There is a learning gap that is threatening economic and social productivity in the U.S. that must be addressed. The untreated white achievement gap continues to tear our country apart.
Voting can be considered a test of sorts for assessing our knowledge and comprehension of the world around us. Voting data gives us insight into how people put into practice the information, facts and teaching they’ve received.
Exit polls conducted by the research firm Edison Research show that President Donald Trump received 57 percent of the total number of ballots cast by white voters. They voted for a man who has denigrated established science, supported racist conspiracies and spewed the racist assertion that four U.S. congresswomen of color “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” He struggled throughout his term to renounce white supremacist groups. And as the election returns came in last week, he spun a web of lies about how the American democratic process works.
By their votes, the vast majority of Black and Brown citizens showed themselves to be proficient judges of character and political leadership. This achievement is saving the country.
Millions of people, most of them white, either put aside what they learned in school to vote for the president — or they never learned it at all. Racism is illogical, and the irrationality it produces leads to policies and actions that are dangerously wrong for individuals and the country as a whole. While we so often wring our hands about the lagging educational achievement of Black, Latino and Native students, this election reminds us CONTINUE READING: White voters, Donald Trump and the white achievement gap