by Scott Albright
Daily Lobo
Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade, assistant professor at San Francisco State University, said urban schools in America are doing what they're designed to do - perpetuate inequality.
Duncan-Andrade and A.A. Akom, also an assistant professor at San Francisco State University, talked at the SUB on Tuesday about institutional racism, white supremacy and educational equality.
The two came as part of the Educational Equity Initiative, part of the CÇsar E. Chávez Institute, an organization designed to support urban schools.
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The urban school system is in a crisis but is not reacting appropriately, Duncan-Andrade said.
"When you're in crisis mode, you ride or die," he said. "When you're in problem mode, you have a board meeting."
About 80 people attended the event.
Duncan-Andrade said there are three types of teachers - ridas, gangstas and wankstas.
He said ridas stand up for what they believe in and do everything they can to help students.
Gangstas do harm, hate the
system and despise the community.
Wankstas are teachers who talk about doing something but never do.
"I think most teachers are wankstas," Duncan-Andrade said.
He said wanksta is not a disparaging term.
Wankstas are good as long as they can become ridas, he said
He said teachers refuse to be ridas, because it threatens their own agenda. Being a rida is not a natural human condition, he said.
"Unconditional love is a high-risk behavior," he said.
He said the only way to be a successful teacher is to be a rida.
The presentation began with Akom, who explained the problem of white supremacy and the difficulties of addressing racism.
Akom showed pictures of billboards from Ghana, which advertised skin products that promised to whiten tan skin.
"White supremacy is normalized," he said. "We're bombarded with things that suggest that black is negative."
Akom said denying the existence of race only creates more conflict.
"America loves to look at other peoples' problems," he said. "We will look all over the world and identify other people as criminals. America does not look at her own crimes."
Akom said examples of America's crimes are the slave trade and the killing of American Indians.
"We deny that we have a racial problem," he said. "This denial is what makes us sick. Without truth, we're never going to heal as a nation."
Graduate student Tarance LeNoir said people need to hear what Akom and Duncan-Andrade had to say, because it affects everyone.
"You have to get educated, no matter what side of the track you're from," he said. "We're more alike than unalike."
He said people have differences but want some of the same things.
Akom and Duncan-Andrade showed videos and gave statistics that presented the ineffectiveness of urban schools.
One of the students on the video said he wasn't satisfied with the school system, because it taught him things he couldn't relate to.
Duncan-Andrade said the way to change was to focus on the teachers, not the students.
The only way to achieve change is with more teachers who are willing to take risks, Duncan-Andrade said.
"If more people were riding, it would be harder to take them out," he said.
