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By Israel Muñoz.

For those who may not know me, my name is Israel Muñoz. I am a first-generation Mexican-American studying Mathematics-Economics and International Political Economy at Fordham University in New York. I am also one of the founders of the Chicago Students Union – a student-led grassroots organization that focuses on education activism. The organization was formed during the 2012-2013 school year when I was a senior at Kelly High School. We held several demonstrations against standardized testing, unequal funding and budget cuts, and most notably, the mass school closures of 2013 which disproportionately affected low income students of color.

Those who follow developments on education know that students of color generally have a much different experience in education than their white counterparts. Though I could focus on things like unequal funding, unequal access to resources, culturally irrelevant curricula, the school-to-prison pipeline, and so forth, I’d like to focus on an aspect of education that is often far less visible to teachers, but practically integral to the experiences of students of color in the classroom. I’m referring to the dynamics that emerge as a result of race and hierarchy in the classroom.

I was raised in the southwest-side of Chicago, and attended under-resourced public schools. My neighborhood was highly-segregated, roughly 90% Hispanic, and perhaps 8% Asian – both groups being mostly immigrants or first-generation Americans – and the remaining 2% were African-American, roughly. However, there was a place where there were a lot of white people in my neighborhood: my elementary school. Because of segregation, those white teachers were the only white people I really had contact with.

As a result of this, and as a result of the way schooling works (unfortunately), I grew up under a strange relationship with white people. Schools were an environment where a white person was always telling me – and other students of color – what to do, what to wear, how to act, how to speak, when to not speak, and so forth. If I got in trouble, it would be a white person that would discipline me. If we walked in the hallway, it was a white teacher that directed us. In retrospect, elementary school was an environment where students of color functioned under a racial hierarchy in which white was in charge, always right, and holding of knowledge, while brown was subversive, wrong, and at the mercy of the white teacher’s knowledge.

At the same time, I also found that this racial hierarchy also existed in society beyond my school. On the occasions when I would go to the mall or drive through the suburbs, I noticed white people were better dressed than me, spoke English better than me, drove better cars than my family’s, had bigger houses than mine, probably had better jobs than my dad, and so on. On movies, TV shows, advertisements, billboards, and everywhere else, the people portrayed were white and wealthier than I. The hierarchy was inescapable, and I (like many other people of color) internalized a sort of inferiority complex. All that was good was associated with whiteness, while all that was inferior and socially marginalized was associated with brownness.

The outside experiences only sharpened the hierarchy in the classroom. School sometimes felt uninviting (not through the fault of my teachers, but through the fault of social constructs), because I couldn’t escape the educational and racial hierarchy. I avoided asking for help, because it would reinforce the idea that I wasn’t smart like white people. I loathed report-card pick-up because my mother couldn’t speak English and communicate with the teacher, making me feel like my family was impotent. I could name countless other experiences, and I have no doubts that this is incredibly common among students of color.

It wasn’t until I started getting involved with activism in education that the racial barrier began to diminish, in a sense. I began to speak with more and more teachers not only at my high school, but also in high schools throughout the city, and eventually throughout the country. But it’s crucial to note that I feel comfortable with them largely because of the fact that many of the great educators I know are conscious of the racial hierarchy as it relates to both the classroom and the broader outside world.

This isn’t to say that teachers who aren’t racially conscious cannot be good educators. Students of color can and will get good test scores and perform well through other measures under the instruction of white teachers. But by perceiving education only through that narrow lens, we would be disregarding so many aspects of a student’s educational experience.

In a perfect world, the color of a person’s skin won’t matter. But until then, we must grasp reality: we live in an uneven world where white people are granted privilege while people of color are limited from the very start (if you don’t believe me, look at the color of people in Congress).

With this in mind, I believe it is in the role of the educator – especially those working in schools where the teachers are white and the students are of color – to recognize that they will always be at the peak of the hierarchy inside the classroom, and with this recognition begin taking the extra steps to deconstruct it by building relationships with students as much as possible. Given the limitations and rigidity of our educational/pedagogical structures, this may be difficult but certainly not impossible: it starts with genuine conversation and building relationships beyond the traditional hierarchy of the classroom.

Israel Muñoz is a student at Fordham University in New York City. 

Author

Anthony Cody

Anthony Cody worked in the high poverty schools of Oakland, California, for 24 years, 18 of them as a middle school science teacher. He was one of the organizers of the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC in 2011 and he is a founding member of The Network for Public Education. A graduate of UC Berkeley and San Jose State University, he now lives in Mendocino County, California.

Comments

  1. szemelman    

    Go, Israel. So many people out in the world don’t understand this and say they are “tired” of hearing about race. What they don’t understand is how the world works for students who have been in your shoes.
    –Steve Zemelman

  2. liberalteacher    

    Israel, you have articulated what I have always known to be true. I am one of those white teachers who spent most of my career teaching children of color very successfully. Whereas others have failed, I was always greatly loved by my kids. I think I know why. Over the last 37 years, I have only seen in front of me eyes kids–not black kids, brown kids or Asian kids–just kids. And these kids, like you, have made me a better person.

  3. Patrick Nerja    

    Israel, this is a serious issue that is prevalent in every society till this day and I am glad to see that someone is doing something about it. This is a huge flaw in America’s academic system and all teachers have to realize that this is a real, on-going problem. It all starts with the teachers and the foundation that we lay upon the students!

    -Patrick Nerja

  4. Lisbeth G    

    Israel, I really liked your article, it was really realistic and a really profound experience you explain. I’m a Latina girl that lived in one of the Chicago area suburbs. And when I first started school there was only one preschool available at that time. And the classes available where just in English. I had grown up with Spanish as my first Language and going to a just English class was difficult. I was as well, one out of three students from the whole class that was Hispanic or colored. After a few weeks I wasn’t able to handle not understanding anything and I cried a lot. I started my Education by hating school. As well I ended not going to preschool as a little kid. It wasn’t required back then, it was optional. I like your article because I can connect to it as well. Hopefully as currently shown hierarchy in the classrooms between races start to diminish and more colored people start to speak up as well. Thanks for speaking for those that don’t have the courage to. And keep up the good work!

  5. Ashley    

    I really enjoyed reading the article and I thought Israel explained very well what it feels like to have unequal access to resources and experiencing an inferiority complex due to inescapable white hierarchy. The most exciting thing is, is that teachers have to choice to help every student succeed. Whether the student has a different learning style, or English is a second language and especially if the child has parents at home that cannot speak English, it is the teachers job to make sure the child understands and doesn’t fall behind and especially to make the child feel safe and comfortable in their learning atmosphere. I love how Israel stated that teachers should take extra steps to build relationships with the student. I think most people have that one teacher that was extra special to them that made them believe they can succeed and that is a huge necessity to instill confidence or the rest of the students life and every child should have those teachers throughout their education. Keep doing what your doing because people are catching on and realizing there is a lot more to education than tests and quizzes.

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