I agree with most of the points Gloria Ladson-Billings makes in chapters 3 and 4 of The Dreamkeepers. However, there were a few points that stuck out to me.
In the memory described on pages 33-34 of going downtown on a field trip, the line, "We knew that we were held to a higher standard than other people" stuck out to me. She thinks this proudly, at least as a child. In reality, though, it is unfair that just because these children are colored their behavior is held to a higher standard than white children's. It is unfair that African Americans need to present themselves very well in order to excede the expectations of them by whites, while whites don't necessarily need to do the same thing in order to receive a certain kind of treatment. When a group of African Americans or any other minority is out in public, what they do is seen as representing their whole race. If a group of white people is out in public, as members of the majority, they do not have that same weight on their shoulders.
I do not know how this could be changed, although I have one impractical idea. If the majority of white Americans travelled abroad to countries that are not predominantly white, they could learn to identify with this feeling, and perhaps when they returned they would see their own multicultural neighbors in a different light.
I was surprised when reading Ladson-Billings ask, "If a teacher looks out at a classroom and sees the sons and daughters of slaves, how does that vision translate into her expectations for educational excellence" (59), implying that it would not translate well. I think that in saying this she contradicts what she says earlier in the chapter about claiming to be "color blind" as a negative thing. I do not think that acknowledging the fact that many of your African American students would translate to them not doing well academically (or translate to me as the teacher then treating them in a way that would not benefit them academically as much as the other students). I would imagine that students whose grandparents were slaves have family history that is as important to them as any other person's is to them, and see a family history of slavery as a family history of hard work and perserverence, which would translate well in the academic arena. Achknowledging slavery as part of a person's family history does not necessarily mean that I wouldn't hold them to the same academic high standards as their white counterparts.
Perhaps I am incorrectly interpreting Ladson-Billings, and she may just be asking the question to try to make us think, in which case, it has worked.
Another point I found interesting that she mentions at the beginning of chapter four is that "success means doing better than others". This is an interesting definition, as it is entirely social. It reminds me of the joke where two people have to outrun a bare chasing them and one says something like, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you". It is such a cutthroat way to think of something that should be positive, although it pretty much is the American cultural view of success. Must it be so competitive because of limited resources? Not everyone can be #1.
I like to think of success as meeting or exceeding my own expectations of myself. I would rather live by my own definition, so my own success does not depend on someone else's failure.
The Dreamkeepers continues to be a thought-provoking read.
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