During the prologue of Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria, Tatum states that the question she receives most since the book's original writing twenty years ago is "Is it better?". Three hundred and fifty-eight pages later, her answer is "Not yet, but it could be. It's up to us to make sure that it is. I remain hopeful.". By this, she means that racism in the United States is sadly very much alive, as recent events have shown in painful detail. So what can we do to improve racial relations and curb racism as it exists today? Her answer, given throughout the book, is education.
Teaching children to be unashamed of who they are through positive representation, role models, and speaking honestly about race and racism is the bet way to ensure that they can combat both internal and external racism. However, it is not just children who can be educated about race and racism; employers who are trained to recognize and go against implicit bias and given exact objectives in terms of what to look for in interviews will be have ratios of race-to-race acceptance similar to the percentages of those races in the job market and holding workshops and seminars in colleges and workplaces in which people are taught to have the uncomfortable conversations about racism and breaking the silence when it happens helps them to speak up when they see friends and colleagues making racist, sexist, etc. remarks, or unequal treatment based on race or gender.
On pages 325-326, Tatum gives an example of why teaching children about racism can be life-or-death, and that ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away: " 'many adoptive parents, including me, feel tremendous anxiety about introducing concepts of racism to their children.' (...) Alex Landau, a Black transracial adoptee, had such a life-threatening encounter in 2009, when he was nineteen. Stopped by the police and accused of making an illegal left turn, he was ordered out of his car and searched. Landau's White father had never had "the talk" that is a rite of passage in African American families- when Black parents explain to their teenage sons how to behave if stopped by the police. Landau asserted his rights with the three police officers present and asked to see a warrant before they searched the car. The officers responded by punching him in the face. He was knocked to the ground and remembers one of the officers saying 'Where's your warrant now, you f----ing n-?' (...) Landau says, 'I know my mother wishes she could've had the insight herself to prepare me for the ugly realities that can occur.' "
This is a painful example of why ignoring racism does not help, and it is one of many more that go undocumented. Education is the most effective means to combat injustice, and by teaching people about race, racism, implicit bias, and how they can help is crucial to improve the situation both in America and around the world, right now and in the future.
This book was very informative and I highly recommend that you read it, as it is very well written with many examples of studies and personal stories, and explanations of why and how racism occurs today and what you can do to help in your daily life. This blog really doesn't do it justice, and there's a reason that Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria has been a national bestseller, and been revised and updated in the Twentieth Anniversary Edition: It's interesting to read and may change how you think about race and racism.
Works Cited:
Tatum, Beverly Daniel. "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" : and Other Conversations about Race. New York :Basic Books,2003.
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