How many times have you heard about systemic racism in America? Clearly the poor and minorities are set up to fail, and it all starts with our schools. The notion is that they are inherently racist and unfair, and that is the root cause of problems in the country.
Ironically, this is pretty close to the mark, but not at all in the ways you think. America’s schooling system is inherently racist, it does punish a select group of students based solely on the color of their skin, and the entire system, while technically illegal, is backed by local, state and federal laws and regulations.
NoHo School District
In recent news, the Los Angeles Unified School District in North Hollywood is cutting funds. This sounds like a typical story until you reveal the underlying motivation. A total of nine schools in the district are having funding stripped because they have too many white students. This isn’t a joke or some manipulation of the facts. A law passed in 1978 strips schools of funding in this district if the white population exceeds 30 percent.
Since this has happened, at least five teachers in each school will lose their jobs, and class sizes will have to be increased to compensate for the loss. Let’s keep in mind that 30 percent is still a dramatic minority, but it’s still enough to justify a government led act of racism.
Out of these schools, Walter Reed Middle School is the most famous. In recent years, it has been seen as one of the more successful middle schools in the area, and the budget cuts were a stark shock to many parents.
Under further investigation, they saw that the law used to strip funding is being misrepresented. The population samples are conducted by sending surveys home, and many parents of multiracial families mark their kids as being white.
Apparently, any whiteness is a sin in California, and so the schools are made to suffer. This may tie into the general funding trouble across the state, but there is no masking the racism in their justification.
Business as Usual
It doesn’t need to be said that if a school had funding cut because it had too many black students there would be national protests overnight and the district would cave. The would-be protestors seem to completely forget that a school serving mostly minority students is being made to suffer to support their racist agenda.
None of it should come as a surprise, because institutionalized racism has been a part of American education since the 70s. Things like Black History Month and cultural celebrations seem like inclusive, good ideas at the start. The problem is that they explicitly prohibit any celebration of Caucasian or European ancestry. They teach kids at a very young age that it is ok to be racist, but only against whites, and this is how we get the current situation.
Across the country, minority-serving schools receive far more federal and state funding than counterparts that have majority white populations. Even though the vast majority of the country is still white, we cater to minorities to the extent that they are five times as likely to receive federal funding assistance for education at every level.
New charter schools get fast tracked when they are located in minority population centers, and white neighborhoods struggle to build enough schools to house all of their children, even when they turn to private funding.
There is a consistent narrative that only white kids can get a good education, but all of the numbers point in the opposite direction. Minorities in America receive disproportionately high funding and support, and it is one of the major causes of our failures to compete in education on an international level.
The Epidemic
This is the epidemic brought to us by Barack Obama. Since the Civil Rights Movement, there has been a sect of America that refuses to accept any facet of progress. They outright deny that things are better for minorities now than ever, and that America treats its minorities the best of any country in the world.
Instead, they have adopted a fire-with-fire attitude, and they won’t stop until their racism completely rids the world of concussions. This is clearly evident in the violent narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement, and it was fully endorsed by Obama.
It’s difficult to sympathize with the hardships of minority when they so often receive elevated treatment and status. What’s worse, though, is that this system promotes reliance on the government and hurts every community in this country.
The example of the SoHo district is only one of thousands of cases, and although it is technically illegal, the only ones caught in the fight are the students and educators directly impacted. If America continues to allow racism under the false banner of equality, these problems will only get worse.
~ Facts Not Memes