The Corrosive Power of Stereotypes in Politics and Education
In the early years of my life as a high school English teacher—during the Reagan years—I began my journey to being a critical educator as naive but sincere. One of the first steps into creating a critical classroom included my confronting students about race and class.
When I asked students (in a school sitting in the rural South and high poverty) who they believed was on Welfare, they echoedReagan’s “Welfare Queen” stereotype (although the population of the school included a significant percentage of rural poor Whites). I then offered them the data, showing that whites were on Welfare at the time in far larger numbers than African Americans. While they tended to argue that wasn’t true, despite the data, I also asked them to unpack the more complicated data—African Americans being disproportionately among Welfare recipients when contextualized by racial ratios in the U.S.
This second step led to what was more disturbing for my students—a process I use to this day. I ask students