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Race Does Matter

I can't count the amount of times that I saw two kids running in the hall at school and the same teacher have two different reactions:

To the Asian or Latino kid: "Please stop running." or, if it was a girl, "Sweetie, please stop running."

To the black kid: "Hey!  No running!"  Or "What are you doing!  Quit it!"

(we had no white kids so that didn't enter into the picture)

This didn't happen all the time, of course, or with every teacher but it happened enough that I noticed, and enough that I started wondering if perhaps, what we expect of kids and how we treat them might just possibly have some bearing on how they act.

Looks like I'm not the only one wondering that.

Two very different reactions to young children joyriding.

A difference between whites and blacks regarding the death penalty.

Black people "loot," white people "find" supplies after Katrina.


All men are created equal maybe, but we certainly don't treat them equally.

Comments

Liz Dwyer said…
Exactly! This is exactly what happens, and I don't think educators realize the difference in the way they're treating kids depending on their race.
10:15 PM
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