By Barry Sheppard
Last year, the board of regents of California's university system voted to end affirmative action to help minorities gain admission. It claimed that affirmative action discriminated against whites. The results have been disastrous.
The regents' action was underscored by the passage of a referendum that outlawed affirmative action in publicly funded operations. The question was worded in such a way as to seem to be in favour of civil rights.
Admissions to the University of California at Berkeley of African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans fell this year to 10.4% from 23.1% in 1997. At UC Los Angeles, admission fell from 19.8% to 12.7%. Some of those admitted have stated they will go elsewhere, in view of the system's racist bias.
Opponents of affirmative action say the figures prove that whites were discriminated against under the old system, and that now the system is "colour blind". This argument ignores the fact that the whole society is far from being "colour blind", and that persistent, deep, institutional racism pervades every aspect of life in the United States.
Do whites who are against affirmative action really believe this argument? It is common knowledge that housing is segregated, the great mass of oppressed minorities living in much worse conditions; that unemployment rates for oppressed minorities are at least twice those for whites; that average wages for minorities are way below those of whites. No white person wants to change places socially with the oppressed.
If it were really true that US society is colour blind, how could these or other indicators be explained — other than that minorities must be inferior to whites? Scratch a white anti-affirmative action proponent, and you find a racist hiding under a "civil rights" veneer.
Because society is not colour blind, minority students are as not as well prepared from pre-college school to do as well on tests used to determine admissions to college. Studies have shown, however, that minority students who have been admitted under affirmative action programs and who graduate (a higher proportion of minorities are forced to drop out before graduating because of economic and family pressures resulting from racial oppression) do just as well academically as whites .
I saw first hand the problems facing poor minority students last year when I taught science and mathematics at an "inner-city" school in Oakland. My 11-year-old students were mostly black, with Latinos, Asians and a sprinkling of whites making up the rest.
Oakland spends US$4500 per pupil per year on everything — buildings, books, materials, teachers' wages, administrative costs. Wealthy, white Beverly Hills spends $13,500.
California is better than most US states since it mandates a minimum of $4500 per pupil per year in each school district. In most other states, schools are financed by local property taxes, guaranteeing big differences in school spending between poor and rich districts.
Because of overcrowding, due to a lack of funds to build enough schools, my class did not have a classroom. We had to use other teachers' rooms during their preparation periods.
Moving from room to room made it difficult to use certain teaching aids, such as pictures and charts. I could do fewer science experiments, which the young people like and which stir their interest in the subject. For the first six weeks, we had no mathematics textbooks. There were leaks when it rained, and there were not enough computers.
There were no notebooks or pencils to give the students. They had to buy them themselves, or the teachers bought them. I paid out of my own pocket for photocopies for the students. Teachers pay out hundreds of dollars each school year for scarce items. Some parents kicked in so there could be more science instruments.
Many dedicated teachers could have made more money going elsewhere but found satisfaction in the challenge of helping these children. A few teachers were jaded, and added to the problems with a contemptuous (sometimes racist) attitude towards the students.
Half my sixth graders could not do long division. Some could not subtract. I spent the first 12 weeks going over basic maths techniques that should have been mastered years before.
We did not have a science textbook, so I had to write a lot on the blackboard. Because some of the students had problems with reading and writing they could not write it down in their notebooks.
Students were often preoccupied with problems like living in poverty, having to take care of siblings, being frightened by the street crime and violence that results from the bleak prospects in the inner city. Many kids came to school hungry. Not to mention the effects that racism has on these children's self-esteem.
It was amazing to see how these children and their parents fought to overcome these problems. Most of the kids tried hard to learn. They did learn when they were treated with respect and compassion.
It is crystal clear that children of the oppressed minorities are not on a level playing field with many white children, because of institutionalised racism. That has to be taken into account in school admissions, as well as in employment opportunities and wages, housing and many other areas if society is ever to come close to being "colour blind".