Keeping Racism Alive in Education

10.05.2010

When the first Europeans arrived, they raped the land and killed Native Americans, the people they perceived to be the enemy.

Then the Europeans brought over slaves to do their work for them while reaping the profits. Hatred for the black person grew.

Men feared women for a number of reasons and did what they could, by law, to suppress them in every way possible making sure that a woman knew her place was in the kitchen and with the children.

The Chinese and the Irish were soon feared, despised and killed but not before their services were used to build the Transcontinental Railroad. During this time, the blacks and the Irish were very good friends resolved to living in the slums. Though the minute the Civil War ended, the Irish would now compete with blacks for jobs and so they turned against their neighbors.

At the turn of the 20^th Century, Italians were now despised and white people's hatred for blacks continued. Eugenics was brought into American culture too where minorities, the mentally disabled and anyone else perceived to be “different” was sterilized under the auspices that “white is best."

By mid-century, Latinos have entered the equation and not because of their spot in America’s economic wheel but because hatred toward them now was going strong.

Today, all of these emotions toward these different ethnic groups still exist except for maybe the Irish and Italians. Funny thing. What’s the color of their skin?