7.4: Structural/Institutional Legacies of Whiteness

Schooling and other Institutions

James D. Anderson discusses how whites kept Blacks from high quality education in the late 1800s/early 1900s because they deemed it to be a “subversive” way to gain equality (1988, p. 95). Part of the fear resided in how reading might inspire Blacks to want to vote (p. 98). Keeping Blacks from getting an education thus attempted to keep Blacks in an underclass. Although voting was not allowed for Blacks yet, the fear of schooling encouraging voting also idealized who was considered a citizen and thus who was humanized. It was further propagated that “industrial schooling” was ideal compared to other schooling so that the status quo would remain intact (p. 86). Again, this exemplifies the desire for white political and economic leaders to deny humanization for Blacks and thus equity in school and life, let alone excellence.

Lisa Delpit (1988) is often cited for her work that describes how there is a “culture of power” in schools that socialize students to perpetuate White middle-class norms. She calls for educators to teach students about the culture of power: that it exists and that sometimes you must play by those rules (of White middle-class norms in schools) but that doesn’t mean your home culture isn’t valued. Delpit says that we must not just teach children tools like code-switching, or knowing how to speak, say, their native African American Vernacular English or other language but then also know when, where, and why to use the “culture of power” in order to gain access to spaces and operate within places where they are unable to resist or draw from their home cultures.

Cultivating identity and multiple epistemologies in schools, even classrooms, can work to counter the misrecognition and dehumanization of students’ identities and cultures. Delgado Bernal (2013) pointedly states, “Although students of color are holders and creators of knowledge, they often feel as if their histories, experiences, cultures, and languages are devalued, misinterpreted, or omitted within formal educational settings” (p. 390). In order to counter this, she says that these aspects must be “recognized and valued in schools” (p. 403). In these ways, Delgado Bernal points to epistemology, “how we know what we know” as the popular definition says. Student of color epistemologies are not valued in schools often not beyond superficial celebrating of differences that also do not delve deeper into issues of discrimination due to the differences and other issues of inequities. Such epistemologies are exemplified by Delgado Bernal when she writes,

What are often perceived as deficits for Chicana/Chicano students within a Eurocentric epistemological framework—limited English proficiency, Chicano and/or Mexicano cultural practices, or too many nonuniversity-related responsibilities—can be understood within a Chicana feminist perspective as cultural assets or resources that Chicana/Chicano students bring to formal educational environments (2013, p. 397).

Studies suggest that when a student has a positive racial identity and positive student identity, they tend to do better in school (Akom 2003). As discussed in Chapter 2 on the struggle for Mexican American Studies in Tucson, not only does Ethnic Studies help students achieve academically in other courses, but it helped to build and cultivate positive identities that had been otherwise devalued in a white supremacist society.

Louis Althusser further identifies an Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) where interrelated institutions together perpetuate the status quo (Feinberg and Soltis, 1985, p. 57). Feinberg and Soltis name these institutions such as “communications, such as newspapers, radio and television; the cultural institutions; the family; political parties and trade unions” and more (1985, p. 57). Feinberg and Soltis cite Althusser’s naming of the “function” of ISAs as a way to socialize people and direct their decisions and thus “maintaining the current system of production relations and power” especially “of the ruling class” (p. 57). Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) shows an image representing the news media, an institution that can be considered an ISA and that can often perpetuate stereotypes. These societal institutions work hand-in-hand with schools and Althusser even includes schools as an ISA.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): "Local News: Mountain Lion Attack". (CC By SA 2.0); Lars Ploughmann via Flickr)

Caroline Persell (1977) in her work on “structures of dominance” agree that society impacts institutions especially through ideologies, or group beliefs, especially dominant ideologies that shut down others in a cycle of institutional, interpersonal, internalized, and societal oppression. Put this way, it seems difficult to escape the influence of societies on schooling. Is there a way that schools can intervene? ISAs perpetuate, for example, the misrecognition and dehumanization of American Indians by various means that led to the creation of boarding schools in order to alter their cultural institutions, family, etc, as will be discussed more later. But such negative associations sought to justify the inequities that limited the type of schooling the American Indian boarding students would receive. Thus schools, as an ISA, embrace societal ideologies and continue to perpetuate what is already accepted about groups: their misrecognition and dehumanization. For American Indians, their misrecognition and dehumanization, expressed for example through the U.S. government believing American Indians to be "backwards and savage," prevented the youth from obtaining any education besides that which would prepare them for industrial schooling and jobs in the service sector. The belief of inferiority of a group is then used to justify why such groups should not have access to higher quality of education: society deems that it should be invested in those who can actually understand “complex” thinking (Feinberg and Soltis, 1985, p. 94). An additional impact is that when people of color are devalued in society, students of color experience the perpetuation of the devaluation in schooling, which affects their educational experiences. For example, Darling-Hammond (2010) writes,

… dozens of studies have found that teachers typically hold more negative attitudes about Black children’s personality traits, ability, language, behavior, and potential than they do about White children, and that most Black students have fewer favorable interactions with their teachers than White students (Footnote: Irvine, 1990). Studies have also found that children of color are more likely to be treated differently in the classroom—neither pushed academically nor praised as much as White students—and more often punished for offenses that White students commit without consequence; they are also more likely to be suspended from school than Whites who commit the same infractions. (Footnote: Fine, 1991; Nieto, 1992; Carter & Goodwin, 1994) (Darling-Hammond, p. 65).

Here there is a direct link between societal beliefs, with teacher-student interactions, and student-institution relations: disregard for Black people leads to disconnection with and mistreatment of Black students.

Althusser’s identification of ISAs can be viewed through a lens of conflict theory because some would say the role of schools is to perpetuate the functioning of society, while others might argue that that is true but it is done for the “ruling class.” For example, in one study, Entman (1990) analyzed a “single week of local news programming in Chicago” and looked at “one hour per day of local news from each of the three network affiliates” (p. 335). He found that “76% of all local TV stories about blacks fell into the categories of crime or politics” (p. 332). The portrayal of blacks and crime were different than whites and crime: “the accused black criminals were usually illustrated by glowering mug shots or by footage of them being led around in handcuffs…none of the accused violent white criminals during the week studied were shown in mug shots or physical custody” (p. 337). This criminalizes blacks and as an ISA, media is a huge source of mainstream news for many. But while this study was from 1990, a study published in 2007 that showed the outcome of such criminalization through the media looked at about 70 responses from White communications students who viewed videos and read news stories about Black Americans and Asian Indians and “hostile prejudicial feelings were more strongly expressed toward African-Americans” (Ramamsubramanian and Oliver, 1990, p. 639). Further, “counter-stereotypical news stories” reported “less prejudicial responses than” those “who read stereotypical news stories” about Asian Indians, but “counter-stereotypical” news stories “did not bring about any noticeable changes in prejudicial attitudes” about Black Americans (p. 640). Thus ISAs reflect inequities that reflect attitudes, which makes higher quality of education difficult for students of color to access when society embraces such measures of inequities. It is this co-functioning of media as an ISA that helps cultivate a devaluation of Blacks in society, which as discussed by Darling-Hammond’s quotation about the negative attitudes towards Black children is reflected in schools.

Medicine/Health/STEM

Research shows that medical doctors have actual biases against Black and Brown patients (Ventura, Denton, Asack, 2022). One of the issues is doctors and medical workers believing that patients of color have a higher tolerance for pain or don’t need to be prescribed medications as quickly or as much as others and having implicit bias against them (see more about the impacts of "Systemic Racism and Health" in Chapter 3: Africana/African American/Black Studies). Medical racism such as research done on Black patients without their knowledge and consent like in the Tuskegee Experiment and forced sterilization against patients of color (see Chapter 8: Intersectionality, section titled "Eugenicists and Forced Mass Sterilization" for more information) are all examples of bias and racism that does occur against minoritized patients.

Studies and even popular news and technology sources recognize that self-driving cars can be racist. Self-driving cars weren’t created to recognize people of color that are in front of the car and are therefore more likely to hit people of color. Stanford Fellow Dr. Lance Eliot in Forbes Magazine (Jan. 4, 2020) discussed that white engineers created and tested the algorithms that recognizes white people as people that the car should be cautious of and avoid hitting. Thus, the predominance of white male engineers created a crisis of diversity where the lack of people of color as engineers that would test these features then create a lack of recognition of people of color whenever the self-driving cars encountered them. Because these tests involved only white engineers, self-driving cars didn’t see people of color as people. This shows not only the importance of diversity in STEM fields but also that people of color need to be included in initiatives that affect us all. It shows that representation in science and tech matters.

In a study of engineering departments in universities, studies overwhelmingly show that programs that have more engineering professors that are Black and Asian women are more likely to have students who are also Black and Asian women. This also shows the importance of diversity and representation amongst faculty in STEM departments.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): "High School Students Discover STEM Careers at College of DuPage 2017 23". (CC By 2.0; COD Newsroom via Flickr)

Studies show that when there is diversity amongst educators, students feel more seen, acknowledged and heard, and experience less discrimination than with white educators (Darling-Hammond, 2020). Studies in elementary schools show how white educators often not only view Black and Latinx students differently but then also treat them differently compared to white students (Darling-Hammond, 2020). For example, white educators may view white students as more intellectually superior to Black students and will therefore view them as more academically capable. This results in white educators giving white students more advantages, assistance, guidance, and accolades. This also results in Black students receiving more punishment and harsher discipline than white students. Studies show in particular that Black and Latinx children are criminalized in schooling. Relatedly, Portillos, Gonzalez, and Peguero (2011) show the criminalization of Latinx students also in terms of immigration status. This trend of preferential treatment is not only with white educators but also with white administrators. Especially in fields like STEM, this type of representation is also important to help show these students that they too can succeed in STEM when they see professors who look like them.

Sidebar: Texas

Texas has been a state that has attempted or completed alterations to their curriculum that aims to revamp efforts that expose racism and critical discussions of race. One example of this is a recent initiative to change any mentioning of slavery to be called “Involuntary relocation.” Recently, Texas passed a bill that largely limits the teaching of recent events, and even teaching about the history of the Alamo as part of a target bill to limit the teaching of critical race theory. These efforts aim to maintain white history as heroic and mask any racist and harmful struggles committed against people of color.

Sidebar: Florida

In July 2022, a law in Florida took into affect to ban the teaching of "racism and privilege" (Sullivan, 2022). This law is called the Individual Freedom Act and used to be called Stop W.O.K.E. Act or Stop Wrongs to our Kids and Employees Act (Sullivan, 2022).

The forced displacement of people of color communities have been largely due to the influx of white professionals into communities that have been traditionally cultural art hubs, affordable housing especially for marginalized populations, and shielded from mass consumerist business due to the prevalence of small business such as mom and pop shops that have been community fixtures for a long time. In these communities, the tech industries and others who cater towards later generations of workers then attract other businesses that cater to these demographics. In gentrified communities goods and services tend to cost more.

Finally, the National Center for Education Statistics show that white female professors made up the highest percentages at lecturer, instructor, and assistant professor rankings. "Fast Facts" from the National Center for Educational Statistics displays a chart that show these rankings (NCES, 2020). White male professors made up the highest percentages at associate professor (40%) and full professor (53%) rankings. Even if you combine the percentage of Black male, female, Hispanic male, female, Asian male, female, American Indian male, female, and 2 or more races, that still doesn’t make up the smallest percentage of any of the white professors.