Examples Of Structural Racism

Nelson Mandela once said, “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." Racism can be defines two ways. According to the Oxford Dictionary, racism is the prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. The Oxford Dictionary also defines racism as the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. According to our
Structural racism is defined as the facilitation of unequal outcomes that can be tracked by a group, organization, or social institution. One great example of structural racism is the No Child Left Behind law was signed in 2002 by former president George W. Bush. Under this law, states must test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. According to Alyson Klein, The state had to create two types of reports. The first report is for the student population as a whole, and the second report is for particular “subgroups” of students, including English-learners and students in special education, racial minorities, and children from low-income families. In addition, under this law, states were required to bring all students to the proficient level. Since Latinos and African American tend to score lower in this high stake testing than whites, schools whose students’ population is composed of mostly African American and Latinos, under pressure to improve scores might be more likely to teach to the test leaving them at a