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Support the mental health of students of color.
Everyday, millions of minority students suffer in silence, struggling to cope with the formidable hurdles they face on their path to receiving a higher education. Combating direct and indirect racial discrimination is an all-encompassing battle that continually dares people of color to survive. Carrying this weight while balancing a rigorous curriculum can often come at a serious cost to the mental health and well-being of students of color. In addition to this, the pandemic and the rise in white extremist violence and police brutality has added more strain to the life of students of color. This college mental health crisis is only exacerbated by the lack of support students of color receive from their institutions who fail to provide sustained efforts for equity, and the tangible resources needed to thrive (The Steve Fund Crisis Report).
Happy Tuesday! Today is publication day for my first book, which offers accessible mindfulness resources for kids. I've spent the past decade working in schools to help mitigate the impact of what we're discussing today: the difficult emotions that students are processing while trying to get an education. I'm grateful that Kholiswa shared her perspective based on her experience.
This newsletter is a free resource made possible by our supporters. We'd love you to consider making a monthly recurring donation on our website or Patreon. You can also give one-time on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). Thank you for all your support!
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
If you need mental health care, visit findtreatment.samhsa.gov or call 800-622-HELP (4357).
Petition local school boards to hire more counselors and advisors of color to help support students of color who have mental health needs related to exposure to racism. 14 million kids go to school that has cops, but no counselors.
Donate to Active Minds, a nonprofit that partners with students on campus to address mental health.
Visit the Equity in Mental Health website and support by donating to The Steve Fund and The Jed Foundation—partners in the Equity in Mental Health Framework—to support the advancement of programs and services dedicated to supporting the emotional wellbeing and mental health of young people of color nationwide.
GET EDUCATED
By Kholiswa Mendes Pepani (she/her)
Everyday, millions of minority students suffer in silence, struggling to cope with the formidable hurdles they face on their path to receiving a higher education. Combating direct and indirect racial discrimination is an all-encompassing battle that continually dares people of color to survive. Carrying this weight while balancing a rigorous curriculum can often come at a serious cost to the mental health and well-being of students of color. In addition to this, the pandemic and the rise in white extremist violence and police brutality has added more strain to the life of students of color. This college mental health crisis is only exacerbated by the lack of support students of color receive from their institutions who fail to provide sustained efforts for equity, and the tangible resources needed to thrive (The Steve Fund Crisis Report).
While transitioning to college is a challenging time for all who are privileged enough to experience it, the adjustment is even tougher for students of color, particularly those who arrive from low-income backgrounds and are first-generation college students. Most college campuses that are not historically Black carry legacies and traditions indicative of white supremacy. From buildings named after racist figures to the white students who go unpunished for racist acts, the message being sent to students of color reverberates clearly, you do not belong here (The Hechinger Report).
The alienation of entering a space inherently designed for white students is only worsened by incidents of racial discrimination from peers and the institutions themselves. Students of color have, for years, been reporting incidents of racial hostility both subtle and blatant that includes microaggressions, racist vandalism, verbal slurs, and physical assaults (Inside Higher Ed). Such incidents are compounded by a lack of intervention from institutions that fail to condemn or address racism on their campuses. Take Colbie Lofton—a Black student at the Appalachian State University—for instance, in 2018 on the first week of class, Lofton sat in her macroeconomics class and proceeded to ask her professor a question. Behind her, she heard some of her white classmates make the racist comment, “I guess n*****s don’t understand.”
Lofton was unaware of the process of reporting the comment to her university and kept the disturbing insults to herself and neither did her college professor have the heart to take up for her. This left Lofton with the heightened awareness that there are deep prejudices that some people hold against Black people and therefore left her feeling unwelcome and ‘out of place’ in a predominately white school. More often than not, students who are struggling with racism on campus are left feeling invalidated, ignored, and undervalued by administrators who minimize the experiences or redirect injured parties to seek reparation through bureaucratic and time-consuming processes, especially those campuses that cater mostly to white students (Inside Higher Ed).
Many students have stories of being called a racial slur directly or seeing it through racist posts by students on social media. But these types of incidents don’t only happen on college campuses. It also exists in high schools as well. In April 2020, two Georgia high school students posted a disturbing, racist video on TikTok that implies the contents that Black people are made up of. Some of the words and phrases used include ‘Black,’ ‘don’t have a dad,’ ‘rob people,’ ‘go to jail,’ and the last comment implies that Black people always make bad choices (New York Times). Though the students were expelled, there were no evident steps taken to ensure the mental wellness of their black schoolmates was taken care of. It is people who think and act like this who helped ignite the national racial movement, Black Lives Matter.
The outrage over the police killings of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people has given the students’ cause momentum and has forced school administrators to act with urgency and speak out against racism and implement diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. But the efforts of these students have come with a heavy price. During the 2020 protests, two Black college students were repeatedly stunned by tasers and arrested for being in traffic past the nine o’clock mandated curfew. The students were tased because officers felt like they might have had a gun. Turns out the two students were unarmed and were simply driving by the chaotic protests near downtown Atlanta. Later in an interview after the students were released from jail, they said that they felt like they were going to die and that, “it was a blessing that they are still alive.”
The mental healthcare problem in universities has been further exposed by the global pandemic as COVID-19 has cast light on the deeply ingrained racial inequalities that exist in American society. In a recent study done by the United Negro College Fund, one student described their experience saying, “Dealing with COVID-19, the police brutality, and trying to come up with money to pay for fall semester is [causing] me a lot of stress and anxiety because either way, it’s the stress of trying not to get sick, not getting killed by police or finding a way to pay for school that has me on edge (UNCF Student Pulse Survey).”
Thriving under these conditions is not just exhausting, but also psychologically destructive. These adverse conditions mean that Black and brown students experience depression, anxiety disorders, burnout, and other mental illnesses at a rate higher than their white peers (The Harvard Gazette). Studies show that students of color are more likely to feel overwhelmed at college and keep their struggles to themselves. Before the pandemic began, twenty-three percent of Asian-American students, twenty-six percent of Black students, and thirty-three percent of Latino students with mental health problems sought treatment versus the forty-six percent of white students (The Steve Fund Crisis Report).
The rejection and lack of trust and belonging felt by students of color create huge barriers in their ability to seek help from their institutions. In addition to this, the cost, lack of access to counselors of color, and the stigmas associated with therapy prevent minority students from getting the life-saving care they need (The Atlantic). John Silvanus Wilson, former president of Morehouse College, describes how this student health crisis puts an emphasis on getting colleges to foster an environment that allows students of color to feel safe.
“This really brings into focus the institutional responsibility,” Wilson says “If I don’t believe you want me here, I’m not inclined to come in and use your services. So trust is how this is going to change.” (The Harvard Gazette)
To close the divide between students of color and wellness, organizations like The Steve Fund are committed to working with universities to promote programs that build understanding and assistance for the mental and emotional health of young people of color. This task force recommends that institutions take a ‘trauma-informed response’ to decision-making to show empathy and build trust with students of color (The Steve Fund Crisis Report).
The subtle and often seamless ways illnesses like depression and anxiety work their way into the mind leaves people feeling dangerously isolated within the mental anguish they experience. One bad day quickly becomes a bad week that begins to feel like a bad life. Seeking help when struggling with feelings of depression and anxiety is the only remedy to an illness that wants to swallow you in a quicksand of grief, panic, self-loathing and suicidal ideation. If you are currently struggling with mental illness, please know that it is nothing to be ashamed of. Mental illness is a disease and one that you can survive. If you or anyone you know is struggling to cope with feelings of depression and anxiety, please reach out for help. You are not weak and you are certainly not alone.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Students of color are at a higher risk for developing mental health issues due to systemic racism and intergenerational trauma.
The systemic inequalities and racism on college campuses leave minority students feeling alienated and mentally overwhelmed.
Students of color are less likely to seek help from academic institutions due to a lack of trust and belonging.
RELATED ISSUES
3/17/2021 | End standardized testing.
10/19/2020 | Support restorative justice in schools.
8/17/2020 | Fight for equity in remote learning.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
End standardized testing.
Education is a fundamental human right. But when racial and socioeconomic fences sequester millions of Black and Brown students from the resources and privileges that are required to succeed, who protects their rights?
For decades, the racial stratification within the United States’ educational system has been a powerful tool to uphold intergenerational privilege and white supremacy. Standardized testing is used across the nation as a proxy for intellectual merit, even though results always correlated with race and socioeconomic background rather than academic achievement (Teachers College Press).
Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Over the past few weeks, teachers have been advocating for canceling standardized testing this spring after a tumultuous year. These conversations only emphasized the inequities of the process. Kholiswa joins us today to educate more on the history of standardized testing.
This newsletter is a free resource made possible by our paying subscribers. We'd love you to consider making a monthly recurring donation on our website. You can also give one-time on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). Thank you for all your support!
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Donate to FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open testing to help support efforts to eliminate the racial, class, gender, and cultural barriers to equal opportunity posed by standardized tests, and prevent their damage to the quality of education.
Contact your local state legislators and representatives and urge them to act on banning standardized testing. Demand an equal distribution of resources in schools.
Follow the latest news about Spring 2021 standardized testing at #CancelTheTests.
GET EDUCATED
By Kholiswa Mendes Pepani (she/her)
Education is a fundamental human right. But when racial and socioeconomic fences sequester millions of Black and Brown students from the resources and privileges that are required to succeed, who protects their rights?
For decades, the racial stratification within the United States’ educational system has been a powerful tool to uphold intergenerational privilege and white supremacy. Standardized testing is used across the nation as a proxy for intellectual merit, even though results always correlated with race and socioeconomic background rather than academic achievement (Teachers College Press).
“Since the beginning of standardized testing, students of color, particularly those from low-income families, have suffered the most from high-stakes testing in U.S. public schools,” writes senior editor and writer John Rosales in his article, “The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing (National Education Association).”
Race and wealth play significant factors in standardized testing for a number of critical reasons. Schools are funded by property taxes which, in turn, determines the economic and racial makeup of a neighborhood—two factors that have been further stratified by segregation and white flight. Students from affluent, white neighborhoods get access to better funded schools that put them on the path to success. In contrast, Black and Brown students from lower income schools are forced to struggle within a system that does not provide them with the resources needed to compete (Other Words). This system of separate and unequal education is a direct product of enduring racism and discrimination toward people of color.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the damaging social theory, known as eugenics, made its way to the U.S. This dogmatic pseudoscience, which was regarded as scientific inquiry, became a popular prescription for ranking and ordering human worth (Pencils Down). During that time, psychologist Carl Brigham, a supporter of these racist notions wrote that African-Americans were on the low end of the racial, ethnic, and/or cultural spectrum. These deeply oppressive views made their way into the educational system as Brigham contributed to developing aptitude tests for the United States Army during World War I, as well as helping create the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) (National Education Association). Decades of research found that assessments like the SAT and IQ tests are not an accurate measurement of a student's success in college or life. Instead, they present a clear bias toward Black and Brown students from early childhood.
“According to FairTest research, On average, students of color score lower on college admissions tests, thus many capable youth are denied entrance or access to so-called “merit” scholarships, contributing to the huge racial gap in college enrollments and completion,” Rosales writes (National Education Association).
Students of color who come from low income backgrounds are disproportionately placed or misplaced in special education that are frequently based on test results. They recieve a “dumbed down” curriculum that ensures that they will fall further behind from their peers. In contrast, white students from middle and upper class backgrounds are generally placed in gifted, talented, and advanced programs that challenge them to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly. In effect, the use of high-stakes testing perpetuates racial inequality through deliberate marginalization (FairTest). The dangerously flawed standardized tests are not only discriminatory but they are easily corruptible. Affluent students already benefiting are able to cheat and pay their way out of the oppressive system and into the nation's best institutions thus, securing a path toward an immensely privileged life (NBC News).
In recent years, a push to finally bring an end to this legacy of racism in education began. On May 26, 2020, the University of California’s Board of Regents voted to discontinue using SAT and ACT scores (Teachers College Press). UC Berkeley’s Chancellor, Carol T. Christ, and UC Provost Michael Brown stated at a conference in November 2019, that research had convinced them that performance on the SAT and ACT was so strongly influenced by family income, parents’ education, and race and using them for high-stakes admissions decisions was simply wrong (Teachers College Press).
Earlier this month, democratic U.S. representative from New York’s sixteenth district, Jamaal Bowmen called out standardized testing as being “a pillar of systemic racism.” This comes as President Biden’s administration refused to grant waivers for standardized testing in the wake of the global pandemic ( target="_blank"New York Post). On March 9, Rep. Ilhan Omar joined Rep. Bowmen in an effort to provide students with waivers for the test this academic year, writing to newly appointed Secretary of Education Cardona, and urging for suspension of testing. Rep Ilhan Omar wrote that they should be prioritizing the students’ academic and emotional well-being, not arbitrary standardized testing goals (Twitter). The Biden administration has yet to respond.
Years of racial stratification in higher education comes at a serious cost to Black and Brown students. Without the fountain of resources that are needed to succeed, students of color and low-income families face tremendous challenges in gaining entry to top colleges. These separate higher education pathways are critical because having access to quality resources—those typically available at top universities—are vital to securing path-dependent occupational destinations. More often than not, those occupational destinations determine how easy or difficult it will be to escape cycles of generational racism and poverty (Separate & Unequal).
While the school system cannot single handedly dismantle generations of inequality and white supremacy, it plays a key role in creating an equal and equitable environment that guarantees all students an opportunity to thrive. We must ask ourselves, if standardized testing does not accurately measure intelligence or determine college success then, what are they really for and why do we keep them around? Standardized testing at its core is a pillar of white supremacy and it’s time for it to fall.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Standardized testing represents a legacy of racial inequality toward Black and Brown students and perpetuates intergenerational privilege and white supremacy.
In recent years, the call to dismantle standardized testing has gained more traction and is currently being pushed for suspension by Democrat representatives due to the global pandemic and its deep-rooted racism.
Schools must adopt better curriculum and assessment practices that more accurately demonstrate a student’s academic abilities.
RELATED ISSUES
3/4/2021 | Reject appropriation in fashion.
2/9/2021 | Decolonize sustainable + ethical fashion.
12/17/2020 | Respect Hawaii’s sacred land.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Support restorative justice in schools.
Restorative justice is an approach to resolve conflict that “repairs the harm caused by a crime” (Centre for Justice and Reconciliation). It differs from enacting a reactionary approach to crime by simply applying some kind of punitive measures that, in schools, would look like detention, suspension, or expulsion. Instead, restorative justice tries to address the root of the harm via collaboration between offender and victim in circles and moderated discussions.
It's Monday and we're continuing our reporting on making education more equitable, a growing initiative as cities across the U.S. analyze the relationship between schools and the criminal justice system. Rainier, a writer and high school senior, encourages us to support restorative justice in our local school systems – and why it's critical to this work.
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ps – the Anti-Racism Daily Podcast is here! I'll be hosting conversations on the most impactful ways to take action around critical current events, and interviewing inspiring changemakers. Listen to the trailer on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
TAKE ACTION
Facilitate conversation within your school community between offender and victim by moderating discussions.
Encourage transparency in the way your school handles disciplinary measures.
Petition to have student involvement in their school’s disciplinary decisions.
GET EDUCATED
By Rainier Harris (he/him)
Restorative justice is an approach to resolve conflict that “repairs the harm caused by a crime” (Centre for Justice and Reconciliation). It differs from enacting a reactionary approach to crime by simply applying some kind of punitive measures that, in schools, would look like detention, suspension, or expulsion. Instead, restorative justice tries to address the root of the harm via collaboration between offender and victim in circles and moderated discussions.
Restorative justice is typically looked at through the lens of the criminal justice system, but it can help school communities as well. As school reconvenes and race becomes a discussion topic for classes across the country, people are bound to get some things wrong. Race is an extremely complex, abstract, intricate subject, and it is difficult to “get it right” the first time you talk about it.
As these mistakes arise, it is essential that school communities do not take a purely punitive approach to the offenders but instead allow everyone ample space to grow and learn. This does not mean that people who use well-known slurs such as the n-word should be treated tenderly. Restorative justice comes with the basic assumption that everybody has good intentions and means no harm. But, it also implies that they have basic knowledge at a certain age of what is outright inappropriate and unacceptable.
There are several restorative justice practices to implement within school communities, such as facilitation between offender and victim, peer mediation in conflict resolution centers, hosting dialogue circles, and student integration following suspension.
For restorative justice to work, it requires students to trust the process, or else it can wield shaky results (Hechinger Report). Restorative justice allows everyone within the community to be held accountable amongst each other. But that can only happen if people are not forced to participate and willingly partake in it.
In peer mediation circles, students who may get into a fight, for example, “talk it out” amongst each other in hopes of intervening before the issue turns into an even bigger problem (NPR). In dialogue circles, students sit in a large circular shape facing one another. Here, they can check-in with each other, settle minor disputes, and perhaps even hold academic interventions (Edutopia). Even after a student has done a suspendable offense, restorative justice can allow for integration through hosting circles with parents, school administrators, and the student to find the best path forward in the school (Christian Science Monitor).
In restorative justice, people are allowed to make mistakes without racist sentiments percolating. How effectively restorative justice applies is largely predicated on the intentions of the student. While the student’s true intentions may never be known, you can get a more holistic view of the student by including peers, teachers, parents, and administrators in the decision, not just administrators handing down a punishment onto the student.
“Did the student know what they said was racist? What was the context in which they said it, and how can that be misconstrued? Did they apologize?” These are the serious questions that schools can use to assess a student’s intentions.
Restorative justice has also been proven to prevent students from falling into the school-to-prison pipeline (The Praxis Project). Teachers also benefit from restorative justice as it has been proven to improve the behavior in the classroom dramatically (We Are Teachers).
Especially now in the middle of a pandemic, unemployment spiking, and remote learning, restorative justice is needed more than ever. Schools don’t know what is going on in a student’s home and if expulsion might make it infeasible for them to pay for another school in time. Additionally, the emotional burden the pandemic has brought on all of us may bring added stress and increase our capabilities to slip-up and make mistakes.
Most essentially, restorative justice addresses the roots of the harm, making it less likely for the same thing to happen again. It brings us all to a greater understanding of not just what was harmful, but why it was – and what can we do better. It forces us to look introspectively at our roles in our environment and evaluate how we can be better within that space.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Restorative justice is a more productive approach to resolving community issues and disagreements than punitive measures.
People have to willingly participate in restorative justice practices in order for it to work.
The same restorative justice practices must apply to everyone to hold the entire community accountability.
RELATED ISSUES
7/15/2020 | End racial bias in school discipline.
7/8/2020 | Investigate school district funding disparities.
7/2/2020 | Remove police from our public schools.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Fight for equity in remote learning.
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Happy Monday! My day job is in education (Yoga Foster) so I've been watching the decisions on back-to-school unfold with a blend of anticipation and dread.
For today's newsletter, Jami wrote a fascinating piece on what's unfolding in education this fall. I would love to hear how you're navigating this upcoming school year if you have children in school – reply to this email with your thoughts.
And thank you to everyone that's contributed money to the newsletter! If you haven't already, you can give on our website, Paypal, Venmo (@nicoleacardoza) or subscribe $5/mo on Patreon. And it's certainly not required, but always appreciated.
Nicole
ps – we've received a few questions about what is happening with the USPS. If you haven't already, we highly recommend reading last week's newsletter on the vote by mail situation and how you can take action.
TAKE ACTION
Read your local schools’ reopening plans. How do they support—or fail to support—low-income families?
Contact your local school board, many of whom are specifically seeking responses from the community right now, with your concerns.
Reflect on how your position and access shapes the choices you and/or your family is making during this pandemic. How can you support other families?
Follow Black educators on social media for their perspectives.
GET EDUCATED
In the last month, 180,000 have children tested positive for coronavirus (American Academy of Pediatrics). This 90% four-week increase happened to coincide with many students in the South and Midwest returning to school. Parents all over the country are worried about whether it is safe to send their children back to school— and if not, what to do instead.
The situation we’re in is terrible for all parents, all students, and all families. Talk to any parents, and you’ll hear their fear, their worry. But what sometimes gets lost in the social media arguments about school reopening is that, while this affects everyone, it does not affect everyone equally. As all kids return to some form of school by September, it is low-income families that are going to get hit the hardest— families that are often Black and Brown, due to America’s systemic racism and structural barriers (Pew Research Center).
The disparity comes to light when we look at what happened in the spring. An in-depth LA Times survey of school districts found that districts serving low-income (predominantly Latinx and Black) students had much worse virtual learning outcomes than districts serving higher-income (predominantly white and Asian) (LA Times). Under-resourced districts struggled to get their students devices and internet connections. (Now, even months later, California officials still say that they need over a million computers and hot spots for their students.) One teacher had less than 10% of his students show up for classes. Beyond the barrier of the digital divide, these students also had bigger things on their minds than school: their parents losing their jobs, paying rent— and of course, coronavirus itself. Because Black people have died of coronavirus at a 2.5x higher rate than white people (and Indigenous and Latinx people at a 1.5x higher rate), non-white students have had much more first-hand experience with coronavirus than white students (COVID Racial Data Tracker).
Since the spring, schools have changed their plans, and changed their plans again, due to vacillating instruction from the government and their overly-optimistic ideas about the pandemic’s course (NYTimes). In response, parents are scrambling to find the best option for their own families—choices that are all fraught. I was struck by an article where the interviewer asked teachers what they thought about wealthy parents choosing to “pick the all-distance option, create a home-schooling pod if you need to for a year. Ease the pressure on the system, so the lower-income kids have more access to the resources they need, including if they need in-person learning” (Slate). Black teacher Brandon Hersey’s response was short and to the point: "I think that's racist as f---." The teachers agree: while it seems like a good idea, it just makes in-person school a hot zone for kids with the least options, resources, and access. Because of the inequity in many types of tutoring/homeschooling pods, some schools don’t support them (Fairfax County Public Schools).
Even in areas like mine where everyone is beginning the school year virtually, remote learning exacerbates the differences between the haves and have-nots. In response to working parents’ childcare concerns, my school district partnered with Right at School, a company that will “support students in their remote learning, providing small groups and a quiet space for schoolwork, as well as supplementing with fun activities and group fitness” to the tune of $225 per week (Right at School). In other words: the school will provide a semblance of in-person school, but it’s outsourced, and parents have to pay. There was no information on whether it would be provided for free or at a discount for lower-income households (I contacted my school board and am waiting for a response). In both this case and the one that the Slate teachers were worried about— where the rich stay home and the poor go to school— school is segregated between those who can pay and those who can’t.
Our government has left us with no good options, but some organizations are trying to develop more equitable solutions. Yenda Prado notes that learning pods could be successful if they are available to all who need them most; if this system could be scaled and supported institutionally (Online Learning Research Center). “Learning pods – when done in certain ways and contexts – can be a form of equity work that supports families and schools,” she writes. “When families, particularly those that have been marginalized, come together in times of crisis to address their children’s needs – that becomes equity work. It is incumbent on all us to support their efforts by developing systemic solutions at scale to the current educational challenges.” San Francisco is attempting to do this by creating learning hubs for underserved children (San Francisco Chronicle).
Many parents have important reasons for opting their children out of in-person learning. But opting out of in-person learning doesn’t have to mean opting out of collective action. Whether we have children or not, we can all put pressure on our local organizations to best support the kids in our communities who need it most.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
180,000 children have tested positive for coronavirus in the past month.
Our individual decisions about schooling affect the community.
Virtual learning exacerbates the educational inequities between students of color and white students.
RELATED ISSUES
7/15/2020 | End racial bias in school discipline.
7/8/2020 | Investigate school district funding disparities.
7/2/2020 | Remove police from our public schools.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Analyze representation in media.
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It's Friday!
And Ebony is discussing Hamilton today, which many of you have asked about after our newsletters on Independence Day and cancel culture. Ideally, this sparks a regular practice of analyzing representation in all media, and advocating for more inclusive, diverse storytelling.
Each Saturday I dedicate the newsletter to answering questions and sharing insights from our community. It's a good time to reflect and deepen your understanding of topics this week. If you haven't already, email us your thoughts. I don't offer 1:1 consulting and can't get back to everyone, but I do my best!
If these emails support your anti-racism practice, consider giving $5/month on Patreon, or making a one-time contribution on our website (new!), PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). You can also now share this with your whole workplace with a custom enrollment link and reporting.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
1. The next time you watch a movie with a historical context (fictional or otherwise), consider...
Who's voice may be missing in this narrative?
Who shaped this story? What are the backgrounds of the writer, director, etc?
What part(s) of history may I be missing?
2. Explore other conversations about #RepresentationMatters on Twitter.
GET EDUCATED
"Why are people mad about Hamilton?"
Hamilton has become a cultural phenomenon. Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and inspired by a recently published biography, this musical tells the story of Alexander Hamilton through hip-hop, R&B, soul, and show tunes. Since its debut in 2015, it “has grossed $500 million, won 11 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, and was staged for three US tours, a production in London’s West End, and one in Chicago” (IndieWire). With this level of success, it’s no surprise Disney spent approximately $75 million for a recording of the musical featuring the original Broadway cast.
Disney released Hamilton on Disney+, their streaming service, on 4th of July weekend as a celebratory statement during fraught times. This reignited, and accelerated, conversations around representation. On one hand, people praise the casting team for hiring a diverse crew, and praise the musical for celebrating Black culture through its music. And on the other, critics question the lack of representation within the story. Both sides have valid points of view that need to be addressed.
With a lack of diversity still being present in both the film and theater industry, Hamilton made a name for itself by centering its production around non-white actors and performers who regularly face disadvantages in their field. This level of representation inspired other theater companies to make a bigger effort to ensure all cultures and ethnicities are portrayed accurately so there can be proper representation throughout their production (DC Metro, Theater Arts).
“Hamilton is the first of its kind to present a bounty of multicultural artistry – white actors included – because it doesn’t present actors of color just to put them on a stage," writes Don Michael Mendoza (DC Metro, Theater Arts). “It places them in a meaningful story about the founding of our country that is also a comment on the diversity of what America is comprised of, which is many cultures as one".
Hamilton challenged the status quo and made people rethink the roles people of color should play. Having diverse actors portray white historical figures in a compelling way is a refreshing change to the whitewashing we normally see in the entertainment industry (The Guardian). The same year Hamilton was released, only 13.9% of all available roles on Broadway were cast without regard to race or ability, and shows that hired predominantly people of color were rare (Playbill).
Yet Hamilton doesn’t accurately represent the narrative of marginalized communities within the storyline. Consider the characters: there is no representation of Black or Indigenous people in the story despite their active contributions to the development of our nation. The identities of enslaved people were completely erased, evident in the line “no one else was in the room where it happened” from the song “The Room Where it Happens” (Youtube). Hamilton also neglects to mention the African Americans soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War for both British and American armies (American Battlefield Trust).
Along with the erasure of Black and Indigenous people, this musical marginalized its female characters. There were only three female leads, each defined by their romantic connection to Alexander Hamilton. They are Eliza who was Hamilton’s wife, Angelica who was Eliza’s sister and Hamilton’s close friend and true love, and Maria Reynolds, Hamilton’s mistress. These women were drastically featured less compared to their male counterparts, and there’s a “clear difference in freedom of expression and representation for the women in Hamilton, who sing in only 14 of the 46 songs” (The Conversation).
Hamilton himself is introduced as a “scrappy and hungry” immigrant, passionate about freedom for all. But that wasn’t exactly true. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed notes that Hamilton qualified as a U.S. citizen and bought and sold slaves for his family. He never promoted an anti-slavery agenda in his leadership (Harvard). (Hamilton himself may have owned slaves, too – details in the NYTimes).
The play also glorifies the other Founding Fathers and glosses over their involvement in slavery. For example, James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were all known slave owners, and all supported the genocide of Native Americans (Counterpunch). Although Jefferson declared “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers didn’t extend that idea to every person on the nation’s lands (History).
Screenshot via Oprah Magazine
Our perception of representation is evolving.
It’s important we rethink what representation should look like on stages, television, and movies. First, we still need to make progress with on-screen representation. Even though 40% of the population is non-white, only 19.8% of lead actors in films were non-white in 2017 (PBS).
But, we also need to share the stories and histories of all ethnicities, sexual identities, genders, disabilities, and religions of those people (Los Angeles Times). And that will take more representation off-screeen; we need more people from marginalized groups to create, write, direct, and produce content that accurately reflects their lives.
This can be seen in the FX show “Pose” which is about the Black and Latino LGBTQ+ ballroom culture scene in NYC during the 1980s (FX). This show has “the largest transgender cast of any commercial, scripted TV show” and features both cast and members who directly identify with the characters and stories of the show (The Guardian). This show is changing the rules on how the entertainment industry should tell the stories of non-white people.
If Hamilton took this same approach, its audience could have seen how Black and Indigenous people played a vital role in the country’s creation. The addition of a character or two could have enhanced the storyline without completely erasing elements of our history. For example, there could have been a mention of one Washington’s most trusted servants, William Lee, who acted as Washington’s valet and assistant when he was in the Continental Army (American Battlefield Trust).
In order to honor our history, we need to acknowledge all aspects of it, including the painful parts. Without those aspects, we'll never truly understand the confusion or pain some people of color might feel when they watch musicals such as Hamilton and don’t see any mention of their ancestors. Hopefully, the popularity of this revolutionary musical and its astronomical success will encourage all of us to be more inquisitive of our nation’s history, and commit to representing all of its diverse and essential stories.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Hamilton is a trailblazer for diversifying a story of white historical figures.
The erasure of Black and Indigenous people with Hamilton neglects to shine a light on a part of American history people often try to forget which is slavery.
Representation should extend further than just diversity on-screen but behind the scenes, too.
We must be committed to telling all parts of our history whenever we can.
Related Issues
July 2, 2020 | Remove police from our public schools.
July 8, 2020 | Investigate school district funding disparities.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
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Respect AAVE.
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Hi all!
Most newsletters are inspired by the current news. This newsletter was inspired by a typo. My typo, actually, from a newsletter a couple days ago. I type these intros last, and sometimes too quickly, eager to get to bed. So I typed "ass" instead of "as," failed to notice, and sent it out. (Thanks for the cheeky 🍑emojis in your responses).
It made me think of how many times people have corrected my pronunciation of the word "ask" as "ax". And made me think of AAVE. So today's email outlines how racial bias against how Black people speak often prevents us from being heard, and the importance of honoring and respecting this language.
If these emails support your anti-racism practice, consider giving $5/month on Patreon, or making a one-time contribution on our website (new!), PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). You can also now share this with your whole workplace with a custom enrollment link and reporting.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
1. Pay attention to microaggressions that use derogatory statements around speech and grammar. Use tips in the newsletter – and do additional research – to respond.
2. Do research to learn about the origins of AAVE.
GET EDUCATED
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a dialect of English that is spoken by Black people in America. It sounds different from Standard American English (SAE), the English spoken by white people and taught in our schools. Despite the fact that AAVE has its own comprehensive words, and syntaxes, it’s widely ridiculed in society, and dominant culture often infers that people that speak using AAVE are less intelligent and capable than those who do not. Most people, regardless of race, do not speak Standard American English, yet AAVE is the most stigmatized and debated (AfroPunk).
These perceptions are reinforced by our education system that consistently shames students for using AAVE (The Atlantic). It’s also enforced by editorial standards. The AP stylebook avoids AAVE in its definition of prescriptive grammar, or, how grammar should be used (Daily Utah Chronicle). And this can have serious consequences. A study found that speaking AAVE makes it more likely that jurors will view Black people as guilty of a crime (Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice).
The latter point was put on full display in the George Zimmerman trial when Rachel Jeantel, a 19-year-old Black woman who was on the phone with Trayvon Martin in the minutes before he was murdered, took the stand. Zimmerman claimed he acted in self-defense, while Jeantel insisted he was the instigator. Her knowledge made her a star witness to the trial, but her testimony was dismissed by jurors because of their prejudice against AAVE (Stanford offers a legal take, and CNN has a video of an anonymous juror expressing her biases).
Speech recognition technology also fails to recognize AAVE. A Stanford study analyzed five major speech recognition technologies. On average, the systems misunderstood 35% of the words spoken by Black people, but only 19% of those spoken by white people. Each had error rates that were nearly twice as high for Black people than for white people – “even when the speakers were matched by gender and age and when they spoke the same words” (Stanford). The problem stems from a lack of representation: the machine learning systems used to train speech recognition systems likely rely heavily on databases of English as spoken by white Americans. If you read our report on the racial bias in facial recognition software, this likely sounds familiar (Anti-Racism Daily).
It might be easy to make light of this. Many of us think of speech recognition software when asking Alexa to change a song, or telling Siri to set an alarm for 7 am tomorrow morning. But what will happen when everyone is using it to drive hands-free cars, support with surgeries in hospitals, and identify ourselves at airports (Future of Everything)? And how well is this necessary tech supporting people with disabilities, who rely on voice recognition and speech-to-text tools for essential functions (Scientific American)? And consider how some automated software already associates negative sentiment with posts using AAVE language, even if they’re positive (People of Color in Tech). How can that be manipulated to infer criminal intent or aggression in forms of tech policing?
Photo by Ilias Chebbi on Unsplash
As a result of all this, many people that speak using AAVE are fluent in code-switching, or, adopting different patterns of speech and behaviors in different social contexts. There’s a wide range of examples on code-switching (NPR, who started a podcast on this topic, has a list of user-submitted examples), but for today, we’re focusing on how many Black people code-switch to navigate the stereotypes related to AAVE. Because of the issues mentioned above, it should come at no surprise that studies show Black students selectively code-switch between standard English in the classroom and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) with their peers, and Black people are taught to code-switch to survive police interactions (Harvard Business Review). We’ll look at code-switching in full in another newsletter, but it needs to be referenced here, at minimum.
But here’s the thing. The racial bias against AAVE is a social construct built to protect whiteness. There is no historical or grammatical grounds for entirely discrediting any type of English, let alone AAVE. In fact, correct language is relative to its time and setting, and native speakers are the ones who decide what is acceptable (JSTOR). Take the idea of double negatives, something that AAVE is often criticized for with terms like “ain’t nobody.” Those fell out of favor in the eighteenth century, but were loved by Chaucer and Shakespeare, and are critical in expressing negativity in both French and Ancient Greek (JSTOR).
A similar social construct of whiteness influences how Americans perceive British accents. Consider how many popular films have a villain with a British accent (JSTOR). Studies show that English speakers that don’t speak with this accent consider those that do as being more intelligent and from a higher socioeconomic status, but also less trustworthy, kind, and friendly – characteristics together that apparently create an attractive villain (JSTOR). These situations are clearly quite different, with drastically different implications, but they do show how easily false stereotypes can be painted when vernacular is judged in relation to the default of whiteness.
"
"The modern truths about language: language changes constantly; change is normal; spoken language is the language; correctness rests upon usage; all usage is relative.”
John Ottenhoff, The Perils of Prescriptivism: Usage Notes and The American Heritage Dictionary
Despite all of the harm Black people have to suffer because of the racial biases around language, AAVE is trending in popular culture. In fact, most of the slang the “cool kids” are using these days is terminology made common in the Black community, and has been throughout time (JSTOR). This is another example of cultural appropriation: how dominant culture can wield the culture of marginalized people without honoring it, or experiencing the same discrimination and harm.
No one embodies this better (in my personal opinion) than Thug Kitchen, an anonymous blog that went viral in 2013 that used AAVE and referenced Black music and culture alongside vegan recipes and tips. It wasn’t until their first book release that it was revealed that the creators are white. Bryan Terry, a Black author and food advocate, wrote a comprehensive op-ed on the issue for CNN. And it wasn’t until June 2020 that the founders decided that now is the time to change the brand name (VegNews). There are countless other examples of this – consider that the word “twerk” (and the dance that goes with it) had been around for decades, but became a cultural phenomenon by Miley Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs in 2013 (USA Today). Zeba Blay at Huffington Post has a whole other list for you and your “basic” “squad” and your “bae” to “turn up” to on “fleek” (HuffPost).
As we mentioned before, language is fluid. So there’s not necessarily anything wrong about white people using words popularized by Black culture and now part of the accepted lexicon. Some even argue that it shouldn’t be considered cultural appropriation at all (National Review). But remember that the popularization of Black slang doesn’t seem to be popularizing Black people being safe to celebrate their own culture. Remember that Thug Kitchen was being praised by Gwyneth Paltrow (Epicurious) in the same news cycle that called Rachel Jeantel "dumb and stupid" while she testified against the man that murdered her best friend. And for me, that says more than enough.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
AAVE is as valid of a language as SAE
There is no logical grammatical argument against AAVE
Despite AAVE being popularized in pop culture, it's still ridiculed in workplaces, classrooms, and other parts of society
Black people experience discrimination and harm when using AAVE
Related Issues
July 13, 2020 | Respect the roots of Black hair.
July 9, 2020 | Acknowledge the harm of microaggressions.
June 26, 2020 | Face the bias in facial recognition software.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
End racial bias in school discipline.
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Hi everyone!
Today's newsletter offers another lens on the school-to-prison pipeline and the racial disparities in education. Because our community is growing fast, and we're building quite a library of content, I've added a "related issues" section of our newsletters that highlights related content from our archives.
I hope this helps illuminate some of the other stances and perspectives we have had in the past, and enable our newer readers to dive deeper as we carry this conversation from one day to the next. It's so tough to boil down major concepts and complex systems of oppression into 800-1000 words, so we'll need to zoom in each day to eventually see the whole picture.
If these emails support your learning, consider giving $5/month on Patreon, or making a one-time contribution on our website (new!), on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza).
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
1. Sign the petition to free Grace, the subject of today’s newsletter, from juvenile detention.
GET EDUCATED
A disturbing story published yesterday by ProPublica brought the conversation of the school-to-prison pipeline to the top of my inbox: A Teenager Didn’t Do Her Online Schoolwork. So a Judge Sent Her to Juvenile Detention (ProPublica).
Grace*, a 15-year-old with ADHD and a mood disorder, was on probation when she started to struggle to keep up with her school’s abrupt shift to digital learning. Although Grace’s special education teacher saw her performance “not out of alignment with most of my other students,” the judge found Grace “guilty on failure to submit to any schoolwork and getting up for school” and called Grace a “threat to (the) community,” citing the assault and theft charges that led to her probation. Grace was sent to juvenile detention. She’s been there for the past two months, and her case won’t be reviewed until Sept. 8, after the start of the new school year. I highly encourage you to read the full story for the full story. A brief recap doesn’t do it justice (ProPublica).
Unsurprisingly, Grace is Black, and many believe this case represents racial bias persistent in state – and federal – trends of harsh sentencing against youth. The racial disparities in policies like these fuel the school-to-prison pipeline, or, the systems that pull students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system. We briefly reviewed this topic in a previous newsletter about police officers in schools (Anti-Racism Daily archives). You can dive into a comprehensive overview of the school-to-prison pipeline on tolerance.org.
In Michigan, Black youth are incarcerated over 4x more than their white peers (The Sentencing Project). And over the past four years, about 4,800 juvenile cases were referred to Oakland County Circuit Court, the same court that sentenced Grace. Of those, 42% involved Black youth even though only about 15% of the county’s youth are Black (ProPublica).
And across the country, broader studies that Black students, particularly Black girls, are more harshly disciplined. Data from the U.S. Department of Education found that from 2013–14, black girls were more than six times more likely than white girls to receive an out-of-school suspension. And although black girls made up only 16% of female students in U.S. public schools, they made up 43% of girls who were referred to law enforcement and 38% of those arrested (Teen Vogue). Read the full report here.
For students like Grace, this sentencing can have lasting repercussions. Many believe that juvenile records disappear by the age of 18, but that’s often not the case. A juvenile record can prevent a young person from receiving financial aid to assist with college tuition, harm their ability to get a job or join the military, limit access to public housing opportunities, and prevent them from the ability to receive a license in certain professions (MST Services).
And consider the deep emotional wounding of the trauma of being incarcerated as a teenager, of being handcuffed and shackled by the ankles, locked in a room for 12 hours a day, and denied access to basic comforts (ProPublica). It’s no surprise that data shows that youth with mental health issues – youth like Grace – are likely to emotionally deteriorate in custody, and their conditions often worsen (National Child Traumatic Stress Network).
“Who can even be a good student right now? Unless there is an urgent need, I don’t understand why you would be sending a kid to any facility right now and taking them away from their families with all that we are dealing with right now.”
― Ricky Watson Jr., executive director of the National Juvenile Justice Network, for ProPublica
What’s important to remember here is much of Grace’s story as a whole isn’t new. But the specifics situation of incarcerating a child because they didn't sufficiently complete their remote learning, in the midst of a global pandemic, definitely is. So what happens when schools start applying the same biased disciplining to these unprecedented learning environments? Right now, schools are grappling with the complex decision of how to return back to school this fall (NYTimes). And so far, a couple of major school districts have already opted for remote learning for the fall (NPR). It’s likely that decisions will vary widely between school districts, but we can expect remote learning to be a part of the equation for most, at minimum.
And we know that students are already struggling to complete their classwork while learning remotely. Various school districts reported discrepancies from earlier this year: 15,000 high school students in Los Angeles (LA Times), one-third of students in Minneapolis Public Schools (Twin Cities), and about 25% of Chicago Public Schools students (WTTW) failed to log in or complete their schoolwork (all stats via ProPublica).
Can we blame students for struggling to stay attentive during a global pandemic? Personally, I can barely keep up with my day to day responsibilities with the weight of COVID-19 and the protests hanging around me. And I, unlike many students in America, have the privilege to be working with unlimited access to my laptop and smartphone, and high-speed internet. But it’s estimated that 42 million Americans lack access to broadband internet, and 10.7% of U.S. households don’t have a laptop or computer at home. Low-income households were “least likely to be high-connectivity households, but had the highest proportion of smartphone-only households,” which is a tough platform for accessing school assignments (Gizmodo).
Consider how hunger and homelessness exacerbate the issue of staying on track while learning from home. How caring for younger siblings while parents are at work can prevent students from staying on track. And the stress and anxiety of everything can drain a student’s focus and attention. And most importantly, consider how Black students and other students of color are disproportionately likely to be burdened with all of the barriers to learning mentioned above. How can we incarcerate children for failing to live up to unrealistic standards as they navigate situations beyond their control?
Not every student is starting out the school year on probation. And perhaps not every student will be arrested for missing a couple of homework assignments. But we still need to view Grace’s story as a cautionary tale for what can happen – and challenge our dangerous relationship between discipline and incarceration. We are redefining what school looks like this fall, and hopefully, we use this opportunity to create a more equitable system for everyone to learn and grow.
*Named changed by ProPublica to protect identity.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The school-to-prison pipeline highlights the disciplinary policies that pull students out of classrooms and into the criminal justice system
Black students, particularly Black girls, are disproportionately more likely to be disciplined in schools
As schools adopt remote learning in the fall, there is a chance racial bias can continue to perpetuate in how students are disciplined regarding attendance and task completion
Students less prepared for remote learning are also more likely to be disciplined harshly for lack of participation
The impact of incarceration at youth has lasting emotional and legal implications
Related Issues
July 2, 2020 | Remove police from our public schools.
July 8, 2020 | Investigate school district funding disparities.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza