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Modern Day Racism (3) Mass Incarceration

     America... The land of some free, home of the slaves. The concept of a history class fosters the notion that everything we learn is in the past and has no effect on us today, but that couldn't be further from the truth. In 1865 the 13th amendment freed the formerly enslaved Black people and ended slave labor, or so they thought. There was a loophole, the amendment allowed for imprisoned people to be forced into labor. While many people opposed slave labor, southerners had built their wealth on the backs of enslaved Black people. Since their wealth was contingent on a newly outlawed system of oppression, they quickly shifted to a new system, the prison system. Soon after the 13th amendment was ratified all sorts of new laws infamously known as "Black Codes" made being Black terribly hard and often times illegal. Black people had to show proof of employment every year or face jail time, and hard taxes were imposed on them that if they failed to pay would result in jail...
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Tulsa Tulsa Tulsa (8) Massacre's throughout America's History

      Wealth begets wealth and money is power but we know through the years Black people have been systematically stripped of both their wealth and their power. The average black family holds only one 7th the wealth of the average white family. While explanations for this vary depending on who asked, some may say it's due to a lack of initiative. That the difference is a show of character, but a look at history will reveal the true answer. We hear lots about Abraham Lincoln and how he freed the slaves, but we don't hear about the continuation of Black subjugation that happens right after slavery. After slavery was ended during the reconstruction era many black people were very hopeful, they began electing officials and electing them into office, but every time Black people begin building themselves up there is always someone eager to tear them down.     In 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma was home to Black Wallstreet, one of the wealthiest Black communities in the nation at...
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Racism is Real, but Race May Not Be (4) Franz Boaz and the Invention of Race

     Race is real but it's a social construct... Race affects our society but it's not real... How does this make any sense? Understanding where race comes from and how it affects society is one of the most important tools in getting rid of racism around the world.  It is often said that "race isn't real" and that "race is just a social construct",  but at the same time, valid claims are made about the effect of racism on people's lives all the time. How can both be true? If race doesn't exist, it would follow that racism doesn't either?  This contradiction may be why it's such a confusing concept for people to grasp, why there are many different ideas of what race is and where it comes from in modern American society. The rift in understanding only serves to perpetuate racism. To comprehend race is to defang the mystical weight it carries, taking away its power.      Race is a recent invention by white supremacy popularized around the 15...
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The Angriest Black Man in America (5) Malcolm X

     No one paints the revolutionary war as unjust or mean-spirited. The oppressor was being oppressive so a bloody war took place in the name of freedom. We view those who fought not as violent radicals but as heroes. Many of those heroes owned slaves. one more time as it may need to be repeated, many of those 'heroes' owned slaves... America paints itself as a bastion of freedom, but Black people are always left out of the equation. When Black people do fight for their freedom, it is often thwarted by White America which is why the civil rights movement we know is extremely limited in its political ideologies. We're taught that MLK was nice, Malcolm X was mean, and the Black Panthers were Evil, but none of those statements are true. We need to expand our knowledge of civil rights history and understand that what we know is very whitewashed.       We get a lot wrong about Malcolm X. Rather than try to debate  X's ideas, giving them a chance to be...
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Those who shall not be named (6) The Black Panther Party

     We're taught that the Black Panthers were a violent anti-American Black power group. These ideas couldn't be further than the truth. The Black Panthers did not condone violence rather they promoted self-defense. They saw Black people being treated unjustly and decided if no one would protect Black people they would protect themselves. One of the most controversial methods they used was to approach police detaining Black people and read the Black person their rights while openly carrying firearms to make sure the Black person knew they were safe and that there were witnesses to the injustice Black people had to face at the hands of police. Their goals of Black self-preservation were used against them. The idea that Black people should be able to feel safe in their skin was used to tell White America that the Black Panther Party was a danger to White America. But who was using these lies to talk to White America?      The FBI fervently hated the Black pa...
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The MLK We Know Is White (7) Martin Luther King Jr

     The MLK we know is white. What does this mean? The way he is taught, the beliefs he had, and everything we know about him has been whitewashed so he could be a palatable civil rights leader. We grow up in an education system where slavery was bad, Jim crow was bad, then MLK came around and ended racism. This story is very wrong. There are a lot of misconceptions about Martin Luther King. These lies we are taught are disrespectful at best and dangerous at worst. To defang the ideas Martin fought for while he was alive is to strengthen white supremacist narratives in America, giving rise to people who misquote MLK. These people often say things like "that's not what MLK would've wanted" or "this is not what MLK fought for" in the face of blatant racism today. People want to use MLK as justification for passivism in the face of racism. Those people misquoting MLK have no idea of what he actually stood for and because they were never taught.     What was ...
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Advanced Placement vs. Dual Enrollment - Understanding Existing Research

       Existing research regarding my topic can be separated into three main categories. The research I reference in this review consists of related experiments conducted within the last two decades. Each section separates the lens through which the sample experiments were conducted, and how they related directly to my own research. Due to the lack of comparative research between Advanced Placement and dual enrollment through the lens of students of color, current research can be divided into three main sections - analysis of dual enrollment success in students of color, analysis of Advanced Placement success in students of color, and comparison of overall implications of both types of coursework for all students.  Dual Enrollment Success in BIPOC Students Karp & Hughes (2008)  and Swanson (2008)  focus on the benefits and impacts of dual enrollment courses on high school students, believing that dual enrollment is a key factor in increasing colleg...
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