Is Everything really equal; Talking point #7

In this blog I will be discussing a video that highlights Tim Wise work about “Between Barack and a Hard Place,” an article called Separate and Unequal by Bob Herbert, and The Brown vs. Board of Education. I did not get a chance to read the book by Tim Wise, but listening to the conversation Wise had, I found many interesting thing. I made a connection in what Wise said to what Herbert said in his article. Herbert said, “Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality.” I connected this with Wise conversation because during the conversation the guy that Wise was speaking with said that people are saying race is not an excuse. Wise goes and talks about how it is not that race is not an excuse it has been a reason and an obstacle. Wise also goes on and talks about how race historically play a role how things get distribute in this country. I connected that back with Herbert Quote because to me it is basically saying “Okay, we are no longer separated by are race in our schools but because of are condition it seems like race is a factor.” To me it seems like there is a separation still. In Herbert article he also said,

“The current obsession with firing teachers, attacking unions and creating ever more charter schools has done very little to improve the academic outcomes of poor black and Latino students. Nothing has brought about gains on the scale that is needed.

If you really want to improve the education of poor children, you have to get them away from learning environments that are smothered by poverty. This is being done in some places, with impressive results. An important study conducted by the Century Foundation in Montgomery County, Md., showed that low-income students who happened to be enrolled in affluent elementary schools did much better than similarly low-income students in higher-poverty schools in the county.”

I feel like even though the Brown vs. Board of Education got the schools to have an equal opportunity in education and not be segregated by race, I feel like our society make it seems like are education system is still the same before they made that law. Because of some of their situations people of color are not getting the same education as the middle or upper class whites. Schools still seem separated because it seems like in a middle or upper class area the schools are pre-dominantly white and then in a low-come area the schools a pre-dominantly with people of color. Reading that quote by Herbert also reminded about the conversation Wise was having. I believe people are still discriminating by race because ever since Obama became president people believe only people of color that can become successful are people just like Obama. Wise said something like there are people of color who work as hard and successful but have a different style than Obama. Just because they did not go to Harvard like Obama does not mean that they cannot make it. Then he goes on about how if it was a white man, he could go to any college and be less intelligent than that person of color and still make it. The point is race is still a factor.