Erase the Hate; Forum 2002 (Institutional Racism)

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corporate and health care agencies in New Mexico and the southwest good evening I'm Conrad Chino and I'll be your host tonight for the Erase the Hate Forum 2002 this evening we are going to look behind the closed doors of institutions where a form of racism persists it's a form that's not so obvious or visible or identifiable but it's no less destructive to human life human dignity than any other discriminatory practice that denies equal treatment equal opportunity and access to those things that are considered desirable and necessary we are talking about institutional racism as we mentioned is not always a parent but figures and statistics reflect its impact this forum will seek answers to why our prisons are filled mainly with people of color why almost 50% of Native

American students drop out of school and why one racial group gets the privileges the hidden protections and advantages that others don't this forum will hopefully raise your awareness about institutional racism it's in city's nature and why we should all be concerned joining me tonight and the first half of our program are Diana Dorn Jones Diana is the chair of the leadership team for project change a national clearinghouse for anti-racism information and training also as part of our panel is Antonio Maiestas he is an assistant district attorney here in Brilio County and he prosecutes mainly domestic violence cases also in our panel is Corey Allison a Navajo singer Saul Rung songwriter who will be telling us about his experiences and how his music was developed in response to hate crimes against Native Americans and finally on our panel is Ricky Lee Allen a U.M. instructor who teaches graduate seminars on issues of whiteness and white privilege good evening to all of you

and thank you for joining us this evening for our discussion on institutional racism and one of the first questions I have is what's the best way to define institutional racism so that we're all pretty much clear on what the issue is and also so our audience is clear about what this issue is all about. Diana maybe we can start with you can you give us some insight into what institutional racism is about it's impact it's it's effects I think it's pretty much steeped in European white supremacy it says that what is European is what's right and often it's backed up by policies and practices that are put in place to protect those privileges and so I think if you really want to get a good solid definition it always should include power privilege power and privilege power and privilege for a select group for a select group of people

in this case we're talking about people of European white background okay Ricky Lee do you agree? Yeah I think one thing I would add that what we're going to talk about here is different from what most people have probably learned what racism is you know we're not really talking about the clan or Aryan groups and all those those groups are damaging and have been and are still frightening groups we're talking more here I think when you say the word institutional we're talking about how social institutions education banking health legal institutions how rather than thinking about those things as actually being the things that have remedied racism but actually thinking of them and looking at them as being the very things that helped to recreate racism on a on a wider structural systemic level so one thing that happens from that is that people who especially people from my group the white racial

group who who maybe somewhat who maybe think they're a good person well intention all these sorts of things but because of how social institutions work to actually recreate the very things that we think they're there to stop or intervene in that my group gets these benefits and privileges and people within my group maybe somewhat blind or oblivious to them and but that has effects on how they interact with people when they hear reports of what's going on in their local school or what's going on with the way health insurance is done or what's going on in a prison system that they tend to distance and dismiss those arguments especially coming from people of color you mentioned something earlier unearned unearned privilege as a result of skin color is is what we're talking about yeah yeah I think a couple of things I think that are they're key in talking about racism as we talk about

it tonight and I think looking at the difference between the terms prejudice and racism because not the same not the same I think one of the tendencies is to try to make them synonymous and especially with people in my group trying to make them synonymous as if all prejudices are equal and all human beings are prejudiced just by the way the brain works I mean we're experiential beings we have partial knowledge about the world we go out and we know what we know because we experienced it but no human being can experience everything that all other human beings have experience there's just no way so we learn through our experience in the world and that allows us a certain vision it allows us to function in the world but for what it allows us to see seeing is also a way of not seeing because it's always a partial field of vision that we have so we're always going to be prejudiced against other groups but just because there's things that we don't know or we don't understand about groups the problem becomes

is that we're all we all have these prejudices but some groups have the power and the position to put their prejudices into public policy into banking practices into how the curriculum of the school works and that has negative consequences on a structural level for people of color that's one aspect of institutional racism but let me hear from some of the other panelists talk about institutional racism in terms of its its impact and its effect because we're also talking about inequalities correct Antonio yes Conroy with regards to the legal system like Dana said our the legal system was created out of England it's Anglo-Saxon legal system and it takes the culture and the beliefs of that culture implements them across the board when you look specifically at who the major actors are in the criminal or the legal system or more narrowly the criminal justice system in 1980 only 5% of lawyers in this country were people

of color and it's gotten better but still today only 19% of law students are people of color so when you look at members of the bar judges governors US senators the major people who are creating interpreting and applying the laws institutional racism exists and to pick up what Ricky was saying this could be educated kindhearted good people but they bring in their own biases their own attitudes their own beliefs and and it becomes systemic because it's not just individual prejudice but when you apply race prejudice and power it becomes institutional racism so are you telling us that because some students can't some students of color who don't succeed at finishing law school that that institutional racism is to blame for that I wouldn't suggest there to blame because there's a lot of different factors but when you look at the application process standardized test who gets in who doesn't the fact that if

your father or uncle went to that institution you have a better chance of getting in things of this nature the brain works differently people look at the world differently but when you when you talk about merit as narrowly defined by a dominant group then very bright educated outstanding people may not get into law school or may not wish to stay in this in this system so you talk about getting into law school as opposed to being in it and being able to finish is that correct well I think there's many many hurdles first you get into law school then you pass the bar then if you want to be a judge if you want to be a legislator a governor there's just many hurdles that people of color have to go through that people take for granted because I think lawyers and judges people in the legal system we cherish it so much that we are written you know we rigidly fight against any notion of inequality but when you look at laws historically like today maybe overt racist laws would not be tolerated but our

country and our laws and the racism that that has been perpetuated for centuries was legal you know from slavery to Jim Crow and so the legal system is based on precedent it's conservative by nature because a judge today will rule based on what a judge ruled yesterday and so to struggle against these inequalities and these injustices is an uphill battle and it takes a struggle it takes a struggle talking about inequalities and injustices Corey you're a songwriter and you've written some songs based on your experiences you're from the four corners areas that correct yes I am you're from the now the foundation down in the area yeah actually I'm a create Indian that I grew up in um farms and create this color out of River Indian tribes oh okay now a little all right um tell us a little bit about your songs and and the songs you've written and I as I understand they reflect some of the

injustices and some of the inequalities that that others have talked about on our panel here oh yeah mine the songs I've wrote about in the songs that um that kind of got I guess some publicity recently it the title is called reflection of a hate crime and it's basically in a way it was thoughts and things that are happening around me all at this one period of time which was in June a couple years ago and you know I got through I've grown up and gone to school through the Farmington public school system and I've seen you know the good the bad of pretty much of of everyone everyone like as far as Anglo as far as native as far as um African Hispanics you know and I guess this was as kind of like a like a a melting point where it's like I went so far and all of a sudden I just had to release something and I've been playing the guitar

for a while and and then after I heard about this recent a recent murder that happened a couple years ago to a Native American lady who was targeted just because of her race it was just in a way I guess you can say it sent me over the edge where I started riding a lot a lot of poetry a lot of them like short stories just just trying to get like all these feelings I've been inside me since I was since I was in kindergarten just trying to get them all out just riding with with my mind and then all of a sudden it came out and I just kind of started strumming a tune and then naturally it fell into place and to start performing it all over and I guess that was fueled that particular song and a lot of mother songs that I've been writing and you know the whole thing about um about injustice I guess you can say but not to the point where where it becomes so I guess so generic I guess you can say like where you can't be sitting there and blaming something and not to that point I'm trying not to

reach that point but to the point where I can express who who my views and who I feel and what I feel I have to say basically and let me ask you this maybe to throw this out to the panel there is some blame though I mean the system is to blame for some of the equalities and injustices that do exist Danny you've been involved not only in housing but also you've been involved with financial institutions is that correct and you've seen some of the effects of institutional racism well right now our community is grappling with predatory lending practices and I've always had a concern about access to credit and capital for low income people and particularly low income people of color right now because we're dealing with predatory lending practices this going on in two levels they have payday loan programs that are on some of our commercial strips that are really giving money to borrowers at higher interest rates and less favorable terms I think those are really very difficult

things to grapple with in a community where you have a lot of poverty where people are in need of capital but there's certainly a way in which we can do that without undermining a group of people and particularly people of color because people of color are usually the ones at the lower economic level on their ladder so that's a concern the the bigger piece for me is predatory lending practices as it relates to mortgage lending because I think that is something that you really start to undermine a whole community and that's what's happening in our community and in communities around this country and we're no different we're trying to grapple with that many people I think the these institutions have come about because they're filling a gap that has been created by traditional conventional mortgage lenders they're not making loans in certain communities they're redlining so they don't will end in a certain geographic area they're also steering people who could probably qualify for a regular conventional mortgage but because they're people of color and in

their mind perceived as a higher credit risk then they are referring these people to subprime lenders the most insidious thing is that this is practices that are happening on local community levels are now playing themselves out on Wall Street because these are investments that are taking place in our country and that is a industry that has grown in five years from 1993 to 1998 five-year period of time a thousand percent increase in predatory lending as relates to refinancing of mortgages and low-income communities so it's really it's really a threat to the fabric of many neighborhoods where low-income people are trying to revitalize and trying to make prosperous communities let's talk specifics here are we talking about albuquerque Bernoulli County where as you described redlining is occurring is it happening here is it is happening here it happens in many communities we have some credit data study with project change and credit a community group that deals with bank mergers and we talk to some people out there they're just out there working and working very hard

trying to access to credit and capital trying to buy their first home many of them have gone to banks to traditional banks and have been client because number one they wanted to buy a home and albuquerque's designated pocket of poverty now just because it has pocket of poverty on it doesn't mean that it's not a good geographic area to live in I happen to live in the pocket of poverty myself and happen to know that when an appraisal comes in it has wonderful things we're close to the transportation we're close to hospitals military bases so geographically we're sitting on some very hot property why can't we get mortgages in those communities now we're getting better because community groups are going out there and they're negotiating with banks around merger times and we're using the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 to negotiate better terms for mortgage lending but the fact that matter exists is that most of the mortgages in this country are not made by banks they're made by mortgage companies that are not regulated under the CRA and so therefore there's no regulation taking place and no oversight. Getting back to your earlier description

definition of institutional racism and in terms of the kind of picture the Diana's painting this isn't something if your theory holds true that white angles would experience when it comes to trying to get a mortgage we're trying to get a loan from a banking bank or a financial institution sure yeah in fact I think one thing to add upon what Diana is saying especially as it relates to education oftentimes when I'm teaching classes with with either graduate students who are teachers or people who are becoming teachers one thing often here and especially from white students is that they have little history of what's happened since slavery so I get common comments like well gee wasn't slavery a hundred and some years ago haven't usually referring to African Americans usually more often than not but you know why haven't they picked it up

since then why haven't they achieved like whites now that's why I think the housing thing is so important especially as it relates to education and well where schools are placed during the 1930s the whole history of red lining and restrictive covenants and when the when the the government during the 1930s decided they want to stimulate the economy during the depression so they came out with this idea of ensuring mortgages but in the manuals they would send the banks it explicitly said don't give mortgages to in terms of the day Negroes Mexicans Indians right and those were you know many of those things happen and meanwhile whites were getting all these loans it essentially was a government-backed project that built the American suburbs so if you think of it that way it was one of the largest government-backed construction projects in the history of a few mankind and it was systematically set up to

privilege whites over people of color and meanwhile since that time since the 50s 60s in the suburbs are somewhat established you know those property values have escalated and that's you know now that's a big selling tool with real estate agents you know take the incoming family and show them the local school you know that goes along with the neighborhood they go together as a selling point but I think a lot of my students particularly white students when they hear that it really disrupts their sense of themselves because they grew up with this false belief that their family got what they got because of their own hard work that it was a fair and just process but when they find out it it wasn't not only do many of them change your mind about it they're the walls they put up start to melt away a bit but they also start getting some of them start getting a little angry well why they never heard this on television

why did why doesn't the news report this why didn't they hear it in their social studies class in high school so some of them do start to take that up and it's very important even even an education to hear about housing practices baking practices isn't there's some justification to what they're saying that some of their families their parents their grandparents burned and got what they got because of hard hard work because of taking advantage of opportunities that may have existed existed at the time I would think that many liberal thinking white middle class families would disagree with what you're saying that they gained their successes that they got what they got because of hard work and not because of the color of their skin or unearned privilege yeah and that's the game that institutional racism sets up because many whites do work hard but the problem is other groups work hard too and the

effect is it puts in white people's minds that other people didn't work hard so they thus deserve to live where they live or they deserve to have the schools that they have or they deserve to have lower paying jobs because they don't have this history of you know what really happened the reality of what happened before and what Diana is saying is still happening today right here in Albuquerque so hopefully those stories when you when you tell them the white folks that hopefully there strikes a moral sensibility in them that they do believe in America you know the idea that your hard work should get you ahead and in the hard work of your ancestors really should have no bearing on the present generation then hopefully if they believe in America that these stories will strike a chord in them speaking of striking a chord until you're in your your job as a prosecutor here in Brunei County you handle mainly domestic violence cases is that correct yeah that's correct and in talking about it

earlier you mentioned to me that the people of color when they look at the criminal justice system or the courts they have a different view a different perspective on it then say angles or especially victims of domestic violence what's why why the difference in views I believe that's true to pick up on something that was just said and then to go into your question is people I think part of the problem is people define racism based on their on their own personal experience like a math professor wouldn't sit around and get 50 different opinions as to a math equation you know yet people say well racism to me is this racism to me is that that one day someone treated me bad and so it's difficult for people particularly people in power to deal with the institutional racism that exists and so when you look at the criminal justice system I deal with victims of crime and it's ironic the way victims of crime view the criminal justice system many of them have a romantic view of it that

justice will be done and others have no confidence in it at all and so sometimes when the outcome is unjust people are outraged but the people who seem to be the most outraged are the ones who who romanticize about the system because historically the institutions of this country have worked for who are we talking about here white persons because the institutions quite frankly were created by white people for white people and it's only been in the last hundred fifty ten years that we've really tried to achieve multicultural multiethnicity equality and when institutions fail then while the system failed the system didn't work if if a defendant rights are not violated and the state produces the evidence at its disposal but a jury comes back not guilty a white middle-class person is more apt to say the system failed me as opposed to man it was fair and just the jury just went south as opposed to a person of color

who had no confidence in the system at all and it seems like the is it because they see it as belonging to some other group as not their system but they didn't create I think so like another example is as you know Spanish and English is a state language in this state yet a couple years ago limited English-speaking persons or Spanish-speaking persons were kicked off juries so that the interpreter basically we would have to hire more interpreters and facilitate things of that nature but Spanish-speaking people are part of our community there are peers and they belong on our juries to judge us so it took a struggle and a Supreme Court decision to allow Spanish-speaking persons to not be kicked off juries and for the courts to facilitate interpretation it was basically a systemic attitude that valued the English language over the Spanish language or valued the opinions of English-speaking persons over Spanish

speaking persons but it's very difficult to pin down but I believe it does exist what you suggested okay is justice blind is it color blind or does race factor in when justice true justice is blind but I believe Conroy when you look at all the actors in the criminal justice system not just judges lawyers and cops but when you look at parole officers probation officers jail guards when you look at the economic incentives with regards to what people refer to as the jail industrial complex the prison contractors and the private prison industries and all the different powers at play if you just if the cop has its own biases then the scale is tipped and the jail guards have their own biases that the scale is tipped and maybe a lawyer maybe a judge maybe a clerk maybe a jury then then the scales of justice become unjust and that I think that's the clearest I can I can describe institution earlier we

mentioned that the statistic that that prisons in this country are filled mainly with people of color can re can institutional racism be blamed for that or is there truly a disproportionate number of burglars robbers drug dealers who just have to be people of color and were sentenced to prison clearly there's race involved the numbers are such as and I'm sure they are what anti-many of says they're disproportionately represented in the prison system and I guess the question I have is there are a lot of people profiting off of institutional racism so we must work as a country to take the profit out of institutional racism privatization of jails there's an incentive now to build more jails or if you're going to build jails you got to put people in them and there goes the circle again the same thing with mortgage lending if it's being traded as a as a commodity on Wall Street there's an incentive and there's a there's profit in racism so we've got to work to figure that out and

I don't know the answer but it's clear that it's it's a big piece of racism and that'll be the last word for this half of our program on erase the hate we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back welcome back you are watching the erase the hate forum 2002 a continuing activity of the YWCA week without violence I'm Conrad Chino and we're discussing institutional racism in systems and institutions that deprive or

deny certain racial groups equal access or equal treatment in housing lending practices politics the legal system medical care and education I'm joined in the second half of our program by a group of educators first of all to my immediate left is Dr. Harold Bailey he is president of the Albuquerque chapter of the NAACP also an educator here in the Albuquerque Public School system is Doug Dreyer he is a teacher at Jefferson Middle School and we're also joined by Elizabeth Armijo who is the director of public education for the YWCA and finally rounding out our panelists is Ricky Allen a UNM instructor in the College of Education welcome to all of you and thank you for being here and thank you for joining us again Ricky I want to talk about institutional racism in education and I guess we can at this point talk about

public school education because we have two educators here who've and I guess UNM is considered public institution so let's talk about that give me some quick examples of institutional racism maybe historically as is existed and maybe even currently as it might exist in public school systems and we'll start with Dr. Bailey African American standpoint black people were brought to this country a slave so therefore the American educational system was not designed to meet the needs of black people so therefore we were disadvantaged throughout history from slavery to the Emancipation Proclamation and then you have Supreme Court decisions decisions place versus Ferguson in 1896 and that mandated separate but equal educational facilities not until 1954 Brown versus Board of Education to Pika Kansas that decision was that decision was reversed by the Supreme Court so throughout history you know the educational

systems in America have not met the needs of black people and minority groups in general so is it fair to say that we can blame institutional racism for maybe currently students not doing well or performing well in schools well I think the the design of the system is flawed for an example we have employment problems not just speaking about APS but you know educational institutions in general we may not have a fair representation of minorities in the higher echelon of administration principles classroom teachers social workers you know people who are in the in positions of authority to make a difference for an example there are approximately 3% of the population in APS or African Americans but yet the dropout radius maybe 9 or 10 or 11% so we do have some issues and we need to increase the hiring of minority minorities qualify minorities let's talk a little bit about the dropout right and it is extremely high for for our

students of color I think Native American students figures that I've seen show it as high as 50% in some schools is it fair to blame I mean this this race factor in at all or are we unfairly using that term in terms of attributing it to something or do social economic factors come into play for example does parental involvement have something to do with maybe why students succeed or don't succeed does community support of a particular school have some bearing as far as as the the figures and the statistics on whether or not students stay in school start with Ricky I think all those things matter I in my own work I think what I focus more on though is these these other sort of things about attitudes and dispositions of teachers and how that plays out within the

school boundaries you know most teachers are white in this country 95% mostly white female and in urban areas that still holds pretty much true and the students are increasingly children of color what's interesting to look at I think is in the post civil rights era in the sort of integration era you know now that we have students of color going to school with white children what happens once they're inside the school and after the class bell rang so to speak one thing we find is that segregation has a way of recreating itself within the walls of the school and and you know one thing I wanted to add we've kind of talked about institutional racism as being almost like an abstraction as if there's not real people doing it and I think I want to talk a little bit about tracking and I think it's important to talk about how it works in a school because it's real people doing it it has broad institutional effects but we

should always remember that it's people actively creating it in their day to day lies and many times like we said people who are well intention but not understanding the consequences and how they're complicitous in that and tracking is something that is in every urban school district and rural school districts essentially what it what it is when I was a teacher my first job as a physical science teacher you take the curriculum and you sort kids into ability groups so you have a physical science class which may have a high medium and a low level in a in a school especially diverse school what often happens is whites and some Asian groups get overplaced into the high groups and blacks and Latinos and Native Americans get placed overplaced into the low groups by overplaced I mean by whatever criteria and it's usually not very explicit what the school says the criteria is for this but if

there is explicit criteria that means that there are many whites and some Asians who don't have the criteria but yet are placed in the high group in many blacks Latinos Native Americans who have criteria for a higher group but yet are still placed into lower groups and this this gets and of course once you're in the tracks the reason the metaphor is tracking the word tracking is there is because you can pretty much predict once you're in a track where you'll wind up as an adult in your career and there's always exceptions to the rule but the problem is the rule that it does sort people and it does ultimately have economic effects so the school isn't simply a mirror of society and it isn't just simply reflecting the segregation and the racial blindness is there in society it's actually producing that through how it works if I'm hearing you correctly you're saying that this form that exists this practice that exists in

public school system is wrong right if it's wrong why isn't it illegal Dr. Bradley well I think it's you know it's illegal but it's all in how you go about doing it any institution which discriminate against a particular race of people you know we know it's wrong but you know it's hard to prove and so we have to make sure that those people who are in charge of these institutions are responsible for the hiring of the people who work in these institutions you know abide by the law now in theory we can abide by the law but in practice we don't for an example why don't we have an adequate number of African American principles or adequate number of African American counselors or African American social workers to deal with these problems to drop out rate the curriculum does not necessarily reflect the black experience most times we have to wait till

black history month or Dr. Martin Luther King to celebrate his holiday to expose people not only Native American or minority group students but to non minority group students to education and history so I think that we we have some tweaking that we really have to do in those who are in positions of authority they have to to ensure that they are enforced the law but is that it does not necessarily happen in all cases right you mentioned something earlier and we discussed this in our first half is that institutional racism oftentimes isn't really clearly visible that it's oftentimes very subtle but it's there nonetheless I believe that they are just daily experiences that we take for granted it's a pattern of assumptions that are just passed down and there's not enough of us who are voicing our concerns about it I want to bring that your point back to something that was mentioned to us earlier done at a middle school here in town in talking about

institutional racism and as we mentioned is not easily identifiable it's oftentimes more subtle than other forms of racism but the question is can you teach students to recognize racism or this form of racism and have it appropriately discussed in the classroom now Doug Dreyer is with us on the panel and he's a middle school teacher who did just that with his drama classes that correct that is tell us about that now you videotape this sub that this interaction between students and try to get your students to talk about this issue of racism I was approached by Talmad to come and do a program for the erase the hate program here and they wanted my students to do some writing on institutional racism so I brought it to my students and asked them what is institutional racism and most of them didn't really have any idea they they knew

racism but at this point for 13 to 14 year olds had no concept of institutional racism so we went down to the library did some research and then we paired them up and had them do some brainstorming on what this when this might occur they came up with jails and they came up with core rooms and and educational so we started writing plays and they went from writing plays and pairs to getting into bigger groups workshopping and then eventually we settled upon this one play that had been workshopped and then they they wrote and came up the concept and then it was filmed by a local company okay and you have that you brought that video to it with you yeah let's take a look at it institutional racism is defined as racial prejudice and discrimination that is supported by institutional power and authority we the students of Jefferson

Middle School drama program were asked to write a play about institutional racism we chose a school situation because that is what we know best the following plane does not represent Jefferson Middle School and is only used as a representation of institutional racism you're on the chest team that's excellent yes sir chest team and drama I'm really interested in soccer team here and very excited about this program led to hear that we only accept a few out of district students each year if you do get accepted we expect only the best academically and socially you also be expected to participate some extra curriculum activities but from looking at your records I don't think that'll be a problem well it might be a little problem sir I'll be taking the bus to get here did you possibly get my parents I live with my grandmother say she's unable to do that but I'm dedicated I really am willing to work hard I'll get up really to catch the bus it won't be a problem I promise I believe you do you have any other interests I

like to read and write I really like art especially drawing good good so I've heard really good things about your science program here at Brian Middle School and from looking at your records it looks like you would fit in well with our science program and it looks like language is a strong area too I just missed it and I loved read anything else you'd be interested in perhaps the debate team any sports well I'm really willing to give anything try my parents always told me to try everything at least once we expect the students in our district program to be highly involved with the school that will be a problem what no sir my mom said she'd be willing to give me right anytime I didn't my dad works just to the street let's roll me a few miles out of district well do you have any other questions for me no sir I hope I'll be accepted in this program we have a lot of you candidates for good luck I think Derek Thompson and Terence Bishop are two best candidates I agree both

would be welcome dishes to school so which do we choose there isn't much separating the two candidates and we only have one open spot left well the test scores are both in 95th percent I have no problems there Derek is higher science scores while Terence is higher marks than math their language scores are identical I don't see any problems any given one well Terence will have problems with transportation and family involvement he lives up in the northern area with his grandmother and you know that area is heavily minority that might cause some problems with the school's parent teacher council also his parents are not involved the district plays an importance on family involvement in this program that's another strike against him yes but there has had some instances of disrespectful behavior and he can throw tantrum but he would probably fit in better social population the behavior problems could be due to his high intelligence creative people are often temperamental I think we're gonna have to choose Derek the district plays his importance on family involvement in students with high potential with Terence's home life he's a huge disadvantage but that's not fair I agree but you've read the memos

that's what they want in this program strong families and students high potential so is that the choice I'll get the paper okay well done let me ask you this Doug as I understand it from seeing the video tape the first student was supposed to be a student of color is that correct and the second student angle student what was the point you were trying to make in having the students go through this exercise this this play well we were hoping to have the students identify what might be institutional racism in an area they felt moderately comfortable with education they had workshopped other forms but in the end felt that education would be something they'd be most comfortable with the point that the students were trying to make is that there were two students of equal ability interviewing for a gifted program in a school that was almost set like a school within a school and that students had equal backgrounds in terms of education but that the institution the higher institution the

administration had set down these rules such as parental involvement having involvement after school from the student that might make it harder for a minority in a minority to be involved in the program so they were going for that type of the message that these students were equal but because of one person's background that he was not chosen okay now again this is a production that was put on by middle school middle school students does what they were trying to portray in this play accurately reflect what might go on or perhaps what goes on in school system school districts yeah I think there's all sorts of daily events that happen that have a that have a cumulative effect and I think one thing I'd like to add to the conversation is is that in the classroom like I mentioned before with so many white teachers

in particular I think they have a hard time connecting in really powerful ways with their students because often they don't want to go to the race question it's become a taboo for them and they've learned that culturally throughout their lives they haven't learned much of what to say about it in large part because they don't think of themselves as racial beings they don't think of themselves as a white person and what it means to be white and how that's different than being a person of color so what what happens in a classroom especially as various events like tracking events like in the video other things happen experiences with teachers especially with children of color and this happens things kind of come to a head in in middle school where a student learns a student of color learns that they're not a universal human being that they're a particular kind of being in the world a racialized being and that the world doesn't think much about you but yet here they're usually sitting

there with a white teacher who's not going to talk about that it's not going to be a part of the curriculum it's not going to be the literature that you read it's not going to you're not going to be making plays about institutional racism or let alone critiques of of how whiteness functions so it has it there's this emotional effect the traumatizing effect that institutional racism has over time and teachers are rarely educated to deal with that in any significant way because it can manifest itself in dropping out in certain behaviors and basically seeing the school as somewhat of a white institution and therefore being somewhat oppositional to the school and not really wanting to go along with the message of the school okay let me ask you this doctor what would what would the dropout rate be different would would kids stay in school if they're what they're what they're what their scores be

better if there were more teachers of color if there were African-American principles or African-American superintendent if there were the kind of resources and materials that reflected their culture their history themselves if they were able to see themselves reflected in what's around them in their classroom would there be a difference I believe so there would be positive role models for African-American students and non-African American students social workers or counselors they would feel comfortable talking to them when certain problems come up in the family structure I'm not saying that they cannot talk to a non-minority counselor but I think that they will feel better you know if they see African-Americans or people of color throughout the district and all levels as principles running schools set in a curriculum those things show students that you respect their culture too

and a lot of times minority group students are miscategorized you know if they have a behavior problem a lot of times they wind up in a special education class or behavior disorder class so it's it's it's our perception of students and by the video the students are pretty sharp we just give them an opportunity and showed them that all people are fair equal and I think that would improve the statistics let me ask you this up to the panel are people of color overplaying the race card I mean is it too much to be blaming race racism for perhaps the failure of a student to graduate or to go on to college or to succeed in life this is a term that's often thrown about at the time of graduations are people of color you know interjecting race into

too many situations like the classroom like public school systems I would I would flip that around and I think the group that I see doing it the most they're actually white folks doing it and how so well I mean there's a term called white racial identity politics white identity politics often it's often seen as a person of color who always has to explain themselves you know this is going on that's going on but really the it's the reality is that that whites have more access to power they are often more connected to insider positions insider information to me it relates a lot to this discourse that's going around and it's pretty pervasive in white culture is the idea of

reverse racism as it relates especially to affirmative action and I don't know how often people in my group white students in my class who when I talk about these things will say things like yeah but isn't there a lot of racism now against whites with affirmative action and you know but I will ask them well where's the data where's the empirical evidence I mean I know a lot of white people and some of them have gotten rejected from college and I don't remember single one showing me a letter where it said on there you did not get in here into the school because you're white because of affirmative action policies it's always assumed that somehow they had the the qualities for the job and somehow a person of color couldn't possibly have the qualities to be in there and the reason I think this for me the affirmative action thing is a real litmus test now obviously not all whites are the same and some whites are supportive of things like affirmative action and the things we've talked about

here on the show but I think a real litmus test was a couple years ago in California the the proposition two or nine which was to attempt to end the affirmative action in the University of California system and it's interesting how within our group how that plays out even along gender lines because affirmative action also has a gender component and many women are not told that they are the beneficiaries of affirmative action so it was interesting to see how white women voted on that proposal whether they would vote for their race or for their group and many times what we see is white women by and large in California voted to strike down affirmative action which essentially struck down the real gender privilege within the affirmative action but to me it's just it's just a tool against regular old racism it's not reverse racism we only have a couple minutes left in our show but I want to spend the last couple minutes talking about possible solutions ways that we can abolish

institutional racism and I'd like to give maybe each one of you at least 30 seconds to or less or more with perhaps to maybe offer up some solutions that people who might be watching our show can can resort to let's start with you actually I believe that each one of us has a group that we can influence and that we need to be advocates in those groups that we can influence to bring about change to talk about racial disparities we should organize dialogues in our communities and in our schools and in our workplaces we need to to start creating awareness and start with some action steps Doug how to start it in your middle school but is there is there more I think that you know for those of us who work in the school system where it works extremely fortunate to have access to such important parts of our future that we can deal with these these students now who eventually are going to be making the policy and

making all that type of of environment for the society and we have this great ability to teach them and have them work together and and just break down the barriers through you know just hanging out or doing these projects like the video together I think it's it's it's our most valuable tool as always education Ricky I would say that one needs to especially speaking as a white person because I think it makes a difference how one goes about intervening in institutional racism so I was speaking as a white person to white people to first find out more about your own group and your own history and in our history that part of our history that there have been whites who have been anti-racist finding out what they did what they struggled with and how they went about doing it so that they didn't just be complicitous in the replication of our under and power and privilege Dr. Barely I think that we need an attitude change I think we need to start looking at people a little

differently I think that when we frame educational programs we need to include students you know to help us design the right type of program for them and I think we need to hire the people who represent our multicultural society here in New Mexico so I think if we we did those few things I think we'd be on the right track good enough well thank you very much for your comments and also for your time spending time with us on this program thank you for more information about institutional racism please contact project change at www.projectchange.org or call 505-764-8867 you can also contact the Southern Poverty Law Center at www.splcenter.org or you can also call area code 334-956-8200 if you or someone you know experiences discrimination prejudice or a hate crime contact your city's human rights office here in Albuquerque please call 924-338-0

thank you for watching this evening I'd like to leave you with some final thoughts institutional racism does exist it's time to abolish this form of racism it's time to educate ourselves and others because if we truly believe and fairness and equality then we should all be responsible for creating equitable systems and finally I quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. he wrote all history teaches that like a turbulent ocean beating great cliffs into fragments of rock the determined movement of people incessantly demanding their rights always disintegrates the old order so change is possible thank you and good night

production of the erase the hate forum 2002 has been made possible in part by L&D associates consulting group providing quality education services corporate and health care agencies in New Mexico and the southwest