Welcome class, my name is Raphael La Rose, and I will be teaching you about “Bl-issue” or black issues. Today’s topic is called reading between the lines like the good old days.
When a child first enters the world, that is when the phase of exploration begins. They become Intune with their senses as they learn about their environment. Aside from the basics of eating, listening, stretching, laughing, and all other bodily functions. Babies, children, and adults share one commonality, and it is that we all need to learn how to read and write to survive.
Growing up in a two-parent household, I would often hear that reading is fundamental. Pardon me if I am wrong, but I did not view reading as anything that is fun. In fact, whenever I was told to read it felt like punishment for something that I may have done in the past or plan to do in the future. Every kid loves to play with friends, watch tv, or even play video games and we will do it all day. The only question that you ask yourself is, do they ever get tired?
Throughout my years as a student, it took a while for me to truly appreciate reading books. Doing school assignments each day or weekly became a norm. The purpose of doing work is to earn good grades and make your parents proud. As I am writing this, just the mere thought of making a mistake was enough to scare me straight. Whether or not I read only to complete deliverables, it was one of the best ways to learn, especially if you’re a visual learner.
Those individuals that invested their time and energy into reading increased their chances of becoming successful. Being smart was considered cool up until high school. Highschool is the most crucial part of your life because it is right before you become an adult. Everyone wants to be him or her but at what cost. I was torn between wanting to a cool kid that required poor grades and females or a nerd that was well liked by his teachers. I remember one time when my pants were below my waist and my friend’s mother told my parents. Let’s just say that the lecture that I received changed my perspective on clothing that day.
At an early age I was already boxed in and given the fact that I had poor vision already meant black nerd. Because my parents were relentless about education, it did not matter how I appeared. Social conformity will impact your decision making and if you lack leadership skills, and it may put you or your loved ones in danger. In life, you will go through many phases and friends also. The same people that I was trying to impress back then no longer exist in my world. Don’t judge a book by its cover before you try to actually read it.
Could you imagine that back in the 1800s it was illegal for blacks to read and write. Slave masters feared that if slaves learned how to communicate, it would lead to a rebellion like the one that occurred with Nat Turner in 1831. The rebellion created enough fear for cotton business owners, politicians, and slave traders to decide to make it illegal for African Americans to learn how to read and write. Your options were limited as colored folk and if you wish to survive, be sure to follow those rules. But that all changed when the emancipation proclamation was issued in 1863. Newly freed blacks were given a second chance at life without shackles or guns since they also fought in the civil war of 1861.
Overall, we have made progress, or have we? Reading and writing is the key to success, but 18 % African American children are still struggling to do so. The statistics are even higher depending on the states. Now imagine the fact that it was illegal to read and write but now you can do so freely. How and when did we go wrong with our generation? There are numerous answers to this question, but we can home in on a few. No child left behind act which was passed under the Bush administration. The purpose of the act was to create learning environments where students of all ages and ethnicities, more specifically black students, will graduate each level from k-12.
Everything that is typically done for people of color should be taken with a grain of salt. The list of drawbacks from the act included teacher pressure, unrealistic expectations, and poor minority testing results. We need to improve our reading and writing proficiency level but at what cost. The U.S department of education budget is about 240 billion dollars, but it is expected to decrease in the next decade by 70 billion dollars or more. The irony is that our educational budget it dropping at the same rate of African American students reading and writing level.
If we are failing our children, then we are failing our adults and society will not prosper. What does your life look like when you are illiterate as an adult? Dead end jobs, we are familiar with that term and those are jobs that pay low wages and offer no growth. People who lack basic reading and writing skills will face an uphill battle to attain the American dream. Your long-term demise will benefit corporations, who profit from cheap labor. It doesn’t just end there, companies in many industries are replacing people with robots. A wise man once said, “cost are like fingernails, you have to cut them constantly”.
What does the future hold in store for the black and brown community? According to recent data, we are not out of the woods yet. Two out of ten adults are still considered illiterate, and the number will rise in the coming years. The stigma will cause depression, anxiety, and isolation as those individuals do not have access to the right resources. I’m afraid that the education gap will widen, thus causing the wealth gap to follow suit. For my final thought, I will leave it here with a question. Does the advancement of technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) prepare African American children for the future or help to cover up educational failures?