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Chapter 1
Cultural Awareness: Understanding the Realities of Life for Black and Latino Males
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We live in a world where many young Black and Latino males gravitate toward gangs because the gang members treat them more like family than their own parents do. According to the National Gang Center, in 2011, 46.2 percent of gang members were Hispanic or Latino and 35.3 percent were Black (as compared to only 11.5 percent white and 7 percent classified as "other") (2018). A disproportionate number of Black and Latino youth also live in poverty: in 2017, roughly 33 percent of Black youth and 26 percent of Latino youth lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty level (Anne E. Casey Foundation). When students living in poverty are arrested and booked (often unfairly), bonds can be set as high as $3,000 to $5,000âwhich they can't afford to pay. One in three Black males and one in six Latino males born in or after the year 2001 will spend time in prison at some point in his life (The Sentencing Project, 2017), a status quo that the private prison system does much to exacerbate. Private prisons in the United States make an annual profit of more than $3.3 billion for incarcerating individuals (Cohen, 2015)âmost of whom have black and brown faces, and many of whom have committed minor offenses. Even more disturbing is the fact that Black and Latino males are also disproportionately at risk of being murdered. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, homicide is the leading cause of death for Black males ages 15 to 24 (2018a) and the second leading cause of death for Hispanic males ages 15 to 34 (2018b). These numbers are disturbing.
The following account is illustrative of the plight of many Black male youths.
Kalief Browder
In 2010, 16-year-old Kalief Browder of the Bronx, New York, was accused of stealing a backpack, the contents of which included $700, a credit card, and a laptop. When he and his friends were stopped by the police, although he stated that he hadn't stolen the backpack, the police insisted that he had. After he was thoroughly searched by the police, who did not find the backpack or any of its contents on him, he was arrested.
After being unjustly arrested, Browder was told that if he pleaded guilty, he would be charged for stealing the backpack and allowed to go home. He refused to "deal," as he'd stated that he hadn't committed the crime and didn't want a blemish, particularly one that was unwarranted, on his record to jeopardize his plan to attend college on a wrestling scholarship.
He was imprisoned, and his bond was set at $3,500. As neither he nor his family had the money to get him out of jail on bond, he spent three years in Riker's Island, one of the toughest prisons in the United States, awaiting a trial date that was never set. While at Riker's, he endured starvation and physical and sexual assaults from guards and prisoners. Of the more than 1,000 days that he spent at Riker's, 800 or more were spent in solitary confinement.
After three years, someone powerful heard about his case, spoke out against it, and Browder was released from prison. However, by that time, he had missed sitting for the SATs, his high school graduation and prom, and the opportunity to attend college on a scholarship. After his release, he experienced nightmares and depression and every day feared returning to prison. Mentally, he couldn't cope and attempted suicide on more than one occasion. Even though someone who'd heard about his story paid for him to go to community college, his struggles with anxiety and depression worsened.
Two years after being released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, Kalief Browder died after hanging himself outside his parents' home. He was only 22 years old. Sixteen months after Kalief committed suicide, his mother died of a heart attack (though many say she died of a broken heart).
This is one of many tragic stories of young men of color that educators never hear about. Kalief's life mattered. His mother's life mattered.
Factors That Specifically Affect Male Youths of Color
The statistics mentioned previously are due to a vast array of factors affecting black and brown young men, the most insidious of which are deeply rooted in our culture and present structural barriers to success in school and in life. Here we discuss five of these factors:
- Invisibilization
- Marginalization
- Pre-criminalization
- Stereotype threat
- Colorism
Invisibilization
Cases in point. Invisibilization is the act of seeing a person or situation as invisible, as not important, and without breadth or depth. Think of how the public at large reacts to the police killing of an unarmed Black or Latino man as compared to a dog being mistreated (Michael Vick served more than two years in prison for his participation in a dog-fighting ring that led to the deaths of several dogs). Black men are murdered for minor offenses every day.
LaQuan McDonald
On October 20, 2014, 17-year-old LaQuan McDonald was shot 16 times by police officer Jason Van Dyke as he, with a small knife in his hand, was walking away from Van Dyke. Van Dyke and his fellow officers tried to cover up the crime and stated that McDonald "came at" Van Dyke, but a video showed a totally different story. After more than four years, Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder and aggravated battery and sentenced to seven years in prison.
Note that, with good behavior, Van Dyke could be released from prison in a little over two yearsâthe length of time that Michael Vick spent in jail for his part in the dog-fighting ring. Then there is the case of Michael Brown.
Michael Brown
On August 9, 2014, shortly after his 18th birthday and high school graduation, Michael Brown was fatally shot by 28-year-old white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. An altercation took place, and Michael Brown and his friend were pursued by Officer Wilson. In the end, although Brown was unarmed, 12 shots were fired at himâand among the six that hit him was the fatal shot to his head. Brown died at the scene. His body lay uncovered for several hours while people from the neighborhood, including children, passed by before finally being covered. Wilson was acquitted of all charges and reassigned to another city and continues to serve as a police officer.
As this story, which was on every news station in the United States and many abroad, shows, when police officers shoot an unarmed Black or Latino male, they generally get off with a slap on the wrist while a family is tormented by the death of their loved one.
White men who commit atrocities are taken into custody unharmed.
Dylan Roof
Dylan Roof was a white supremacist who, at the age of 21, on July 17, 2015, walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and murdered nine innocent people. Among those murdered were the senior pastor of the church and a state senator. Roof was identified by those who survived the shooting. A manhunt ensued, and Roof was apprehended without so much as a scratch on him. (In fact, police granted his request to stop by Burger King on his way to jail because he was hungry.) He later confessed to the shootingsâstating that he hoped to ignite a race war by killing innocent people at a churchâand stated that his views came from the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. On December 15, 2016, he was convicted in federal court of 33 charges, including hate crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
That one (Black) young man hurt no one and was murdered and one (white) young man killed nine people and was not harmed at all perfectly exemplifies invisibilizationâthat is, if it's not happening in your world, it's of no importance to you.
In the classroom. Invisibilization occurs in the classroom when some teachers and administrators take the word of white students over that of Black or Latino male studentsâeven when the former are at fault for harassing the latter.
I attended a mostly white suburban school in which 96 percent of the students were white and 4 percent were Black, Asian, and Indian. I was one of five Black students on the football team. During my senior year, I was attacked by a white student. Everyone knew I was a star athlete with good grades on my way to a Division 1 college or university to play football and run track. Even though I was physically assaulted by a white student, I was the one put in handcuffs by the police officer called to the scene while the white student was treated as the victim. As I was sitting on the floor, unjustly handcuffed, the white student ran over and kicked me. While still in handcuffs, I hopped to my feet and was immediately grabbed by police officers and school administrators aggressively and yelled at like I was the perpetrator. Again, no one ever addressed the fact that the white student had assaulted meâtwice. The white student was never disciplined. He was sent back to class. He laughed at me as he walked away. I was placed on in-school suspensionâstuck in a small room staring at the wall all day. I felt like I was in a prison cell.
As the MVP of the football team, that incident almost cost me my scholarship to college. The day after two prominent community leaders came to my school to discuss the injustice and threatened to call the news stations, I was allowed to return to my classroom, and the incident was never mentioned again. The scars remained, and they ran deep. I never forgot that incident and how powerless I felt. The people who were supposed to protect meâthe teachers and administratorsâdidn't.
This is how our young men of color are prepared for prison. I felt like my life didn't matter; like no matter what happened to me, the people with power weren't on my side. This is how many of your Black and Latino male students feel, and they act out as a result of it. I have personally heard some of their stories.
Marginalization
Marginalization is when someone is relegated to a powerless or unimportant position within a society or group due to a given characteristic like race or ethnicity. This occurs in the housing market, workforce, legal system, and educational system. When two students of different races commit the same offense at the same age and receive different punishment, that's marginalization. When two students of different races do equally well in something and one receives recognition and the other somehow gets second best, that's marginalization.
I became fully aware of the effects of marginalization when I was bussed to an all-white suburban school back in the mid-1980s while entering the 5th grade. I knew right away this school was different.
Police cars and dogs were everywhere as I entered the school building for the first time. At my old public school, I had friends of all colors, and we never discussed race or treated each other differently. At this particular school, it was obvious from day one that the color of one's skin mattered. I remember being put in a room with other Black students from my neighborhood. (It turns out we were all considered remedial students, even though we hadn't showed any indication that we were remedial students.) We were told that we had to take a series of exams in order to be placed in regular classes with our new classmates. The way they explained it was very condescending and made many of us feel uncomfortable and inferior. In fact, some of my Black classmates accepted the inferior status that was put on us and acted out until they were kicked out of school. We were told that we weren't smart enough to be in classes with our new white classmates.
I had a chip on my shoulder and wanted to prove them all wrong. I focused with everything I had and passed the tests that I was given. I knew I was smart. Although I was moved to a general education classroom, I was at times treated like I shouldn't be there. I was almost always the only student of color in my classes. Teachers made patronizing comments toward me. A teacher once said to me, "Just get out!" because I didn't know the answer to a question. (I knew the answer but was nervous and unsure.) Being the only student of color in my classes often made me feel inferior. I got tired of the racist jokes and inappropriate comments made by my classmates. I didn't have the latest brands in clothing or shoes. Life was tough enough without extra pressure from my peers.
If you call someone dumb long enough and treat them as though they are not smart, they will start believing you and will act the part. If you continue to question someone's intellectual abilities, it will start affecting them mentallyâespecially younger students whose minds are not fully developed. I was very nervous while taking exams because I knew I wasn't expected to pass. I, as do many of Black and Latino kids I work with daily, felt like my teachers expected me to fail. I knew that most of my teachers, coaches, and administrators didn't believe in me. Many of the young men today have been beaten down so much by life that they have given up. When educators give up on them, they give up on themselves. When we took tests, teachers walked up and down the rows watching, displaying zero empathy. Most of the kids were intimidated and stop trying. A student who sat close to me said, "They think we are all dumb anyway. We might as well prove them right. I'm going to just mark anything for the answers."
I could tell on my first day at school that kids of color were going to be marginalized. The atmosphere was toxic. Everyone was uncomfortable, including the students who were bussed in, the students who had been there, and the educators, who had a hard time hiding just how extremely uncomfortable they were with having to work with students who looked like me.
During one class, still during the first week of school, a classmate's father burst open the door, rushed in to the classroom, and snatched his daughter, saying, "My daughter is not going to school with raccoons and possums." (Shortly before he had rushed in, his daughter asked me my name and shook my hand. She told me her name was Sarah. She didn't see race as an issue. She tried to get to know me.) Sarah's father jerked her out of her chair and hauled her out of the classroom. I never saw Sarah again.
Sarah's father was teaching Sarah at a young age to stay away from people who did not look like her. Her biases were being formed by her father's responses. She was learning early in life to think of students of color as "less than" and to stay away from them.
I said to my mother that night, "I'm not going back to that school. They have raccoons and possums in there." My mother's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. There was a troubling look behind her eyes. Although she was clearly very angry, she didn't say anything to me about it. She addressed the matter at the school. Once I understood that Sarah's father was referring to me and the other Black students from my neighborhood as raccoons and possums, I understood why my mother was angry. (My mother had been raised in the Deep South [Mississippi] in the 1950s and 1960s and, as a little girl, saw racism first-hand. She saw "Whites Only" and "Colored Only" signs on restroom doors, above water fountains, and in restaurants. She never thought her son would have to experience racismâespecially since she'd moved from the prejudiced South to the Midwest.)
My 5th grade experience has stayed with me all these years. I saw how that first day at school affected the lives of my classmates in a negative way and changed the trajectory of their lives. It's our job as educators to help students change the narrative and their perspectives and be accepting of everyoneâregardless of race.
Pre-criminalization
This is the tendency to perceive Black and Latino males as criminals when they haven't done anything wrong. If society and educators continue to look at students as if they are criminals, they will unconsciously treat them as such. When a white kid gets in trouble, society makes excuses, saying things such as, "Oh, he is just acting out because his parents got a divorce." The reality is that a very small percentage of Black and Latino kids are criminals. Most are success stories in the making, and that's how we should treat them. They, as do their white...
