Opinion: Fighting systemic racism demands more than symbolic action
If we are serious about making real and lasting impact, we need to start cultivating and changing hearts and minds.
“Since wars begin in the minds of men,” declares the Constitution of UNESCO, “it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” Forgiving the gendered language, the same can be said of racial bigotry. It is after all a form of war — culture war.
Centuries-old systemic racism that is entrenched in many minds and in many institutions cannot be erased by merely enacting politically compromised, loopholes-ridden, poorly enforceable laws. Recent protests against systemic racism have given rise to the hope that “this time it’s different.” Sadly, similar hopes raised in the past haven’t been actualized.
Every time there’s a public outcry, political leaders take a few easy steps to mollify the public: giving a conciliatory speech, pulling down a flag, knocking down a statue or painting streets with favorite slogans of the day. These are no more than symbolic acts. Symbols matter, of course. They can make us feel good for some time. They cannot, however, make any difference to the lives of the afflicted people.
If we are serious about making a real and lasting impact, we need to start cultivating and changing hearts and minds. Home and school are the prime sites where that can happen. We hardly know what’s passed on to the successive generations at home: historical knowledge and social awareness or cultural stereotypes and racial prejudice? As an educator, I believe that proper education in schools, particularly in formative years, can offer a path forward.
Paving the right path involves several players — school boards, curriculum designers, textbook writers, publishers, teachers and teacher educators who are willing and able to work together harmoniously for a common cause. However, the most consequential agents who can lead young people toward the right path are critically reflective teachers who can bring with them desired knowledge, desired skills and, most important, desired attitude.
In a pluralistic society, teachers’ attitude must entail a positive and sensitive outlook necessary to deal with a racially, religiously, culturally and linguistically diverse student population. It also means that the composition of teachers in schools, particularly public schools, should be diverse as well. That’s just not the case today.
In terms of teacher diversity, our public schools present a dismal picture. According to a 2016 U.S. Department of Education report, a whopping 82 % of public school teachers were white, a figure that has hardly changed in more than 15 years. It’s not expected to change significantly even though the composition of student population rapidly changes. Between fall 2000 and fall 2017, the percentage of students who were white decreased from 61% to 48% and is projected to continue to decrease to 44% by 2029. Clearly, the ratio between white teachers and students of color is much to be desired.
One of the reasons for such a poor ratio is the low enrollment of people of color in teacher education programs. They constitute less than 25% teacher candidates in traditional education schools. Clearly, colleges and universities need to intensify their efforts to attract more students of color by putting in place aggressive outreach programs and by offering financial aid and individualized counselling.
Teachers of color can bring different perspectives to what their students read in their textbooks which are, to say the least, flawed in portraying a balanced view of history. They may also prepare culturally sensitive supplementary materials. They can meet students’ need for role models. Moreover, research has repeatedly shown that teacher diversity greatly advances students’ attitudes, motivation and achievement.
In addition to all the benefits to students, teacher diversity will provide opportunities for open-minded teachers to learn about and from colleagues of other race/ethnicity something valuable about each other’s lived experience, particularly in terms of racial discrimination. They may also critically reflect on the persistence of sickening stereotypes and on their own unconscious biases. Their own learning may then percolate down to their students.
We gain by turning our schools into safe zones for difficult dialogues that have the potential to change hearts and minds.
B. Kumaravadivelu is a professor emeritus at San Jose State University.