The Makings of Modern Mis-Education
By Ezrah Aharone
Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black History Month
and second Black PhD to graduate from Harvard, wrote the acclaimed
The Mis-Education of the Negro
way back in 1933. In the
1940s, psychologist Kenneth Clark’s “Doll Test,” demonstrated that Black
children were being psychologically conditioned to yearn and favor the
looks of White people at the expense of self-dislike.
His critical findings were cited during
Brown vs. Board of Education
when the Supreme Court desegregated schools in 1954.
Here we are, decades removed and Dr. Woodson’s book is still
widely sold and studied, while Black children are still predisposed to
view White dolls as “prettier and nicer” with hair that’s “better” than
Black dolls. Educationally,
we face ever-dismal challenges where Black children enter kindergarten a
full year behind Whites; by high school the gap extends to 4 to 5 years;
and 58 percent of Black males don’t even graduate high school.
Princeton researchers recently published a 7-year study, concluding that a
20-year “Manhattan Project-effort” is necessary to close today’s
education and economic gaps of racial inequality.
Just so you’ll know, the original Manhattan Project was a massive
pursuit, costing the equivalent of $22 billion and comprising thousands
of scientists who developed the A-Bomb in 1945 to nuke Japan into a
crisp. So, to infer this
same category of endeavor, speaks to the comparative enormity of the
challenge.
There’s good reason for skepticism since Black kids who dropout commonly
say “classes aren’t interesting.”
And as far back as my childhood in the 1960s, “Acting White” has
been a tagline used by Black kids to ridicule those who academically
excel. Naturally, adults
respond by saying, “there’s nothing White about being smart.”
Although this is absolutely true, it absolutely misses the point
and fails to address the sociopolitical and mis-educational factors that
confound young minds to misconstrue smartness with Whiteness.
Children worldwide learn that the earth is round and 1 + 1 = 2. These are
universal facts that are neither Black nor White.
However, the functions and end-uses
that nations apply such facts to educate kids are neither neutral nor
universal. Hence, “Acting
White” is a troubled way that youngsters express something that we have
lacked the power to change – Which is that the functions and end-uses of
America’s “System of Education and Intellect” are based on skewed
purposes, processes, and interpretations that place European images,
ideals, and institutions as the central and supreme frame of reference
and relevance. This lack of
intellectual and institutional equality, encapsulates the essence of the
mis-education identified by Dr. Woodson.
Our mistake is that we consider it sufficient to simply insert Black
people into existing White institutions, and then paste tidbits of
sanitized versions of “Black History” into America’s larger body of
education. By
contributing without properly correcting the end-uses and
known partialities within America’s “System of Education and Intellect,”
we have allowed “the problem to masquerade as a solution.”
Ask yourself – To what end-use
is our current system of thought being applied, and who are the ultimate
beneficiaries and end-users?
With our 4 centuries of collective intellect and institutions, we can’t
stop our youngsters from shooting and killing each other.
We can’t even stop them from cursing in front of elders.
We have communities nationwide being held hostage to
Black-on-Black crime. Mis-education
is making us intellectually and functionally unfit to “rescue ourselves
from ourselves.”
Black leaders and educators have convened for decades to debate and
decipher “what’s wrong.” But
here’s a hard truth – The very psychological inducements that trap Black
children to idolize and overvalue White dolls, mutates into
sociopolitical mindsets that induce Black adults to idolize and
overvalue European ideals and institutions just the same . . . its one
yoke with two levels of shackles.
Centuries of mis-education won’t simply evaporate, yet the purging process
would undress America’s character and historiography in ways that
America would find uncomfortable and unwilling to concede.
So unless we mount ample intellectual and institutional
capacities, The Mis-Education of the Negro will not only be the
title of Dr. Woodson’s book, it will be an accurate description of a
permanent reality.