Is Black History Month still relevant?

Why does black history get its own month? Isn't that an example of racism? 

(Well...)

To those questions, I would say no. It is not a representation of racism because the goal of Black History Month is to celebrate the achievements of African Americans for their central roles in U.S. history. If the purpose and result of Black History Month is calling African Americans superior to other races then yes, there is an argument of racism there. However, Black History Month is more about raising awareness for the accomplishments of individuals that are often overlooked in history classes. Answering the presumptuous man in the meme above, the reason why we don't have a white history month specifically is because the achievements and contributions of whites are regularly spoken about and taught in classrooms and everyday lives. There is no need to further highlight them by dedicating a full month to white achievements, we as a society already do that all year long. 

(Do you recognize these prominent figures? Did you learn about them throughout your history classes or just during Black History Month?)

Black History Month was started by historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans and was originally known as "Negro History Week." Their hope is that one day the week would be eliminated because black history is American history.  The group now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) sponsored the first national Negro History Week in 1926 on the second week of February, which coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. In response to the Civil Rights Movement and growing black identity, by the late 1960s, Negro History Week expanded into Black History Month. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially named February as Black History Month. Other countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom have also designated the celebration of black history in a month. 

Arguments FOR Black History Month

• This month can be significant in highlighting the challenges African Americans faced in the past and in modern society.
• Helps people understand the privileges gained by past figures who fought for what they believed in.
• Gives an opportunity to highlight the best of African American culture rather than allow stereotypes (poverty, incarceration rates, drop outs) to persist.
• Since most people are more knowledgeable about "white" history, if there isn't an opportunity to cultivate black history into people within this month, when will people learn about their past?
• Since black history has yet to be incorporated fully into the education curriculum, the original goal of it persists and thus it must remain as an awareness month. 
• There are many months celebrating different cultures and ideas such as Breast Cancer Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, and Women’s History Month.

Arguments AGAINST Black History Month

• Black history is American history, if it is taught like it should be then there is no need to have this month.
• Even though students learn about the achievements of prominent African Americans, they learn little about the background historical context these figures lived in. Not only does this serve little to tie the achievements into time periods, it also trivializes the fact that these people lived during time periods where racism was still verbally and visibly prominent.
• It is racist to designate one month to one race of people when there are plenty of other  races that are not being represented, this further fuels racial inequality.
• Since black history is singled out for one month, the teachings of it is not focused on incorporating it into the curriculum. If Black History Month is taken away, then black history will be taught along the appropriate time line like it should be. 
• Even though there are different months celebrating certain groups and cultures, should history be broken into pieces and delivered to students with emphasis in certain times rather than as a whole.
• History is already taught in sectionalized format and not in a linear, time-oriented way that it is already difficult for students to really comprehend that there are many important points in history that overlap at the same time period. If black history is only being emphasized in one month and with only certain aspects highlighted, students will not be able to fully associate it as a part of American history. 

(Yes? No?)

Writer Raina Kelly asks an interesting question and provides a statement that sums up an interesting idea that goes past the argument of Black History Month, but focuses on the racial disparities and disadvantages present in modern society:

 "Rather than wasting time bemoaning the existence of Black History Month, why don't we use it to proselytize for the issues that need to be more fully covered and understood the other 337 days of the year-such as failing inner-city public schools, institutionalized poverty, health-care disparities, and job discrimination? 

Black History Month is a measure of how fully or accurately our story is being told and 

a reminder of the work yet to be done." 

Resources

Davids, Sherelle. "Why Black History Month Needs to Be Celebrated."Equality and Diversity at LSE. N.p., 13 Oct. 2011. Web. 03 Nov. 2014. <http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/diversity/2011/10/why-black-history-month-needs-to-be-celebrated/>.

History.com Staff. "Black History Month." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2010. Web. 02 Nov. 2014. <http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month>.

Nittle, Nadra K. "Do We Still Need a Black History Month? Arguments for and Against." About. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2014. <http://racerelations.about.com/od/historyofracerelations/a/IsBlackHistoryMonthRelevant.htm>.

unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors

  Adult illegal immigrants have to face many problems in society. They need to find a shelter to live, a job to feed their family, and medical treatment for any health issues. However, for unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors, they have to deal with more issues. Recently, a large amount of children from Mexico and Central America tried to cross the border and came to the United States without documents. These children do not have parents or guardians accompanying them. Most of them are growing up on the street in their home countries. When they come to America, they have to solve many problems, and education is an important one. It's necessary for them to get opportunities to receive education. Educating new immigrants can also ensure the stability of society. However, in order to educate immigrant students, the government has to face financial problems, since the expenses for education come of the taxes and government subsides. Helping unaccompanied minor children will indirectly reduce the education expenses for local students whose families had paid more taxes. In addition, accepting the undocumented children to the public schools will also cause the problems about immunisation, academic levels, and also security problems, since schools barely know their students' background.Therefore, the policies from illegal immigrant minors are controversial and crucial for the country's development.

  Through the years, the population of children immigrants has increased largely, and most of the children come from Central America. From the statistics of Washington Times, an estimated 90,000 children may illegally cross American threshold by Sept.30, 2014. The population will keep increasing through the next few years. Therefore, the educational system is under the pressure to accept all these students. Depending on the recent policies, immigrant minors have the right to go to the public schools in America, so the states governments will need to afford the educational expense for these children. Most of the time, the government needs to pay an extra 30% of the money to educate non-English speaking students as compared to local english speaking students. Also, in order to accept this large amount of students, the government has to enlarge schools and recruit faculties, because the original classroom can hardly fit all these students. Schools also need more teachers to take care of these students. The health and immune systems need to pay attention to these immigrant children as well. Most of these unaccompanied children are orphans or lack of the supervision of guardians, so they may not receive the immunization as well as essential vaccines. If they come to school with certain viruses, it is pretty easy to spread the disease among students. Lack of the security check of the students will also bring schools trouble. In the Mother Jones, it talks about a story of a 17 years old boy Adrain who came across the border without guardians. He was instigated by a drug trafficker to carry some marijuana to sneak into America. Adrain was poor and did not have a family; he did not have any other choice. Therefore, he went across the border to become one of the unaccompanied immigrant minors. A lot of children are in the same situation as him. They were involved with the local drug dealing and the gangsters. These students' unwell behaviors may bring negative influences to the local public schools' students. Also, most of them did not systematically accept education, so it is really hard to find a proper academic level for them to fit in.

"Two young girls sit in their holding area where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center on June 18, 2014, in Nogales, Arizona." (centre for American progress, by Tom. K Wong)

  Even though accepting unaccompanied illegal immigrant children will bring inconvenience to the educational system, I believe that the country should still provide the opportunities to these children. Educational background is important for a person's development. If the government ignores the existence of these children and refuses to provide them educational opportunities, they may have to live on the street and raise themselves by stealing and begging.Since these children can not get education, they can hardly find any decent jobs, so later their future families' living conditions will stay in a vicious circle. They may cause violence to their neighbourhoods, so the crime rates will increase in the future years. Thus the conflicts among races will be more intensive. Fortunately, now the policies allow these children to stay in the countries and help them to find them sponsors or families. The public education is open to them as well. Even though helping these children will cause the burden of the government, non-profits organizations and agencies still keep working to provide these children better conditions.














Resources

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/child-migrants-surge-unaccompanied-central-america

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/02/cost-educating-new-class-illegal-immigrant-minors-estimated-at-over-760m/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/18/simmons-its-school-time-do-you-know-where-the-ille/?page=all

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2014/07/08/93370/statistical-analysis-shows-that-violence-not-deferred-action-is-behind-the-surge-of-unaccompanied-children-crossing-the-border/

Educational Attainment and Employment Opportunity

In the academic world, the last decade has heard the term “a professional degree is the new undergraduate degree.” This may reign true in a struggling economy with job opportunities becoming both more specialized and scarce by the year. However, this term is implied for the white population. The article “A Black College Student Has the Same Chances as a White High School Dropout, “A recent study done by Young Invincible, a national non-profit aimed at empowering young Americans, revealed a painful reminder of white superiority in the United States. The study, focusing primarily on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as the U.S. Census revealed that African Americans need an extra two years of higher education to reach the same occupational opportunities as their white counterparts.

            The study worked to isolate the effects of race and ethnicity on the probability of obtaining similar jobs. What it revealed was that an African American who has obtained an Associate’s Degree, which requires completion of college courses, will have the same probability of getting a job as a less qualified white person who has a high school diploma. This reveals an unfortunate achievement gap tilted in the white populations favor.

  The numbers in the graph above reveal the inequality between whites and blacks in the hiring process in regards to education attainment. Where the gap is most dramatic is in those with not high school diploma. Blacks with no high school diploma are nearly 15% less likely to receive employment than whites. The graph however reveals a trend. Possibly of obtaining a job seems to become more equal with the higher amount of education received. Blacks with a high school diploma are about 12% less likely to have a job than whites, while having some college lessens the gap to about 10%, associates about 6%, while bachelors lessens the achievement gap to less than 5%. With the highest professional degree, there is a very small gap at about 2%, showing that in today’s society, the way to lessen inequality in the hiring process for blacks and whites is to stay in school and earn advanced degrees, which is more attainable for whites for a number of different reasons including high school quality, connections, etc…

            Naturally, with employment opportunities being more prevalent for whites, unemployment has a more significant impact on the black population. A study done by the Young Invincible group looked at blacks and whites ages 18-34 during the great recession of 2008, and what they found was revealing of racial inequality. Not taking education into account this time, blacks were 16.6% likely to be unemployed, while whites were less than half that number, falling at a 7.1% unemployment rate.

            The graph below reveals that after the peak of the recession, from November of 2007 to May of 2014, though the numbers seemed to move in tandem with one another, whites maintained a higher percentage of employment,  at times as much as 10%, further showing the favoring of the white population in the achievement gap, even during times of economic failure. 
 

The Beginning of Segregation in Schools

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines segregation as  “ the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area, by barriers to social intercourse, by separate educational facilities, or by other discriminatory means”.  The segregation of American schools was meant to separate African Americans from “whites”.    The first laws pertaining to segregation were passed by the northern states in the early 1800’s while slavery was still be practiced in the south.  These laws denied anyone of African descent access to  “white” schools. 

PBS 

  There were only a handful a schools for the purpose of educating African Americans, for example, in 1750 “Anthony Benezet led the Philadelphia Quakers in opening the first free school for blacks” ( Smith).   Segregation laws fell under the Jim Crowe laws.   After the Civil War ended in 1865,  the northern states began to forgo some of their segregation laws that didn’t pertain to schools.   However,  in 1896, the Supreme Court declared Plessy vs. Ferguson  “more states began segregating everything from water fountains, waiting rooms, elevators, and building entrances, to hospitals and prisons--even cemeteries...” (Santa Barbara).Punishments for trying to bypass these segregation laws, like “trying to register a black child at a “white” school”  could result in arrest, being fined, or even sent to jail (Santa Barbara).

Starting as early as the 1850’s, people started fighting against the Jim Crowe laws in court.  In the first desegregation case was Roberts v. City of Boston, “ a black parent unsuccessfully sued public school officials in Boston, Massachusetts, who refused to change their policy of educating black children in schools separate from those for whites” (Foner and Garraty).  

Integration in Bernard Elementary

In 1938, the case of Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada tried a different tactic.  A student who wasn’t allowed to attend the University of Missouri Law School because he was African American was able to convince the state that if it provided its white citizens with a law school, it must provide its black citizens with one as well” .   It also came to pass that “black teachers... working in “black” schools successfully argued that they were entitled to the same pay offered to white teachers working in “white” schools”.   Victories like these, some hoped, would help make desegregation more desirable economically as having two separate schools for every type of education would not only be redundant by also expensive.    

Blog #1

            Race and the hiring process has historically been a widely debated aspect of society. The past century has seen vast advancements in affirmative action, hiring quotas, and ultimately the diversification of the workplace, however there is still much controversy and debated regarding the hiring process and its fairness. White privilege is believed to have a strong presence in the decision of who is offered a job, and looking at statistics its overwhelmingly evident that those who fall under the ethnic category of white have it easiest in trying to land a job. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whites are second in population percentage in the labor force, are nearly twice as likely to have higher education attainment before getting hired than blacks and Hispanics, and have the lowest rates of unemployment amongst all races in America. There is no doubting that the color of one’s skin and ethnic background play a role in the hiring process.

            Acknowledging the effects of ethnicity on landing on a job, research has shown that referrals hold even more weight than the color of one’s skin. A referral is this case is simply a recommendation of a worker by an employee, and most commonly involve promoting of a person’s ability or past experiences. Networks, Race, and Hiring, an article done in 2009 published in the American Journal of Sociology, explores aspects of the hiring process and specifically the effects of references on getting hired for people of different ethnicity. According the article, blacks, Hispanics, any anyone who is not deemed white or Asian to some extent are believed to be in a viscous circle of getting sucked into the “wrong network.” What is meant by wrong networks is that although references and networking is an effective way to land a job, amongst minorities, these are ethnic networks of low wage, dead end jobs. This trend then continues, as friends and family will be referred by people of similar ethnic back rounds, and mobility in the job market will be limited, causing stagnation in the social hierarchy for ethnic groups.

            Another important aspect of referrals is their consistency across racial groups. Statistics in the article have revealed that once referred, a person’s ethnicity tends to disappear, no matter what their background, thus altering the entire hiring process. Once referred, the employer’s initial reaction to the job seeker is changed, as they have e per-conceived notion on what kind of worker the person could be, and what they could bring to the company, solely based off of what was said in their referral. This stamps stereotypes, stigmas, and labels, and other preconceived notions based on a person’s race, showing the significant ability of the referral.

            What makes referrals so versatile in the hiring process is that any employ can give one out regardless of their ethnicity. However, just as actually receiving job offers, referrals tend to hold more weight hen given by a person considered white, showing the inequality in the job market. Those who are not white find jobs far more through referrals than through any alternate means of obtaining a job. With the imbalance of referring power tiled towards whites, in a world where non-whites are almost completely reliant on referrals, social isolation can occur, as an ethnic group will be confined to a series of low paying, low status jobs.

            One may think of a job hiring process as a meritocracy, but without referrals, there is much more that meets the eye regarding race. In Offering a Job:Meritocracy and Social Networks, a research is conducted at a tech company in Silicon Valley. Hiring in the job market was analyzed to see if using merit as a control, there would be any trends worth noting. The hypothesis reigned true, at the longitudinal study showed that 10% of those hired were white, double that of the 4.5% blacks who were hired, and still significantly higher than the 6% Asians, showing that when those with similar back rounds are vying for the same job opportunity, white advantage rears is evident.

            White advantage also applies to the all powerful referral. Referrals are largely based off of legitimacy, more valid the person giving the referral, the stronger it is.  That being said, finding a job has a lot to do with ones network. This applies to white privilege as whites are generally born into families with more networks than minorities, who experience a “lack of economic resources and personal networks,” (Fernandez, 2006). This allows for whites to have less trouble getting job offers, allowing smooth social mobility, where those with different ethnicity and races are not given the luxury of having strong connections so readily available.

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