Racism in America

As Barack Obama is inching closer to the presidency, one can’t help wonder if the U.S. will be ready for the first black president. Will the low-income, white voters support him? If nothing else, Obama’s candidacy has really exposed the issue of race in the U.S.

It’s very difficult for an outsider to understand race relations in the U.S. Coming from a small, ethnically homogenous country like Denmark, I had never thought much about racism until I moved to the U.S. (Denmark is starting to have its own problems as the nation is becoming more multi-ethnic, but that’s a different story). And it wasn’t until my kids started school that I realized how deep the racial divide still is in this country.

We live in a city of about 70,000 people. Several years ago, a group of black parents challenged the school district, saying that the schools with predominantly black children were of a lower quality and their children didn’t receive the same level of education as the white kids. Their lawsuit resulted in a consent decree, whereby the school district agreed to fix the problem. Their solution was to implement a system that’s called “schools of choice,” which means that your kids don’t attend your neighborhood school but will be bused somewhere else. Most people still try to choose their neighborhood school, but the popular schools have long waiting lists.

The school district also has an accelerated learning (gifted education) program for students who qualify. The self-contained gifted classrooms are placed at the schools with the worst reputation in the worst neighborhoods, in an attempt to lure children from privileged homes to these schools (that’s not the official explanation, of course).

Our children attend the gifted program at a school that is located in a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood, and 67% of the kids come from low-income families. The gifted program provides an excellent education, but the gulf between the gifted and non-gifted classrooms is evident. The ethnic breakdown of students at the school is 40% black, 34% white, and 16% Asian, but in the gifted classrooms, it’s more like 50% Asian, 45% white, and 5% black. It’s a recurring problem for the school district that black kids don’t make it into the gifted program, and that black low-income kids still attend their neighborhood school.

And it appears that the racial barriers are already firmly in place even for young children. The kids in the gifted and the non-gifted classes don’t get along very well. There are the predictable taunts, such as the non-gifted kids calling the gifted kids “nerds” and “teacher’s pets,” but there are also racial undertones. For example, a black kid said to my son, “I want to wipe the whiteness off your face.” A lot of the racial slurs are directed from blacks to Asians. My son’s best friend is Korean, and he’ll often endure comments such as “you’re a stupid Chinese boy.” It’s very sad to see that the racial hostility is already in place when you’re 10 years old. Those kids must have been inculcated with negative attitudes towards what their parents probably see as the “privileged races”.

When my daughter started Kindergarten last year (not a gifted classroom; the program doesn't start until 2nd grade), she became best friends with a black girl. They were inseparable at school – until the girl’s older sisters declared that they didn’t like Nathalie and that Caitlyn shouldn’t play with her. Nathalie would come home and tell stories like this: “Caitlyn pushed me at recess, because she wanted her sisters to think she’s not my friend.” I can’t say that the sisters disliked Nathalie because she is white, but I also can’t see any other reason – they didn’t know her at all. Not surprisingly, Nathalie and Caitlyn are no longer best friends. (Nathalie‘s current best friend is a black boy, who apparently doesn’t have older siblings).

Quite frankly, I was shocked to learn that racism runs rampant among kids. And it’s a tall order to expect the school system to fix it all. The problems in the schools are reflecting a broader level of societal problems. Champaign schools are segregated because the city is segregated. There are neighborhoods for black, low-income families and neighborhoods for white, upscale families. The problems need to be addressed at a broader, societal level.

But is doesn’t hurt to start with the kids. I think the schools should work to promote racial integration, starting at the Kindergarten level or earlier, when the kids are still open and less biased. It would also help to provide kids with homework help to break the social heritage of underperformance. A kid whose parents dropped out of high school simply cannot get the needed academic support and encouragement at home. These kids need support that matches what the privileged kids get a home. As the low-income kids perform better academically, they also may feel less alienated and threatened by the kids from wealthier homes.

There are no easy answers, but I hope that Obama is right that the U.S. is ready to become a united nation. Maybe having a black president would at least facilitate the process.