Bringing the _Real_ Systemic Racism Down
Jay-Z is behind $300M aimed to help poor talented kids to attend private schools
As we said many times on these pages, the concept of “systemic racism” understood as micro-aggressions, hidden biases, and comparatively worse living conditions for poor people1 is dubious at best. The true systemic racism consists of:
the war on phonics and the war on abstract mathematics that assumes black kids cannot learn how to read and how to navigate in the realm of abstract without using colored sticks. See “Decolonize Rigor” for a bit of a UMass Boston-local flavor;
a deliberate perpetuation of black academic under-performance through affirmative action and abolished SATs; it discourages black kids from improving through competition. The effectively abolished ALEKS is a UMass Boston-local example of an attack on black achievers.
Some brave souls are fighting the true systemic racism:
Jay-Z is pulling his weight behind a campaign to give poor talented Philadelphian kids who a financial boost to attend a private school. The total cost of the program is $300M;
Eric Adams brings the Gifted and Talented programs with color-blind entrance exams to black neighborhoods. He also saved the SHSATs a while back.
Respect for black talent is slowly making its way back:
Affirmative Action is gone;
SATs/ACTs are back in a good half of Ivies and a number of top private and public schools.
Our ALEKS is still shit, though. And the black (and other) students still suffer. There is always something to do, for those who care.
So obvious that there is nothing to cite here.