Post#3: Why All The Black Kids Are Sitting Together In The Cafeteria, and How Tatum Goes About Explaining What You Can Do To Combat Racism

       The purpose of Tatum's book is to educate the reader on modern/ systemic racism, as well as how they can combat it in their daily lives and internal dialogues. She shows how racism manifests itself in stereotypes, microaggressions, and racial disparity in treatment, and then how these thing affect people's thoughts and actions, and how they can combat these influences. In chapter four ("Identity Development in Adolescence"), for example, she explains how Black students with the same grades as White students are far less likely to be recommended for advanced classes. A famous example of this is Malcolm Little, now known as Malcolm X, who was told by his English teacher that because he was Black, he could not be a lawyer. Frequently, when students so affected by racism in education talk to White friends and acquaintances about these encounters and disparities, their White friends and acquaintances frequently tell them that there is no issue, or do not understand. Then, the other Black students with similar shared experiences do understand them, which is the better part of the answer to the book's titular question.

    This is how Tatum goes about explaining the ways in which modern racism affects people: She makes a logical progression of how one situation leads to another, and so on, using slight appeals to pathos along the way to help the reader understand why people would act in one way or another given certain sets of circumstances. Then, she uses similar tactics, often with some stories of the experiences of herself and others, to show how people can combat racism in those scenarios, such as how she raised her children to think critically about racist and sexist stereotypes, or how a woman she interviewed moved from a predominantly White college to a historically Black one due to the constant racial harassment from her roommates and from random people on page 168, and how by living and socializing in communities where many people are cognizant of modern racism and/or what it means to be Black, Black people and students are happier and safer.

    I personally find this method of explaining the problems of and solutions to modern racism both interesting and effective, as it draws me in as I read and makes me think about what I can do in my own life to help marginalized people and groups. What methods of explanation work well for you on this topic, and what do you think people can/should do in their daily lives to help with social issues like racism, sexism, etc?