By Arya Hanumara
President/Social Effects Head/Co-Editor In Chief
Inspired by The King of Kamahaar: a Novel
(Source Embedded In Images)
High school is one of the only times in a teenager’s life when they can formulate a general opinion of who they want to be as an adult. In middle school, kids are often too young to figure out their passions, or more specifically, a way to manifest these interests and make them become a reality. In college, students are often placed under extreme pressure to have a clear plan on how to achieve their future goals and aspirations, thus slimming this margin of discovery.
Children of color face an even greater challenge when growing up, as a result of the overall lack of representation of their races in the media and their schools. Children of color struggle to find dolls that look similar to them or even TV shows where actors of color, if included at all, are not antagonized or developed as a response to some false stereotype. Kids see caucasian girls dressing up as Pocahontas or Moana for Halloween, with the weak excuse that “girls should be able to dress like their favorite princesses.” This argument is also often supported by the staff of many schools, in some instances complementing the child for their Westernized interpretation of various cultures’ traditional wear.
This lack of representation and sensitivity towards minority children are also paired with the systemic racism ingrained in most school systems. Very few times, at least in the public school system, are minority children able to see themselves reflected in the literature studied in class. Classes, although evolving, are shaped around Euro-centric ideas, consistent in courses such as AP European History and European Literature. No form of Black History has ever acted as the subject of a year-long class in widespread American high schools. Students spend a month or two, at most, slightly scratching the surface of the layers of injustices faced by Black people and members of the African Diaspora. Here are five important facts that many students do not learn in school, mainly as a result of the Euro-centric nature of American History Classes.
1. The beloved “Honest Abe,” or Abraham Lincoln, did not support racial equality.
A common misconception that many people have is that because President Abraham Lincoln fought to abolish slavery, he supported the integration of African Americans into American society. Lincoln found it problematic that American Americans could be equated with white people, questioning in a debate in 1858, “What’s Next? Make [slaves] politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this.” Not only did he believe in racial inequality, but Lincoln also proposed that slaves be sent to South America so that colonizers would not “suffer in their presence.”
2. Our police force was initially developed as a group of men who would capture freed and escaped slaves.
The “Slave Patrol,” as they were called, would ride on horses with whips, and hunt down escaped slaves while utilizing military tactics to instill fear upon the remaining working slaves. The evolution of the police force has occurred in leaps and bounds, however as seen recently, the horse has been replaced with a patrol car, the whip with a gun, and the slave with many members of the African American community. Not only do all victims of police brutality need justice, but the racist history and origin of the force in its entirety must be reexamined and acknowledged by the government and the general public.
3. The unjustified violence associated with the contributions of the Black Panther Party.
The Black Panther Party firmly believed in the value of education. The Party’s contributions to society have been significantly undermined by the closed mindset of our nation’s leaders, and the unequal amount of racial representation in our government. The Black Panther Party revived funding for local churches and grocery stores and established a free breakfast program for children across the country. They were able to serve about 20,o00 children with the belief that children needed a full stomach to be able to learn. President Hoover eventually disbanded the program in 1969, but the work has since been taken over by the USDA School Breakfast Program. The Party also established a series of free medical clinics across the country.
4. The idea that Black people were a “subhuman species” used to be accepted as a fact and utilized as a basis for biological comparisons between races.
The belief that Black people have a higher pain tolerance is commonly regarded as one of the largest causes of the systemic racism associated with the healthcare industry. Doctors held research studies on the biological differences between Black and white people, and often faked results to enforce further the status of Black people as a “subhuman species.” This term became scientifically regarded as an official categorization for members of the Black Community. This idea also paved the way for several Black People to be the victims of medical studies, which would now be considered examples of medical malpractice. Examples of these studies include the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the use of HeLa cells without due justice to the medical miracle woman Henrietta Lacks.
5. The 13th Amendment supported slavery outright.
The 13th Amendment states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except for punishment for crime...shall exist within The United States.” Although the amendment rules out the idea of slavery and disconnects it with its racially motivated origin, it still allows the practice to continue as a result of our nation’s criminal justice system. Laboral jobs are present in most prisons, but the systemic racism inside of the criminal justice system ensures that Black inmates are required to do more or harder work than those that are white. This disproportionately affects inmates and reinforces the history of slavery that Black people and diaspora members have had to endure.
When examining the idea of systemic racism, it is especially important to understand that it is not a concept that can change overnight. Although there are only five facts included in this article regarding the racial bias in our nation, there are over a million that go unnoticed or unreported due to our continually changing history. With that, it is vital to continue researching the oppression that members of the Black community face. No one article, book, or movie, can help you fully understand the grievances that Black people have to face daily. Black history should also be taught in schools and cover a larger breadth of content, and with a mindset that is open to learning and evolving as times change. Black history is, after all, American history.
Commentaires