The Devaluation of African Americans

The first day of class at Clark Atlanta University , the professor sits the students down and tells them to be quiet. Then she tells them to look to the right and then to the left, to observe the students sitting next to them. “Do you see these people sitting beside you?” she asks. “At least one of you three will not make it to graduation. These are the statistics already stacked against you.” Going to school at a historically black college or university, the students are already aware of the odds against them. The people of fair skin want them to fail, and even members of their own race expect them to be unsuccessful in their quest for achievement, because this is the way that it has been for generations. Very few slip through the cracks and into prosperity; most are weeded out in the process. Schools, no matter how unbiased each claims to be, are still to this day imbalanced and disproportionately biased toward those of lighter skin tone, and this is where the problem begins.

Generally, other races believe that as a people, blacks are stagnant thanks to their violent outlook on life and their subsequent lack of interest in school, but this theory can quickly be refuted once one takes a look at African American academic records during the elementary school years, then observes the steady decline throughout the years of secondary schooling. It is not poverty or skin tone that keeps one’s mind from wanting to learn, it is the attitude that is instilled while in that school that discourages the progression of intellect, the mind-set that blacks cannot and should not succeed.

While many argue that it is social disadvantage that holds the black race at an educational standstill, in reality it is the frame of mind and attitude that we all collectively carry that is the hinderer. Over the years, black students begin to realize that they are different from their white counterparts. Whether it is because of a schoolyard fight or the realization that the teacher has ignored their intellectual achievements, at some point this realization does come that our society is preset to expect the worst from them. Each individual handles this awareness differently. Whereas some take this as an incentive to work harder, statistics show that the majority seem to slowly evolve into disheartened, bitter beings.

Even those who would not be considered “racist” by the standard criteria hold negative dispositions of blacks and reflect them in their opinions and everyday attitudes. For a working example, how many times has a black man, even dressed in appropriately fitting clothes, walked down the street only to find that the white pedestrians seem to simultaneously, though obvious inconspicuously, cross the street. I mean, if you need a whole plethra of examples, consult the award winning movie "Crash".

Racism is still a problem in this country and throughout the world; problem fatigue is a prominent subtopic of this issue. It seems that many have given up the fight, and simply choose to ignore the matter, but it is this act that has sentenced this generation to mediocrity and failure. Disregarding racism is like sentencing the race to death