Photograph; Atlantic Author Ta-Nehisi Coates and Joy Reid walk and talk about the competition that we see in society and in our schools.
By Betsy L. Angert | Originally Published at EmpathyEducates. May 29, 2014

You may have read or heard about The Atlantic article, The Case For Reparations. If you did you may have asked yourself what does this have to do with current events or issues that are important to me. A lot. Consider education. At present, our educational systems are highly competitive. Where you go to school, how well you do, and whether you receive adequate preparation – all might be determined by a score on test or the money your parents had to invest in reducing your stress and theirs. Doing better than your peers may not be enough to secure a high quality education. Where a child lives can determine his or her future. And thus we return easily to the discussion of reparations. Reparations force us to look at our past while peering into the present. Equality and equity, these are the issues. We broach each when in conversations about reparation. But perhaps we touch on these too tenderly.

Look at the history. Reparations have been discussed and legislation denied for decades.
Obviously, you might say, recompense for damages is not likely to come. After all, Congressman John Conyers has carried that torch since January of 1989, when he first introduced the bill H.R. 40, Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. Conyers has re-introduced HR 40 every Congress since 1989, and says he will continue to do so until it’s passed into law. But that day might never come.

Since most of us believe that the Bill will not become law why do we continue. Why do we re-discuss what is a dead issue? Perhaps, because in reality it lives large. Look at our schools. Stroll through our classrooms. Inequality and inequity exist in every aspect of education. Indeed, currently, we see resegregation.

As Congressman Conyers acknowledges it’s easy not to talk about struggle. But that does not mean that injustices will fade. “One of the biggest challenges in discussing the issue of reparations in a political context is deciding how to have a national discussion without allowing the issue to polarize our party or our nation, says Congressman Conyers. Polarization. Think of the policies that shutter our public schools today.

Consider school budget cuts, school funding, and the burgeoning reality of privatization. Contemplate the veracity of “competition” for slots in a selective elite High School or Charters. Then, ponder the possibility that much depends on color and class. Try to talk about any of these with your neighbors and you will likely be reminded of what we call taboo. Conversations about education, just as those about reparations often lead to that dreaded polarization. Perhaps that is the bigger problem. Much that we as a people do not get done is evident in lost legislation

So, why have the discussions? Why talk about race, religion, the politics of guns, the achievement gap, or anything that divides us? Why? Because each begs the question. Can we claim to be a democracy if we address only what it is convenient? Do we believe that all men, women, and children are equal, but only when the proposition sets us, our friends and our family free? If we cannot talk about equality and equity through reparations can we discuss these in respect to education?

Sure. Pick a side. Public schools? Privatization? Selective enrollment in Charter Schools and also in elite educational institutions? Standardization? Testing? It would seem these topics too cause great consternation. Indeed, any issue that invites us to look at ourselves or see an equality, equity divide must be broached with caution.

Congressman Conyers understands this and came up with a plan. He proposed we look to the past. He has advocated for over a decade “the federal government undertake an official study of the impact of slavery on the social, political and economic life of our nation.” Perhaps he hoped that if we avoided the present the flame would live, or at least guilt would set-in. But that never happened. Instead people became more defensive. Equality. Equity. In America, these are our foundation. But are they?

Again, let us look at The Case For Reparations through the lens of education. Let us begin the idea of entering a quality school. Please allow me to explain. Better yet, let us turn to Atlantic Author Ta-Nehisi Coates. In May 2014, he published the much acclaimed and discussed, The Case For Reparations. He began doing the research and the actual writing two years earlier after reading a New York Times article on education.

After reading For Asians, School Tests Are Vital Steppingstones, Coates was consumed. How can it be that hard work is in question? Why would one Mom think she must devote all her time and dollars to prepare her child for a High School entrance exam and another Mom thinks this is too much stress? More importantly, Ta-Nehisi mused, on another question; why is it that some people do not have to work as hard to enter a good school, an elite school such as New York City’s Stuyvesant High School?

Consider the quote Ta-Nehisi Coates did. First, a bit of background. A grueling 95-question test for admission to New York City’s elite public high schools decides the fate of two children. An African-American parent, Sharon Chambers, the owner of a karate studio in Queens, who takes issue with the exam on philosophical grounds said. “You shouldn’t have to prep Sunday to Sunday, to get into a good high school,” said Melissa Santana, a legal secretary whose daughter Dejanellie Falette has been prepping this fall for the exam. “That’s extreme.”

How could that be, Coates wondered. Is it not true that work, hard work and extensive study are necessary to qualify for an exceptional education? An Asian Mom, Emmie Cheng, a Chinese descent who emigrated here as a child from Cambodia, understood as did he. Preparation is essential. Indeed, as noted in the same Times essay, Cheng’s “daughter Kassidi has spent every Tuesday afternoon and all of Saturday at the Horizon Program, a tutoring program near her house, reviewing work she has done over the past three years.,” While the cost was $2,000 dollars, Cheng said, “guiding her daughter through this process …paled in comparison to what she had experienced earlier in her life. Her father and four brothers died of starvation during Cambodia’s civil war., and once they arrived in America there was a struggle. Yet…the question remained “why is it that some people do not have to work as hard to enter a good school, an elite school?”

I began thinking about those who do not have to work so hard”…they live in a neighborhood where they are just guaranteed to get into good schools. And the fact-of-the matter is this woman, Ms Chambers, did not live in such a neighborhood. Ta-Nehisi Coates asked again.” What is or why is there a difference. Some people don’t actually have to work hard.

Just as the Asian parent, Ta-Nehisi Coates believes in the need to work hard to get a quality education. However, he too bemoans as Sharon Chambers did, that a Black American experiences is quite extreme. There is a need to work harder, in truth much harder. Why is that? And thus, the in-depth investigation.

Competition in our schools is not a straightforward application. It is not whether you are smart, but whether you are granted a running start. The struggle continues as we age. Throughout our lives we are confronted with harsh realities – there is no escaping that discrimination is pervasive. We may have rejected a formal indoctrination, but slavery still exists. We live it today in every incarnation. Where will we live? Who we will see? Who do we want as our neighbors? And what of Reparations? What of education or even genuine conversations?

For now the topics might be too tender to touch, but let us begin as Ta-Nehisi Coates did before us…let us start with education and see the parallels through the eyes of reparations..

Let us listen to the Author express his own frustration, beginning in our schools. In-depth conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates on ‘The Case for Reparations’ Interview and Video Originally Published at The Reid Report. MSNBC. May 29, 2014