of survival on the outside are so large. So this is the cycle.

Post Based on Reading - #5

12/14/14                          Reading Post #5 

The whole process of Elaine going through court was incredibly unfair. New York University Professor James B. Jacobs states that, "Your ability to remain free depends on the size of your wallet, which just inherently discriminated against the poor". The system bail is catered to the wealthy. Let me rephrase that, the system of bail mostly benefits white Americans. If Elaine had the $250,000 she could have avoided jail time. In general, do you think you can really put a money value to all crimes? That seems a bit shallow to me. It’s all a money game.  As a result of Elaine not being able to afford a good lawyer, she was represented by a public defense lawyer who felt no need to defend her. Once again we return to the money. If you can afford to pay a lawyer, you will be better off in trial, especially if you are not white. Elaine and Nathan (her boyfriend) were given no legal advice. If Elaine had pleaded guilty (even though that’s a frustration on it’s own because she isn’t guilty) she could have done much less time, like 15 years less. It’s just ridiculous.

What’s scary to me is that Elaine is just one story. I’m sure there are lots of black and hispanic parents who have gotten screwed over in court or by the police, with kids at home that they are trying to provide for. As the book seemed to allude to, Americans in similar living conditions to Elaine don’t have $250,000 hanging around to give to the court. The idea of bail being a fair system is our country has been nagging at me, so I decided to look into a couple of articles about it. A member of the Human Rights Watch, Jamie Fellner states, "The idea that somebody goes and sits in Rikers Island [jail] and endures all of the hardship of that simply because they don't have $500 or $1,000 is truly offensive and serves no public purpose". After reading this section of Life on the Outside and the articles about bail, I’ve decided that my opinion on it is similar to Fellner’s. It’s a blatant contradiction to the idea that “all men are created equal” in the eyes of the law.

Posts Based on Reading - Post #4

12/7/14                          Reading Blog Post #4

A little farther into Life on the Outside we learn about how and why Elaine ended up in prison. In order to provide for her family Elaine worked any job she could. She often found herself renting a chair at a local Barber and Beauty Shop without a license in hairdressing. However, she was still struggling to earn the money she needed to comfortably provide for her children and with Thanksgiving around the corner she needed extra money to prepare an expensive family dinner. A frequent visitor of the barbershop named Charlie knew that Elaine was desperate to make some extra cash, so he approached her with a hustle he was running. He offered Elaine $2,500 to deliver a package of cocaine to Albany from New York City. Well, Charlie turned out to actually be an informant for the police named George Deets. Elaine and her boyfriend Nathan were arrested under New York’s Rockefeller drug laws. Deets was able to shorten his sentence for cocaine use and dealing by being an informant for the police. He would deliberately go into the city and bring people to Albany to be framed.

The way Elaine was set up is bothersome to me. It’s a corrupt system when George Deets can get his sentence reduced by throwing others under the bus. Law Enforcement has a job, that job is to investigate and come to answers based on their evidence. An informant like Deets has been far more involved in the drug trade than Elaine, but he can just get off on a secretive deal made with the police? Furthermore, Elaine had completely good intentions. She was a hard worker who just wanted to provide for her family. That angers me. Our politicians have a real disconnect with the East Harlem and South Bronx neighborhoods amongst others, as to why the prevalence of drugs is so great. Obviously getting into the drug trade isn’t ideal, but for many it’s either that or not making ends meet, or not being able to provide for their loved ones. I mean put yourself in Elaine’s shoes. Meanwhile, our politicians are worried about the spread of crime rate that frankly doesn’t reach their neighborhoods in the Upper East Side. Maybe they should be more focused on the rehabilitation than the incarceration of drug addicts who later have no options. I look forward to seeing how Elaine is able to turn her life around after prison.

Posts Based on Reading - Post #3

12/7/14                      Reading Blog Post #3

I switched my book from the first two blogposts. I am now reading Life on the Outside by Jennifer Gonnerman. In this book Gonnerman narrates the story of Elaine Bartlett who was imprisoned for sixteen years for a first offense cocaine bust. On the first page of the prologue, a Bartlett family tree is shown. Yvonne Bartlett was the mother of Elaine and her six siblings. Elaine is the mother of four, Apache, Jamel, Satara, and Danae. Drug use, HIV contraction, and incarceration is rampant down the family tree. The rest of the prologue describes the chilly January day in 2000 when Elaine was released from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She warmly embraced her son Apache . Apache who was only ten when Elaine was arrested, is now twenty six and was the one who filled Elaine’s role in raising his younger siblings. Gonnerman states that the reality is, American has turned into a nation of ex-convicts, thirteen million to approximate. That would be 7% of American adults. That’s more people than those who make up the population of Sweden or Bolivia. United States prisons release over 600,000 people every year. That’s more people than the population of Boston, Seattle, or Washington DC. It’s very troubling and ex-cons often find that they hit a dead end in the outside world.

When I looked at the Bartlett family tree, in addition to the frequent incarceration, drug use, etc I noticed a lack of male role models. As a result, Apache gets stuck with the responsibility of caring for his siblings at a young age. It’s impressive to me that he was able to take on that load for his mother, while also redirecting the family trend. I really admire that. The emotional strength that must have required is tremendous. The number of ex-convicts/people released from prison each year is jaw dropping. Even worse 40% of those released will return (240,000 a year) and 16% suffer from severe mental illness. Those released are provided with little support. Typically ex-prisoners have no money, few job skills, little education, a history of addiction and are expected to rebuild their lives. Our Criminal Justice system is often one large circle of imprisonment, release, and then re-entry

Posts Based on Reading: Post 2

11/30/14                           Reading: Blog Post 2

In the next bit of reading in The Making of African America by Ira Berlin, the meaning of Movement and Place in the African American past. The African American people are a “moving” people, they have been so for the past four centuries or so. With this movement comes inevitable problems and drama. Having to leave what you are comfortable and used to, having to adjust to the unfamiliar, and the journeys to the new destination. The four main migrations I mentioned in the previous post are still only examples. Movement was frequent for African American people, and is considered by Berlin, the “backbone” of of African American history. Place. Place is often where one has come from, where one is, or where one is going. However, place was also a social construct carried out by white supremacists that still lingers in our country today. Place can be about “staying in your place”, a tool of subordination. Frederick Douglass speaks of “Rootedness”, and claims that slaves are forced to root to the land they work for, while a free man develops less attachment to the land. Rootedness speaks to personal and material attachments within a certain geographic frame. It can definitely be restrictive. 

I think it’s pretty remarkable how through so much movement, African Americans have still carried their culture with them. It must have been incredibly hard to have to unroot from a place where you are familiar to a new , unknown area. An unknown area with new people, a new tongue, new food, new clothing, new work (for better or for worse), new climate, etc. I have had to do that only once and I found it to be quite an adjustment. So moving that frequently must have been very hard. The idea of place stuck with me. I’ve always thought of place as a location. It’s interesting and disturbing that it plays into a social hierarchy as well. I see “place” in a lot of injustices committed in history and in the present. “Place” was the underlying factor in the Emmett Till case, in the Trayvon Martin case, in one of the more recent that has captured national and maybe international attention, the Ferguson case involving Michael Brown. There is a long list of other cases as well that are just as important. I made the connection reading this that the second class citizen treatment of African Americans is a result of racism and discrimination, but to simplify a result of “place”. 

Posts Based on Reading: Post 1

11/24/14                      Reading: Blog Post 1

The book I am reading in order to write a blog post is called The Making of African America by Ira Berlin. The first chapter leads us into the main four migrations of African Americans. The first migration was the forced deportation of Africans from Africa to North America. The second forced migration was twice the size of the first. This was the movement of men and women from the coast of the North American Atlantic to the interior south, where the slave regime as we know it began (not the beginning of all slavery of course!). The third was the Great Migration, the journey from the South to the urban north to become wageworkers. The fourth, and most recent “main” is going on currently. It is the immigration of people of African descent into America from countries ranging from the greater Caribbean, to South America, and Europe. Berlin described the Middle Passage as a “nightmarish”, traumatic journey across the Atlantic Ocean to North American enslavement.“the Middle Passage also represents the will of black people to survive, the determination not to be dehumanized by dehumanizing circumstances (14). 

First, I’ve realized that the world of Africa/African America has been going through an evolution through each of these main migrations. These massive movements separated families, dehumanized even young children, created new neighborhoods with new unfamiliar neighbors, new types of work, new music, etc. In my African American Studies class we’ve been learning more about the Middle Passage, which relates to the first few pages of the book. It was an extremely grotesque journey. Men and women were packed in the ship like cargo, which made it difficult to breath. People were chained to chambers full of urine, feces, and blood. It’s important to keep in mind that some ships didn’t make it, whether that be due to rebellion, mass murder, illness, suicide, storms, etc. It really took a lot of resilience to survive that journey to America. The section of reading was more powerful having this context. The first main migration may have been later, but the very first slaves were taken out of Africa by Europeans around 1400 to the Iberian Peninsula. By the time the Middle Passage came around, slavery was relatively old. The opening of this book spaces out the timeline of the migrating African American people well. This mental organization is important to understanding the history and the present.

Minority Achievement Gap at BHS

Eli G

11/10/14           Blog Post: Minority Achievement Gap at BHS

I’ve discussed the minority Achievement Gap in a previous post, but this past week in my social justice class we were shown a power point that revealed discrepancy between students of color/white students and low-income vs. high income students.

What we found was that higher income students tend to do better academically in school because they tend to have parents who are proficient in English, have expectations and the money to put their kids through college, higher expectations from teachers, better communication with the school etc. Interviews done by the Sagamore (the school newspaper) demonstrated consistent reports from students of color, particularly black and hispanic students that they feel uncomfortable in higher level classes for two reasons. One, a higher population of black and Hispanic students are tracked into standard level classes, people like to be with people similar to them, at least some. And second, these students mentioned that there is a pressure in dominantly white, high level classes to disprove stereotypes. Anyhow I want to share some facts that the power point showed: Again this is specific to BHS!

-       Hispanic/Latino Students are twice as likely as white students to drop out of high school

-       Black students had an even greater chance of leaving Brookline High without a diploma

-       At BHS is 2013-14, 10% of all students were Hispanic but only 3% of all teacher were Hispanic. The staff clearly doesn’t mirror the student body

MCAS:  2013 ELA, percentage of advanced scoring: Whites about 70%, Blacks about 25%, Hispanic/Latino just under 50%

2013 Math: % of proficient or advanced scores: Whites about 90%, Blacks about 55%, and Hispanic Latino about 85%.

These were some eye opening statistics, and was the first time I was able to see a statistical reflection of the discrepancies among students of different demographics at BHS. Along with the numbers came the reasoning and faults of the school system.

Issues of Race, (specifically in America)

Eli Goodman

10/26/14                        Issues of Race

A big misconception is that saying something that’s racist means you are racist or have intentionally racist thoughts. This is not true though. Racism can be internalized, there are so many subtle examples of racism in American society. For instance, a comment you made in class could offend someone without you even realizing it. The best thing to do is to recognize that although your intentions may be good, you may have offensive, subliminal ideas. 

As a nation it’s impossible to look at Michael Brown innocently walking and getting shot repeatedly and excessively with his hands up, to see a teenager Trayvon Martin shot with nothing on him but candy and a drink, to watch unarmed Keijime Powell shot for walking towards the police, and to see homeless women Marlene Pinnock savagely beat by an officer who was trying to “detain” her on the side of a freeway and pretend that racism is nonexistent in America.

Racism has existed since Europeans both wiped out tribes of Native Americans and later immigrated to America, bringing slaves through the Middle Passage who were seen as inferior on account of skin color and culture. As much as we like to deny, this racism has been passed down through generations up to today as if it is apart of DNA. The media, movies, TV shows, music, how we educate, and in treatment by law enforcement are only some examples of this very real, very prevalent racism.

I would encourage anyone reading this to look up the videos of Keijime Powell being shot and Marlene Pinnock being beat. It is incredibly disturbing and you can see genuine hate in these grotesque actions. So racism may not be intended or may not be intended, but to say it doesn’t exist is false.

Skin Bleaching

Eli Goodman

10/26/14                         Skin Bleaching Blog Post

As ridiculous and degrading as it sounds, people of color can bleach their skin to make it lighter. Doing this will make clients of bleaching products appear more “beautiful”, “acceptable”, and let’s address the elephant in the room and say more “white”. These bleaching products are largely marketed/targeted to African-American women. People of color consistently face institutional racism, symbolic racism, micro-racism, and “colorism”.

Last year in Race Reels, we watched a documentary called Dark Girls that discussed this idea of “Colorism”. They defined colorism as “prejudice or discrimination based on the relative lightness or darkness of the skin and generally a phenomenon occurring within one’s own ethnic group”. The second piece of the definition was interesting.

This concept goes all the way back to slavery and slave rapes that changed complexions through generations. It is the difference between the “house n*ggas and the field n*iggas”. A “test” of beauty called the paper bag test basically states that if you’re lighter than a paper bag than you are pretty, smart, and ultimately pass the test. If you don’t pass the test, you are considered unattractive. 

Interestingly enough, the women who spoke in the documentary said a lot of this colorism comes from within the race. One woman said that she receives a lot of praise from white people about her skin, but she questions her complexion from the feedback of black people.

A black female talked about how her cousin made a Facebook status saying, “I love white girls!!! and nobody can do anything about it”. Black females receiving this type of attitude will have incentive to make their skin lighter and to boost their self esteem. It’s hard to fight unless you have confidence and it isn’t fair.

Skin bleach products come with serious health risks such as, premature aging of skin, skin cancer, infections, unwanted skin discoloration, and more.

Racism Concerning Ebola

Eli Goodman

10/26/14                          Racism Concerning Ebola

I think we’ve all been aware of the Ebola epidemic, and it’s major presence in the news. Thomas Eric Duncan, a black, poor Liberian national traveled to the United States carrying the fatal virus unknowingly. 

What is Ebola?

Ebola is a virus, also known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever; a rare and deadly disease caused by infection of an Ebola virus strain.

Obviously this is a pretty frightening problem. The fact that can cannot handle it with American Medicine shows the type of league Ebola is in. Duncan is said to have contracted the disease while helping to transport a woman with the disease, a heroic and selfless act. However the American media is demonizing him. He has been turned into an “unsympathetic” figure contagious with disease. This has also made Africa look like a “diseased” continent, at fault for infecting citizens and innocent visitors.

When Duncan was looking to check into a hospital, he was turned down at a Dallas Hospital because he was an “uninsured Liberian immigrant” who simply suffered from a “low--grade virus disease”. It’s hard to think that this would have been the case if he were white. 

In a New Jersey school, Rwandan (a country 2600 miles away from an infected area) children were pressured to stay home, a high school soccer player of Guinean descent faced chants during an away game like, “Ebola!”, a building in Berlin went into lock down after an African woman fainted, and politicians are crying out for immigration restrictions. Racism and Xenophobia are strongly intertwined with this chaos. It shows the ignorance of knowledge of the location of African countries and it makes the entire continent of Africa look diseased rather than a few infected areas.

Stereotypes of a Black Woman

 Stereotypes of a Black Woman

A study done by Simone Ispa-Landa at Northwestern shows that black girls are seen as “ghetto” or “loud” for behavior that would be accepted from male counterparts. Black girls are seen as “aggressive” and “undesirable” from white and black boys. Many black women feel that the media portrays black females in a negative manner.

An article on theroot.com, presents even more stereotypes in a list. “Gold diggers, baby mamas, uneducated sister, ratchet women, angry black women, mean, and unhealthy. These are the stereotypes that show up in the media commonly and are sometimes very subtle. Negative imagery of black women is seen twice as often as positive imagery.

Looking into the grand skeem of things, this is detrimental in multiple ways. Walking around as a person who is “undesirable” based on physical appearance does not encourage a high level of confidence. This low confidence translates into school, work, and other environments. And ultimately, this contributes to where you live, your annual income, and more.

We watched a film called, Dark Girls in Race Reels last year that discussed this issue a great deal. It’s really heartbreaking to see how much self hate these women generated from outside influences. What I’m curious about is when and why did black women start getting labelled with these offensive titles.It’s surprisingly hard to search around on, but I’m going to keep looking around. Being a minority and the “inferior” sex, puts a black female in the worst position on the rankings of societies social hierarchy. Nanny in Their Eyes Were Watching God puts it well, “So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see." 

Is the NBA Comparable to Slavery?

Black Athletes (NBA to be specific here) = Slaves?

Long time Detroit Pistons power forward, now with the Portland Trailblazers Rasheed Wallace made a statement that created a lot of controversy at the time. Wallace took a shot (no pun intended) at the NBA, calling it “an institution of slavery”. You may be thinking what’s he talking about, he makes $17 million a year? However the points he makes hold a lot of validity.

In the sense that there is money to be made, playing in the NBA is different than your historical image of slavery; but other aspects are comparable. Wallace claims that the NBA exploits young black players. He states that young players can easily get “caught up and captivated into the league”. The NBA Draft is said to be the next slave ship arriving at NBA offices. Wallace thinks that the league wants to draft players who are “dumb and dumber... all these high school cats, because they don’t know no better”. High school players with less education than a college graduate are easier to exploit. They can more easily be cheated out of money. You may think, it’s ridiculous to be picky, professional basketball players make a lot. What if I told you that the commissioner David Stern made more than 75% of the players in the league. Stern, a white spectator at games makes more money than those who he profits from. Starting to look familiar?

Wallace gets the impression that the league expects black athletes to, “shut up, sign for the money, and do what they tell” them. This is a strong argument and more recognized by a veteran like Wallace. I can see how a young player could get cheated.

Wallace: “ I see behind the lines. I see behind the false screens. I know what this business is all about”.

Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement

 Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement 

The definition of Racial Profiling on the National Institute of Justice website is “a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin”. Obviously this brings up a lot of concern over civil rights and justice. Also according to the NIJ website, officers are put in training to avoid discrimination. However, it seems that arrests are still made under cultural, racial, and gender stereotypes.

I continued exploring this website and clicked on a link about racial profiling at traffic stops. Research confirms that more people of color are pulled over than whites. It’s far fetched to claim that this is completely based on driving patterns. Neighborhoods that have more patrol officers will pay close attention for any minuscule driving infraction and will still pull minority drivers aside without an infraction.

A group of trained observers ran a study in Savannah, Georgia where they joined policers officers on their patrols for upwards of 130 tours. These observers asked about the officers suspicions after each traffic stop. One statistic that came out of this study is that, out of all the people who were thought to be suspicious, 74% were male and 71% were minorities. Another study in Cincinnati, shows that black drivers were stopped for longer periods of time and searched more than white drivers. The NIJ appears to buy into that this was due to the “time, place, and context” of the stops. I couldn’t disagree more. This study must have had some bias, I’d be interested to see who specifically conducted this study. I think it’s conveniently coincidental that black drivers are in the wrong time, place, and context and that this what the higher stoppage rate is credited to. It’s certainly a scary system to be a minority male in.

10/7/14

The article I read for this blog post is a Huffington Post article that discusses racial segregation in schools and the relation of income to segregated school. It is a fact that 43% of Latinos and 38% of black students are enrolled in “intensely segregated schools” in which are at most 10% white. On the contrary, white students usually attend schools that are 75% white. There is a clear divide. I found it almost comical that two of the three most integrated states in terms of education are Kansas and Nebraska. I’m curious to know what the percentage of minority population is in these states to begin with. Poor schools that have a high minority population tend to have less resources, less qualified teachers, higher teacher turnover rates, lower quality facilities and materials. These factors widen what is called the Minority Achievement Gap. Fact, “On average, African-American and Latino high school seniors perform math and read at the same level as 13-year-old white students.” I find this incredibly concerning. The black high school graduation rate staggers behind that of white students. “Re”-integrating the schools would more equally distribute the resources and advantages that are associated with dominantly white schools. Even the highest achieving students living in low income are less likely to make it through college, graduating with a degree. 

I found this article very disturbing. It’s discouraging that the income you are born into has such control over your path of education, regardless of how high you achieve. As a country we feel that we have come so far since the Civil Rights Era, but looking at how our schools are functioning nationally it is apparent which race will achieve higher for yet another generation. 

 “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” 

-Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion

This rule of physics can apply to the direction our education system is going. Unless we make a legitimate effort to even the educational opportunities across the country, nothing will change. Looking at our schools right now really makes me wonder, how far has Brown vs. Board of education has actually taken us.

10/7/14                               Blog post 2

For my second blogpost I looked at a Huffington Post report on the shooting of 25-year old black man, Kajieme Powell in St. Louis, Missouri. Like many that have been prevalent in the news lately this case demonstrates unethical practice and reasoning by law enforcement, consequently resulting in the taken life of Kaijieme Powell. The owner of the convenience store where Powell had purchased donuts and drinks, called the police accusing Powell of robbery. Shortly after the police received another call from a woman reporting that Powell was acting “erratically” with a knife in his pocket.

Sam Dotson, St.Louis Police Chief addressed the media claiming that Powell came within a few feet of the officers that opened fire. While approaching the officers, he reportedly held a knife “in an overhand grip”. Powell was apparently given verbal commands to stop and drop the weapon, but he continued forward, shouting “shoot me now, kill me now”. Dotson also claims that the officers did not draw their weapons until they saw the knife.

Well, the whole incident was captured on camera by someones cell phone. I saw Powell walking with no knife, with his hands at his side. He was much farther away from the officers than just a few feet. And he was shot multiple times. I got chills watching these St. Louis police offers murder a non-threatening man in cold blood. So the video evidence does not line up with Dotson’s information.

Even if the officers felt threatened shooting him multiple times is inhuman if you can kill with one bullet. But after watching the video it is clear that there was no need to draw a weapon, if anything a teaser or pepper spray would have been suitable.

I was deeply disturbed by this video. Watching a man get shot in real footage is numbing. Law enforcement has a long way to come. It has equal responsibility to all citizens in the United States. I continue to realize how lucky I am when I appear before a police officer.

10/7/14        

Blog Post 3   

For my third blog post, I took a look at racism in the housing industry. Such discrimination may be harder to spot than in the past. However, it is currently very alive. The report I read was released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development showing patterns of leasing real estate among different races. It is shown that leasing agents do not show minorities as many available properties to rent or buy. Blacks were told about 17 percent fewer homes than white homebuyers. Asians were told about 15.5 percent fewer homes and 19 percent fewer properties. 

I can see a clear connection between the discrimination in housing and the segregation in our schools, which I wrote about in my other post. White people get grouped into one neighborhood of elite value, and minorities are shown homes in the remaining neighborhoods. The discrimination leaves minorities in worse schools, in less safety, and limits job opportunities. Creating this socioeconomic divide (where the whites are in wealthier areas than other minorities) allows white schools and facilities to get more funding and vice versa for the other schools. You can see how this cycle unfolds.

This housing discrimination is a clear violation of the Fair Housing Act, which at the very basic level denies a seller to refuse rent or to make housing unavailable on basis of race, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.

It’s unfair that people are categorized by race or culture. You would think it would be by economics but in this case the chicken came before the egg. What I mean by this is, although white people make up the wealthiest race, it is only because they are provided with opportunities in housing, schools, the job market, and elsewhere. Ultimately, this categorization only generates more ignorance across racial and cultural lines.