Imagine walking into a middle school. A 12-year-old is leading a class. The adults pass notes and fidget in their seats. The school cafeteria is serving soufflés on white table cloths. It would feel like the Bizarro World from the Superman comics had taken effect—and the world had become a parallel universe where up is down and right is left and nothing quite makes sense.
Bizarro
World is the only explanation I could muster for how a major news channel could
excuse a busload of white fraternity members for chanting about hanging black men from a tree by blaming a
musical genre—rap music. Watching MSNBC’s morning show shift
responsibility for a racist, vulgar chant (“There will never be a n-----
at SAE/You can hang him from a tree/But he'll never sign with me/There will
never be a n----- at SAE”) from
a group of University of Oklahoma students to “kids that are buying hip hop … gangster
rap” got me thinking about this inverted universe.
In a world where everything is opposite and backwards, we rush to identify,
punish and isolate the racists without scrutinizing
racism—leaving the structural systems and historical legacies that produce
racists untouched. We sidestep evidence that Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity proudly
traces its roots to the Confederacy, when Southerners went to war to
preserve the “quaint” custom of enslaving black people. We label adults singing
about lynching—a vile, racially violent act—an isolated incident, as we
downplay behavior more indicative “of a mentality that's widespread
and persistent.”
Because when everything operates in reverse, a major media powerhouse can feel
justified holding a black rap artist culpable for college students using a
virulent racial slur. Black people can be held up as the bonafide racists, and
hip-hop music as the culprit rather than as a creative
format with immense teaching and learning potential. In this surreal
environment, satire
is the only antidote to chip away at faulty logic.
Of
course, in the real world, the refusal to discuss racism honestly and directly
results in a mental shell game that is chronic throughout our society, notably
in education and schools.
When we focus on overt acts—from racist chants to high school students altering
a photo to show a noose around a black boy’s neck and dressing
like a monkey and banana to taunt black basketball players—we distract from
subtle and far more destructive patterns. Black students are suspended and
expelled more than any other racial or ethnic group for committing the same
offenses as their white peers. Nationally, there is an increase in the number
of students taking Advanced Placement (AP) classes, but the numbers for black
students in AP is unchanged. These are symptoms of a much larger systemic
problem.
Elizabeth A. Self, a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University's Peabody
College and former high school English teacher, is doing important and valuable
work helping pre-service teachers shine
a light on racial and cultural blindspots. Her current research moves
the debate from why teachers need racial and cultural competence to how
teachers can help combat racism, sexism and other -isms by seeing their own
biases, being responsive to historically marginalized and underserved students
and effecting change beyond themselves in society. The result is clarity of
purpose and direction.
At the University of Oklahoma, President David Boren is widely credited for his
response to the viral video. He expressed vehement disgust, closed the
fraternity and expelled two of the students identified as the ringleaders. But,
as CNN contributor Eric Liu notes, more leadership is called for, through
the types of examination Self espouses.
David Boren can now examine the institution he works for and ask how and why such attitudes and behaviors -- racism so casually vicious -- could ever take root among people as young as freshmen. He can explore the ways in which everyone -- not only the obviously guilty parties at a frat party -- is touched by unconscious bias and institutional racism. He can now ask his community to face the inequities of history and race. We can all do that.
This isn't about rap music. It's about reflection that leads to meaningful action. It’s time to leave the illogical, nonsensical Bizarro World behind.
Anderson is an education writer and activist for educational equity. Follow her on Twitter @mdawriter.