Brown vs. Board of Education

Well, first off, I would like to mention that I had a difficult time doing this assignment for some reason. Not because I'm not interested in the topic, but I got easily distracted while watching the videos and I was all over the place, so I had to watch them a view times to get a good understanding. The article was really interesting though!

Anyway, Tim Wises' broadcast were pretty cool, once I got to listen carefully to them. Right from the beginning he said that we had to deal with what is real and that racism is still going on,  yet were pretending it is not. This made me think of Johnson's Power, Privilege and Difference. He said that we know that there are issues in the world, but we're afraid to confront them or talk about them. We don't use the word "privilege," just like we don't use the word "racism," which I think is true. He also said that people of color are wise, but they have a different style of showing it, which I thought was very smart because I didn't think of it like that. He then went onto say that people of color don't have to be like Obama to be successful, and I believe that but I want to know who told him that they believed that? What color person said that they can't be successful unless they are Obama, or like him in a sense, because that is not true at all. He said that "Individuals of color can accomplish great things, Even if they don't go to Harvard, and go to schools like University of Michigan, which is absolutely true! This relates to the Brown vs. Board of Education because all those students wanted was an education, and it didn't matter from where. But White's didn't believe that they should have equal education because they weren't "smart" or "potentially successful" as Whites. Later in the video he said that if the past was the present, people believed that Blacks had equal opportunities, CRAZY!! The people during the time of Brown vs. Board of Education didn't believe that Blacks needed schooling, because they already had the right to vote and those laws, so that's all they really needed. Even though it was successful, it took a lot of time to have a change, and Wise said that this case was probably the biggest, but it showed us that things still needed to be changed. The thing that Wise said that stood out to me was that "We see excellence". We should have noticed it in the past and we should be noticing it now, because no matter what, everyone can achieve excellence. And it still wasn't as simple as it should have been. 

Remember the Titans: First day of school! This is my favorite movie ever btw, watch it if you haven't!

When I read the article by Bob Hebert, I immediately thought about our Service Learning Program. In the first paragraph, he said that it is hard to get good educators in schools located in high-poverty areas and that is why they are not always the best. He then said "these, OF COURSE, are the schools with Hispanics and Blacks" He said it like it was automatically assumed that it is the schools with Blacks and Hispanics, it was kind of sad to read it like that. During the Brown Vs. Board of  Education,  no one wanted to be a teacher to the "black students," and they refused to teach them. Yet, here we are now. Hebert said "Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities, and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality." Even after the case, we still see schools that are mostly White, like where most of you went to High School, or even mostly Black and it's all because of those reasons. But we stem from the root that there were segregated schools in the past. The main point of his topic is that students learn in a better environment, away from provish areas. 

Hebert said "The election of Barack Obama has not made a true integration any more palatable to millions of Americans". I believe that this speaks words and it is really important to understand. Because have things really changed for the better? Because according to Wise, people of color believe they have to be like Obama to be successful. I believe that the Brown vs. Board of Education was a huge milestone in 1954 and the election of Obama was a big milestone in 2009, but like Wise said there are still works that remain. I found an interesting article about the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education case and how it was successful and not so much. Pretty cool to read! 

Topic Point: In Wise's broadcast, he said that we couldn't really understand how the African American's felt during that time because we weren't in their shoes. Only White's shared their opinions about how they felt they were in fact equal opportunities, which they weren't. But anyway, that's like saying we can't understand how someone feels unless we walk a mile in their shoes. If you were a student back then, how would you feel? Or sense we are all teachers, lets say we were put back in time during 1950's and this case, what kind of teacher would you be?