race

Privilege, Education, Stereotypes, and Systemic Racism

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

I don’t know where these people live who claim we live in a “post-racial” society.  My guess would be they live in all white, gated communities, there kids go to private, somewhat diverse schools, and  where they run into brown people at the grocery store and think “isn’t that great.”  I know they don’t live in an urban center where a deep seeded, dirty, history of segregation and bigotry that still lurk just below the surface as along as everyone stays where they belong.

Where I live (and so many other people), there is nothing that resembles anything closet to “post-racial” at a systemic level.  There are plenty of day to day examples that might lull people into thinking we have moved beyond race being a factor.  I love my city but I will admit that when it comes to issues of race–it is often lost and the racist ideals the surface still piss me off and make me fear for my two brown children.  My city isn’t alone in this.  One only has to look at the trial of Trayvon Martin and question why no one is talking about Trayvon’s right to defend himself against someone following him in the dark of night with a gun.  There has been a lot of discussion about George Zimmerman’s right to defend himself.  But as the facts have illustrated, if he had just stayed in his car and not pursued Trayvon all would have been fine.  This isn’t a post about Trayvon, but I use this lack of discussion around Trayvon’s rights as an example of the privilege and systemic racism that continues to erode our society as well as working to keep the status quo.

Currently, my city is dealing with a very public clash that clearly exposes privilege and systemic racism.  We still have a pretty segregated school system.  Our city schools (which actually aren’t the focus of this) are about 85% minority and there is a very definite line that separates north (county and city) from south (county and city).  The north/south line represents a blurry color line as there is a constant ebb and flow over the line during our daily activities.  What this line really represents is the segregation that is inherent within society and is based on both socioeconomic status and race.  This line is easy to forget as we live our lives without giving much thought to the many nuances of our city.  Then something happens and the coded racism that is so prevalent in our society becomes less coded.

Our state supreme court came to the decision that students in unaccredited school districts had the right to transfer to accredited school districts in the same county and/or adjoining county with the unaccredited school district paying the tuition bill.  The law is very ambiguous and this has been litigated for years.  The legislature failed to find a “fix” to this legislative provision (or band-aid, or passing the buck, or not really addressing the issue).  I have been avoiding comments on newspaper articles that discuss this as we all know who comes out to comment in the anonymity of cyberspace.  There have been some voices of reason, by students and sadly most of the response from adults has been appalling (like the parent who demanded metal detectors).

This is when Facebook becomes the place where one realizes someone’s true character.  One of the people with whom I am friends on Faeebook (we haven’t seen each other since high school) wrote the following post.

These crappy schools up north dumping their problems on good county schools will accomplish nothing. If you have student’s that give no effort and parent’s that do nothing, it won’t matter where they go. Its like watching the NFL draft. “And Riverview Gardens selects…..Mehlville School District” what a joke.  –facebook post

I had to respond.  I HAD TO.  I know these kids.  I have taught in their districts.  I have visited their homes.  I have been apart of their community.

_____I taught in Riverview for years–this is not about kids who don’t want an education or parents that don’t care–it’s about the systemic failure of adults to do what is right for kids. The kids in Riverview and Normandy deserve very opportunity to get a great education. I don’t think transfers is how we fix it– but these kids and parents didn’t cause this problem–that is too simple a view.

Of course more of this person’s “friends” had something to say.

Ummm….I’m going to agree with _____ on this one. I will agree about the systemic failure. No argument here. But if you have a student in a school with a problematic administration, that should not stop that child from trying to excel. Thats a proven fact. The core of the problem lies at home with the parent/parents motivating their children to do better than they did. Riverview Gardens and Normandy was mentioned. I’m going out on a limb and I’m being generous here. I bet 5% of the class of 2013 strived to be a good student, hope for scholar ships and stay away from the other BS and actually graduated meeting their own goals. My point. These children are products of their environment. But only a very small percentage has what it takes to see past that and realize what an education means to their future. The solution starts at home. My .02$

Another (stereotypical) response from my “friend”

I think it has a lot to do with the parent’s. I see it all the time. Kids running around at 10 pm on school nights, no parent’s sitting down helping their children with homework etc. That answer is typical of todays society. What or who can I blame my problems on instead of taking responsibility for your own actions and the actions of your kids. If your going spit them out then do everything possible to raise them right, educate them and teach them they are responsible for their own actions.

Then there was this response….

True _____. Shitty parents make shitty kids. Product of their environment. Strong patents that give a shit show them the right path and do whatever it takes to keep them on it……interesting debate. Could go on all night.

I had so many things I wanted to say to this person.  But I didn’t.  Because it was very clear that this person would not have heard anything I said.  Then one of the school districts that will be receiving students from one of the unaccredited districts had a town hall meeting and over 2500 people turned out.  There were some horrible things said.

 “a man at the mic rebutted that the outcry isn’t about race. But shrouded by the anonymity of the crowd, another man yelled out “No, it’s about trash.” –-St. Louis Public Radio.

Again the only voice of reason from the (nearly all white and republican) school district came from a student.  The students are the only ones who give me any hope.

“We haven’t seen a lot of students here today,” one of the seniors said. “But we would be happy to have these new students at our school. It would be a great opportunity for these kids. There have been a lot of assumptions, but I don’t think we can assume that these Normandy kids are going to cause a lot of problems.”--St. Louis Public Radio.

While I have conflicting views on this whole idea of transferring large amounts for students out of a district to the cost of the district, I do know that everyone one of those children, ALL CHILDREN, deserve a quality education.  I don’t believe that the only way for that to happen is to buss students over 20 miles away to another district that may or may not have room to effectively educate the children.  But the choice of districts that are over 20 miles away are suspect for other reasons.  The unaccredited districts claim test scores and tuition as deciding factors in their decisions.  I believe part of it is the idea that families will not want to sent their kids that far way; therefore, more students will remain in the district.

It is so easy for those of us with privilege to protest and want to “protect” what we see as ours.  It is so easy for those of us with privilege to turn a blind eye to the systemic racism and bigotry that has allowed for these districts to fail as they have.  I don’t have the answers, but I do know that until we start to have honest conversations about race, equity and money, we aren’t going to solve anything.  Until we start talking about not just what we perceive our rights to be but the rights of all humans, we will continue to jail bury black teenage boys before their time (and without a second thought) and sanction the un-education of our poor youth.

Until we admit that we still carry around prejudices that takes away the humanity of others, we can’t move forward.  We can’t begin having conversations about solutions until we confront the problems.  Until we admit that we have bought into the racial stereotypes that have been part of the rhetoric of our country for years.  While the current situation in my city is ugly–at least it exposes the ugliness so that there isn’t any ambiguity around how people view black youth and black families as a whole.  I use to believe that if we exposed the disease we could treat it.

In the early 1980’s when we had a voluntary desegregation program that bussed students in from the city to our county schools–the same ugliness was exposed.  I remember the outrage in my own district–I was in high school at the time.  It saddens me to see the same ugliness again but people of my generation.

How do we move forward?  How do we get people to realize that one’s skin color isn’t a predictor of academic success?  How do we convince others that skin color is no more of a factor that hair color?  Yet it is because we have made it so.  We have socially constructed skin color to matter (all the way back to slavery we go).  At some point we made the decision that dark/brown skin color make someone less of a person.  How do we undo that?

I don’t know and it makes me so sad and angry.

Race Still Matters

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

What if the teens had been white?

There is a pervasive and toxic stereotype in our country–Black Males are DANGEROUS.

I will admit that as young white girl raised during a difficult racial period in my own city (desegregation of schools), I was taught/socialized to be more “aware” of black males.  That is painful for me to admit.  But I have to.  We have to.  We have to understand and acknowledge that racism is so deeply ingrained in the fabric of who so many of us (white people) are that we can’t see it.  We are ashamed to admit it.  We are afraid to admit it.

Until we admit it, we will never grow or change our views. My views changed drastically when I took my first teaching job at a school that was 98% African American.  It was not until I became a teacher and interacted on a daily basis with black males, that I began to realize that they were not a group to fear.  There was nothing scary about them.  But it forced me to admit the bias I was raised with that I didn’t realize I was raised with until I did a lot of honest (and extremely difficult) examination of my own beliefs and behaviors.

Let me be honest, I said I began to realize.  Erasing a life’s worth of ingrained racism and racial stereotypes is not easy.  Not for me or for out society as a whole.  To this day if you watch my local news–99% of the people shown as criminals are black.  Those are the stories that make the news.  These all have an impact on what we think of other groups (be it ethnic or religious or life-style choice based).

Now (10-years after I first stepped into that classroom full of a group of people I was taught to fear), I am the mother of two black children.  Now, when I see a group of black boys/men walking down the street, I see my son.  My son who everyone things is cute and great, but will that be the same when he is 16 and picking up someone’s daughter?  Will it be the same when he is out being a teen with his friends and mouths off to a grown-up?

My children already know that if a policeman stops them ever “we stop and let him see our hands and DO NOT Move.”  I was never taught that lesson.  I never needed to be taught that lesson.   Now, do I need to add middle-aged random white man to that list with policemen?

At what point does the responsibility shift from my black son and onto those whose ingrained stereotypes cause often deadly reactions based in “fear.”  I can hear the voices of 3 teenaged boys talking shit to a middle-aged man who asked them to turn their music down.  I know–because I know what I would have said to my friends in the car, just loud enough that the guy could hear.  He claims he thought he saw a gun.  Would he have “seen” a gun if the three teens were white–but still talked shit?  I have a hard time believing he would have pulled out his gun and fired 8 or 9 rounds.  We have to admit that race is a factor.  What if it had been 3 girls–white or black?  Same reaction?

He fired 8-9 rounds but they claim, when he is compared to George Zimmerman and his shooting of Trayvon Martin.

“That’s ridiculous. Michael is not a vigilante,” the attorney said. “He’s a brilliant software developer. It was never his intention to kill anyone.”

How is it not someone’s intention to kill someone when they a) pull out a gun, b) fire the gun, and c) fire 8-9 shots at close range into a car?

Again, we have to admit why these things happen and have honest discussions about them.  He claimed he saw a gun.  What he saw was three black teens, talking shit and he had no idea what it meant.  I hope he does some deep soul searching (along will all of us) and considers how the scenario might be different if the teens in the car had been white.

We do not live in a post-racial society.  We live in a society that that has convinced itself that race no longer matters.

Tell that to every parent of a black son.

Tell that to Jordan Russel Davis’ parents.  They buried a son that was shot because race absolutely still matters.

Standing Out

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

It has been a long time since I felt like people were staring at our family.

In our city, there are lots of families that look like ours and in our daily life, our family doesn’t stand out anymore.  No one seems to pay us any attention–which is good because my children are usually making farting noises or singing completely inappropriate songs.  So–being nothing to look at is good.

This past weekend we went to Myrtle Beach for our annual family vacation.  I was excited as I had never been there and boy do they have a lot to do. It’s like Orlando, but with out the overpriced theme parks.  We could have stayed another 2-3 days and still not done everything the kids or we wanted to do.

The hotel we stayed at was huge and packed.  It was also packed with lots of white families and lots of black families and only one family like ours.  We might not have been the only family like ours (in my defense, I didn’t see another family like ours all 5 days we were there and out), but we were certainly were not a frequently viewed family makeup.

I will say that the looks we got weren’t mean or dirty, in any way.  But they were clearly curious.  I had several black kids (about 8-10-years-old) ask me “are you their mom.”

“Yes” I would respond.

The responses from them varied–“cool,”  “oh.”

I got lots of comments from other black moms on Zoë and her hair–they were all positive so that was really nice.  It amazes me how many more people of color I get to interact with because of my kids.  I love it and it makes me sad that I might not otherwise interact so easily with people who are different from me.

***************************************

Another thing that stood out (not to me) was the number of black families.  One of my brother’s commented on how great it was to see so many happy black families.  This struck me.  Why was that odd?  But it is to people who live rather sheltered lives.  Especially in our city that is very segregated.  We certainly don’t see any on TV.  I know that in my city the only time we see black families on the news usually has to do with tragedy and heartache and crime.

How sad is that?  It makes me think that I need to make sure my kids are exposed to more positive images of blackness and family.  I want to make sure that they feel good about their skin color and the perceptions people have about what that means.  It reminds me that even though our president is Black, the rhetoric and media images of minorities still perpetuate images that are mostly negative.  This isn’t right–this isn’t reality.

I don’t know how we change that.  I thought we were on to something in the 80’s with The Cosby Show and A Different World, and then Damien Wayans had a show.  But then what?  Nothing.  Really, we have one or two shows and then networks say “okay–glad that is done.”  Just like with the election of our first Black President, people were so quick to claim that “racism is over.”  Racism is so much more than one elected president and one or two positive and successful shows about black families.

Racism is how we portray and treat people every day.  Racism is giving a group their own TV channels and then keeping anything else remotely minority focused off network television.  Racism is hiring one black newscaster but running 8 lead stories that feature black or other minority criminals and two stories about some amazing thing a white person did.

We have so far to go.

 

Loving

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

I am not naive.  I know that our country has a horrendous past regarding the treatment of those the white establish deem as other.  Our differences use to be rather easy to determine–White was good–everything else was bad.  Pretty simple right.  Well what happens when whites don’t get the memo or choose not to drink the kool-aid?  It throws the establishment off balance and the results are often catastrophic.

Meet the Lovings:

All they did was love each other in 1958 Virginia.  They showed their love by getting married.  Less than 2 months after their marriage they were arrested and sentenced to 1-year in jail.  Their sentence was suspended if they would leave Virginia–for good.

They came to visit family for Easter and were again arrested.  This was 1958.  Both of my parents were alive.  There were 24 states that had miscegenation laws at that time.  They just wanted to love each other, raise their 3 children and be around family.

This documentary hurt me deeply.  It reminded me that while my children (who are black) don’t have to deal with this level of racism in their daily life, this level of racism still exists.  The people who spoke out in favor of miscegenation are still alive.  Their children to whom they pass on their beliefs are still alive.  Our world still favors white and rich and the other has many more obstacles.

I know that these laws existed and I know that they were horrible.  But I never thought about the real-life implications of the laws.  But this documentary really brings to life the implications of these laws and the real people whose beliefs fueled these laws.  That is what really get me.  That people really thought they needed to protect the “purity of the races.”  That is such a crap reason.  I am pretty sure the whites who supported these laws were only worried about the “purity of their own race.”

The thing that struck me and by struck I mean scared the shit out of and pissed me off the most is that in 1967 (while the Loving V. Virginia case was moving through the courts on it’s eventual way to the Supreme Court) a federal judge said “God created separate races on the separate continents to ensure that the races did not mix.”  This was espoused by a federal judge who was charged with upholding the law.  What does God have to do with this?  Isn’t there a separation of church and state?

This movie forced me to think about and consider the implications that these thoughts and feelings have on me and my children.  I am lucky that my kids are raised in an environment where they are accepted for who they are as people and not because their skin is beautifully brown.  Skin color is really no different than hair color or eye color.  It is the only thing we can’t change about us, but it is just a thing.  I cut off all of Noah’s beautiful curls–he is still the same kid.

Richard Loving said it best.  When their ACLU lawyers asked him if there was anything that he wanted them to tell the court, Richard simply replied–“Tell them I love my wife.”

It is time that the state and people’s own beliefs stopped deciding who can love whom and let everyone “love their husband/wife.”

The supreme court in a 9-0 decision, in 1967, stated:

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

I would like to see the phrase sexual orientation added to this.  It’s time we stop separating groups and bring us all together.