I believe that serving as class president is the most important activity I have done, due to the fact that I am giving back to my school, and my community. While I have participated in other service projects; working as class president allows me to have a positive impact on a larger scale. Even though I am the same age, if not younger, than my fellow classmates, I believe I have become someone who they can look up to. This is because I have defied the odds that society has placed against me, and have exceeded the expectations of those around. However, I say this not in a boastful manner, but in an encouraging one. By being all that I could be, I am in effect showing others that they can do the same. I believe there is a problem when I can walk into my International Baccalaureate classes, and I am the only black student on the attendance sheet! …show more content…
African Americans make up over 27 percent of the general population at Lake Wales High School, yet they only make up about 6 percent of the IB senior class.
That is a major problem to me, and as president I continuously work to change that, along with the disciplinary rates of African Americans at my school. Even so, I have to take into account the fact that I am president to all, not just a specific minority. While this may seem stressful to some, through this position I am able to bring about social reform. By encouraging others to educate themselves, the seeds of greatness are being planted in my small town. That for a long time has been the problem in the city of Lake Wales; few become successful, and none invest in others. As president my biggest goal has been to create a sense of autonomy by bettering the culture and climate around campus, which will create more leaders who will invest into the next generation, and I proud to say that everyday we are progressing forward in this
pursuit. Nevertheless, when I reflect back upon all my experiences, I can truly say I have learned a lot about myself and how difficult at times it is to reach out to others. Even so I now know that students' perspectives can be changed with honesty, patience, and education. While this seems simple when looking objectively, it is quite tough to do when these events becomes subjective.With that all said I still love every second of it. Providing mentorship for students has become a passion of mine, due to the fact that I am giving someone the guidance that I did not have. For this reason I have decided to pursue a career in Juvenile Criminal defense. I am confident that this career path will not only give me the chance to ensure that these kids are treated fairly in the justice system, but also the give these kids an adult to look up to.
...urse education. As stated above, the problem isn’t just simply having more black males inside of secondary schools; but having them actually teach and interact with our students.
This in itself is the problem that black conservatives see in implementing raced based uniform admissions policies. They feel that this system is not only demeaning to African Americans, but that school desegregation laws are based on a theory of black inferiority (Magelli 2). Shelby Steel, a Stanford University Professor and black conservative thinks that the federal government should focus on fixing old public school systems instead of giving minorities a leg up later in life when it is often too late to undo the damage inflicted by poor public schooling during childhood (Magelli 11). This is a valid point especially in many urban areas where underpaid teachers teach from outdated school books. But what is the answer? Would everything be fine if,,Ÿlike the black conservatives feel,,Ÿ the federal government removed itself from the situation (Magelli 3)? We need only to look at our own neighborhoods to answer that question.
It is hard to believe that after electing a minority president, the United States of America can still be seen as a vastly discriminatory society. A question was posed recently after a viewing of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream…” speech of whether his dream has become a reality. After consideration, a majority of the viewers said no. Although many steps have been taken to improve racial equality in America, there is still no way to legislate tolerance. Dr. King’s message of equality for all has been lost in a black and white struggle over the taken meaning of his context. Until our society can allow all people to live in peace we will never truly achieve King’s dream. Case in point, referring to President Obama as our "our First Black President" should not be considered a statement of pride over how far we have come. Placing this racial qualifier, even in a positive light, only serves to point out his minority status, not the fact that he is the President of the United States. According to Dr. King's dream, a man or woman, black or white, would be viewed as President without qualifying their differences from mainstream America.
..., or replaced with a policy based on socioeconomic status. Abolishing affirmative action completely has its disadvantages, for it does not increase diversity on campus. An admission policy favoring first-generation college students helps to increase diversity on campus. However, the purpose of affirmative action should not be to increase diversity on campus; it should be about giving disadvantaged students an opportunity at a better life. A policy based on socioeconomic status does that. Affirmative action must be put to an end and replaced with one of these alternatives. This country was established on the ideals of equality for all races, and affirmative action goes against all these ideals. Martin Luther King once said, “All men are created equal.” The color of someone’s skin should not be a determining factor for admissions into a certain college or university.
One attempt made to correct this failure was the permanent desegregation of all public schools across the country. In the celebration of the Brown v. Board of Education all public schools were integrated with both races. Before this integration there were all white and all black schools. This was in favor of the idea of “separate but equal”. But, it was proven by the “woeful and systematic under funding of the black schools” things were separate but rarely equal. (Source 9) As a solution to this,it was decided that a fully integrated society began with the nation’s schools. (Source 9) Two years after one of the first integration of schools at Little Rock, Effie Jones Bowers helped desegregate the nearby school, Hall High School. The students were put into an all white school like at Central High School. According to one of the students, they were faced with vio...
The government thinks that implementing affirmative action will repair inequality, but it cannot. In the midst of tying to promote equality, they are promoting discrimination. Discrimination is the violation of one’s human rights based on gender, sex, race, ethnicity and/or relation. President Johnson felt that blacks being free and able to go to the same school as Caucasians were not just enough for the past discrimination and turmoil the African Americans went through. Affirmative action was used as a cure to remedy lost times. Sandal made some valid points; he noted that th...
In the history of the United States, there has always existed the issue of race and how to balance out racial differences in America. The issue of race has made an impact on every part of this country including the field of education. The issue of desegregation and how to balance out schools to even the field for all students to comply with the Fourteenth Amendment and rulings such as Brown v. Board of Education has indeed been a challenge for American society.
...e and prepared for college work. For a student in a black that is majority black and under resourced is highly unlikely to receive an education and graduate on time and won’t be college ready. Unfortunately this scenario happens way too often. Lots of black students do not receive the knowledge that they need to further their education in college and many students that do try to further their education do not end up finishing. Because they missed out on so much information they have a very difficult time doing their work and get the feeling that they need to drop out. It is unfortunate that today, not all students can receive a good education and have a chance a furthering their education and becoming successful. This is why it is necessary that the education system change immediately so that all students can receive an equal opportunity to further their education.
Most of you are probably wondering why I am interested in Ebonics. Obviously I’m not black. But, that does not mean that I can’t take an interest in the success of my friends and classmates. I attended Amherst Regional High School in Amherst, Massachusetts. My town is supposedly a liberal, open-minded place. But I always wondered why there were very few black students in my advanced-level classes and how come some of the black friends I had in the beginning of the year were no longer around at the end. I talked to one of my friends about this once. She told me that many black students in our school had moved from a nearby city and that they were not used to the academic standards of the school. Many of them became discouraged due to the lack of support of the teachers and some students even dropped out. This is a problem. In my opinion, many teachers do not respect students’ cultures if they are not a part of the mainstream, white culture. Although language is only one part of this respect, it is a large part of every student’s culture. Even though there has been a movement to improve inner-city schools and increase the success of black students, these programs would benefit any school around the country.
When a person begins to connect all of the dots they see how the system degrades education of minorities and promotes education of whites. The only way to stop this racism and provide equality for all is to first recognize it is a problem. Unfortunately in our time society views racism as remarkably taboo that often times it is viewed as individual cases rather than a mechanism to institute ideas and promote social order. Policies like No Child Left Behind are clear examples of how our government promotes inequality by relying on the system to weed out the students who don’t perform well on high stakes test. These students don’t receive the best resources and teachers so they are not able to succeed in the classroom and test setting when compared to their peers. Coincidentally school funding is based off of property taxes. Richer neighborhoods have higher property taxes and thus have more funding. While investigating the demographic of people who have wealth it comes as no surprise that the majority of the demographic is white. With all this information it is almost impossible to deny that our education system manages and upholds racism. The larger problem comes when people fail to see the institutional racism behind it all. If as a society we fail to recognize the downfalls of our education then racism will persist and allow more students to fall through the
Over the past four-hundred plus years, racism has plagued the history of American society. The idea that one person is inherently better than another because of the color of their skin has always been present from our founding to today. During the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the mid 1900’s, racism was repeatedly being dealt blows by those brave enough to stand up for the rights they felt belonged to citizens of all shapes and colors. One important event that led to progress for people of color was the desegregation of the schooling systems. From young girls walking into all-white schools to black men being selected to participate in different academies, the Civil Rights movement to desegregate schools was influential in how progress
Often when I walk into a meeting on educational issues I am reminded that I am black. My race is salient at these meetings because the room is predictably and overwhelmingly comprised of white people with few (3-5) people of color. This is the norm. My initial scanning of the room always reveals this disheartening reality. Scanning the room is not done to find “black allies”, but to have a pulse on whose voices are being heard in these discussions. It comes from a sincere place of wanting sound representation of the diverse views and opinions these students, communities, and families that are often missing from education reform.
Even though the Brown v. Board of Education was 62 years ago, African Americans are still fighting to have an equal education opportunity. “But many schools are as segregated today as they were before the ruling, and black children throughout the United States are performing at the bottom of the American educational system” (Jackson 1). Nevertheless, it took decades of hard work and struggle by numerous African Americans for a better education system. Education is the key to success, it gives people the knowledge that they need to strive and become more intelligent thinkers, which leads to more opportunities for them in the job industry. Ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination of any kind, African Americans have every right to have this equal educational opportunity like everyone else. But yet, they were stopped in their tracks by disapproving Americans, who confined the succession of African Americans in the education system. Now that we are in the 21st century, there’s still negligence on black’s education. The black community do not have equal education opportunities because of the lack of funding, poverty experienced by the children in the neighborhoods and society’s views of the black community.
In the 21st century racial inequality is still an issue with many environmental issues brought to the black communities or unjust police officials shown in a variety of social media outbreaks. Racial inequalities have been brought attention from Supreme Court cases. The black community still holds among the top for wage gap among other races. Groups have made protest with “Black Lives Matter” campaign seeing that cases are filed correctly and unbiased by those who review them. Many provisions are being made to change the diversity in many places such as universities, which is one of many steps the government has taken to see that the changes people want are coming. After these steps are and were taken the black community has since been improved upon.
Besides academics, fine arts and sports in school, I have attained leading roles in different groups. This year, I am the Spirit Leader of Student Council encouraging monthly goals and themes and assisting in school events. From creating a student council with a group of peers three years ago we have had success in many events and have found new ways to spread spirit, gather important information and assist with financial groups. Recently, I stepped up to be the leader of the fundraising committee for our ...