The African American Achievement Gap:

The Afri trick the Statesn Achievement Gap wherefore is it There and What Can be D angiotensin-converting enzyme Are Black Americans Dumber than White Americans? Can it unequivoc tot every last(predicate)yy be stated that atomic number 63an Americans hold more intelligence indeed African Americans? Are African Americans genetic each(prenominal)y wired to urinate a lesser mental capacity then European Americans? For a dogged time this was the explanation to a burning problem. African Americans score cast down than White Americans on vocabulary, reading, and mathematics experiments, as well as on attempts that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence. This recess appears earlier children enter kindergarten and it persists into adulthood. The typical American dumb still gobs d featurestairs 75 percent of American exsanguines on most standardized tests. On slightly tests the typical American unappeasable scores below more than 85 percent of face cloths. (CHR ISTOPHER, JENCKS) This test score gap is not an inevitable fact of nature. It is received that the gap shrinks only a petty when black and white children attend the aforesaid(prenominal) schools. It is besides true(a) that the gap shrinks only a little when black and white families cod the very(prenominal) amount of schooling, the same income, and the same wealth.However, after extensive research, no one has found any evidence saying that blacks comport less intellectual ability than whites. So what causes this gap in test scores? Some attri entirelye it to the culture of African Americans. They say that African Americans be uninterested in learning and dont actualizek to pursue academic excellence. Some attribute the gap to testing conditions. Some attribute it to concepts such as White Guilt and Stereotype Threat. (Will be explained later) I however cannot attribute it to any one thing. This whole issue cannot be explained by one concept.Rather then endeavoring to desc ribe the achievement gap with one concept, I attribute it to a combining of many. The think for the perceived gap in test scores is an intricate combination of things such as Stereotype terror, White Guilt, and Culture. On this issue, doubting Thomas Sowell piles the attitude that this gap has nothing to do with racism or die knotty. Sowell says, For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race-that is, to an surmisal that blacks near did not have it in their genes to do as well as white stack.The run began to turn in the second half of the 20th Century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites. (Sowell, Thomas) However, his research showed something different. With his study at Harvard, he noticed that most of the black alumni were either from the western United States Indies or Africa, or were the children of westward Indian or African immigrants. These throng be the same race as American blacks, who greatly protrudenumber either or both. (Sowell, Thomas) This completely dispels the idea of race be a agent. So what does cause the gap?Sowell believes Culture does. His main argument is that the culture from so-called rednecks from Europe caused this uneducated culture seen in blacks. He says, The culture of the people who were called rednecks and crackers before they ever got on the boats to cross the Atlantic was a culture that produce far lower levels of intellectual and economic achievement, as well as high levels of violence and sexual promiscuity. (Sowell, Thomas) right off the most important points raised argon that only a third of whites lived in this culture while 90% of blacks live in it.Of year culture fades away eventually but, it has very slow inwardly the black community peculiarly in the worst black ghettos in the country. This is a culture of counter productivity and self-destruction. Sowell says all blacks ar regarded thi s way. However, the interrogation has to be asked can this really be apply to all blacks? It really cant. Culture can be a valid explanation for this feature group of black people but it does not prove anything for all blacks. Not all blacks are from the ghetto.Some real come from prominent, stable homes. Some actually come from the same environment as successful whites and Langston Hughes covers a look at some of these people. Hughes also takes the view of culture but he examines it from the view of blacks that are not stuck in the ghetto but have stable backgrounds. Hughes takes the view that blacks are actually hindering themselves. He says that there is a huge barrier standing in the way of every black person. He actually makes a reference active artist but it can be viewed as any black person.He says the obstacle is, this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible. (Hughes, Langston) His example is a poet. This poet subconsciously wants to be white because he feels it provide make him a better poet. This poet comes from a strong background in the shopping centre class. According to Hughes, they attend church the father has a steady job the m other lends on occasion and the children attend mixed schools.However, the problem comes with how the parents treat their children. The mother says things same(p), Dont be analogous niggers when the children are bad. In turn the father says things like, Look how well a white man does things. So in this home and many others, black is not praised or celebrated it is taught to be ashamed of. They are taught to want to be white. It is staggering what blacks do to themselves because of this. Fist Hughes says the more predominant dont stay their own people.His example is that, A Negro clubwoman in Philadelphia paid eleven dollars to hear Raquel Meller sing Andalusian pop s ongs. except she told me a a few(prenominal) weeks before she would not think of going to hear that woman. Clara Smith, a great artist, sing Negro folk songs. (Hughes, Langston) This is the problem with many blacks. They dont support their own people in anything because they dont feel it will be accepted by whites and, that is last what they want. Hughes also alludes to how blacks dont support their own until whites do.His example is a young colored author who had been writing well for the colored magazines for some years, but it was not until he recently broke into the white publications and his first book was accepted by a prominent newfangled York publisher that the best Negros in his city took the trouble to discover that he lived there. (Hughes, Langston) The key here is white. Blacks are afraid to be who they are because white is seen as the ultimate goal. Black is seen as inferior. So can this be applied to test taking? It certainly can. If blacks are feeling inferio r then their test performance cannot be as good as whites.Hughes is saying that being black is a hindrance that was built by blacks ourselves. But can this still be applied to all blacks. No it cant because not all blacks come from households where white power is subconsciously feed to them. Some come from homes where black is celebrated. But for some reason out the gap is still there but why? Shelby Steeles position on the take is based on the theory of White Guilt. White Guilt is a vacuum of moral potential in matters of race, equality and opportunity that comes from the association of mere white skin with Americas historical racism.It is the stigmatization of whites and, more importantly, American institutions with the sin of racism. (Steele, Shelby) Simply meaning that all white institutions are doing whatever they have to do not to appear racist. According to Steele this started right after the civil-rights movement. Where he believes that blacks made, the greatest misest imation in black American history. (Steele, Shelby) He says, we allowed ourselves to see a greater power in Americas liability for our oppression than we saw in ourselves. (Steele, Shelby) This meaning blacks saw an opportunity to get unoccupied because they thought they could get more out of taking what whites give rather then feeding to take their own. According to Steele, blacks have been living in an age of white guilt for about a few decades now. So Steele is taking the position that the achievement gap is where it is at because blacks do not have to work as much as they did before. Steele uses the example of a University. There is no way that they would admit students conscionable based on academia because chances are there would be little to no black faces at the University.This university would be called racist and scrutinized heavily. In Modern time, it is politically correct to include blacks in all walks of life. During the genteel Rights Movement, being black was te rrible thing. You were punished for it. Today blacks are rewarded for it in many ways. It is good but bad also. This age of white guilt is a time where the black person lives in a society that needs his race for the good it wants to do more than it needs his individual self. His race makes him popular with the white institutions and unifies him with blacks. (Steele, Shelby) This however limits him as a person.This gives him less desire to work hard. Whats the point when things will right be put in his hand anyway? Steele uses Dr. dogwood West as an example. Dr. West was promoted to a full professorship at Harvard, which is a very high honor. However Steele says, It was never dogwood West-the individual- that Harvard wanted it was the defanged protest identity that he carried, which redounded to the university as racial innocence itself. How could anyone charge this university with racism when it promoted Cornel West to its higher reaches? (Steele, Shelby) So there lies the main p oint. Dr.West achieved high position by doing less work. This is Steeles explanation as to why the achievement gap is there. Blacks simply do not have to work as hard as they once did to succeed because the whites are too eager for the moral role black skin offers them. (Steele, Shelby) Can this explanation be applied to all blacks? Again some blacks are exempt from this. Some take the easy way out and take full advantage of things like affirmative action. However, some do actually work at what they do. But, for some reason, there is still a gap within this group that is functional hard. Why is that? Claude M.Steele offers the concept of Stereotype Threat as the reason this gap exists. Stereotype threat is the threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype, or the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm that stereotype. (Steele, Claude M) Stereotype threat can be used to explain the reason that hard working goal oriented black Americans loan t o the achievement gap. When it comes to matters of race, it is imitation that a particular situation is experienced in much the same way by different groups of people. This is especially assumed to be true in test taking.However, this is lots times not true for blacks. Steele says, But for black students, difficulty with the test makes the negative stereotype relevant as an interpretation of their performance, and of them. They hunch over that they are especially likely to be seen as having limited ability. (Steele, Claude M) It is not that blacks are in anyway inferior its just a certain closet is always put on them when doing things like taking test. This is because tests are often given as a test to measure ability, so because of the negative stereotype blacks feel an added pressure and succumb to it.From one experiment- focusing on vocabulary- Steele performed on black and white students, his conclusion came to be that, When black students were told that the test would mea sure ability, they completed the fragments with significantly more stereotype-related words that when they were told that it was not a measure of ability. Now the thing about stereotype threat is that it is not like the self filling prophecy. They dont think they will perform inadequately and then in-turn score low. Steele says Stereotype threat, is something different something external the situational threat of being negatively stereotyped. So Stereotype threat can be applied to hard working black Americans because it only exist if they care that the negative stereotype is there. So these students actually work so hard to disprove the stereotype that they actually hinder themselves. For one of Steeles experiments he noticed this to be true. He says, Black students taking the test under stereotype threat seemed to be trying to hard rather than not hard enough. They reread the question, reread the multiple choice, and recheck their answers, more then when they were not under ste reotype threat. (Steele, Claude M) So what this did was make the test takers inefficient. If you think to long on standardized to you are automatically hindering a very good score. So the reason hard working black Americans conduce to the gap is evident. But, like it was previously stated, not all black Americans actually work hard so this cannot be the only reason the gap exist. I believe the gap exist because of a combination of a few of the afore mentioned arguments. Yes Sowells point is valid but the culture argument cannot be applied to all blacks.Yes Langston Hughes point is valid but his aspect of culture cannot be applied to all blacks. The same goes for both Shelby and Claude Steele. Applying one of these theories to an entire race of people to explain the gap in test scores will just not suffice. I can honestly say that throughout my life experiences that I have seen every theory for myself. I have seen and lived among the people that these theories apply to and I believ e that it all culminates to create the observed gap between African Americans and other ethnic groups.Sowell is absolutely correct when he says there is a self destructive, counterproductive culture in the nations ghettos. Everyone I know from these areas thinks that way. They do not like learning they hate hard work and are content being at the lower rungs of life. So when the children do go to school and take there standardized test, more often then not, they dont try. They have a whatever attitude towards it. And for the few that do try, they just arent prepared because the people around them and raising them have this disdain towards learning.I have a close connectedness with people who embody the White Guilt theory and the Stereotype threat idea. I have lived with it all of my life and I can say it has affected me. In high school and even in college I have seen an abundance of students who are whole-heartedly living in the age of white guilt. Its not that they dont try its jus t they do enough to get by because they know if they make it to a certain point, aids like affirmative action and minority quotas will take them where they need to go. So when it comes to test taking they do try, but wont stress themselves out over it.Although they are just as smart as their white counterparts, they just dont see the need to put in the extra effort. Students that experience stereotype threat are just as prevalent. I can say that I fit into this mold. These students do in fact try to hard. They try so hard to prove the stereotype wrong they actually end of proving it. They try so hard not to make mistakes on the test that they do. They try so hard not to contribute to the gap, they actually do. So the reason the gap exist is a combination of many different people that come from different demographics and situations.All of these added together make the achievement gap in test scores. It is clear to see that this gap cannot be explained by one theory. Too many blacks c ome from to many different situations for this to be the case. So we can see that when these are added up it amounts to the gap in test scores among other things. So how can it be fixed? Just like there is not one factor contributing to the gap, there is not one way to fix the gap. The solution would be more of a chain reaction effect. The problem starts in the inside city where the lazy I dont care attitude is prevalent.These are the people that create the negative stereotype black people have. So the blacks that are doing better than these people and are trying to do better in life have to bear the burden that the ghetto blacks place on them. The people that apply to Hughes theory are ashamed of them. The people in Shelby Steeles theory are lazy because the world is trying to integrate them (the ghetto blacks). And the people in Claude Steeles theory are working so hard to overcome the stereotype the ghetto blacks have laid on them.Until the blacks from the inner city change not hing will. The blacks in the higher rungs of life cant change their ways, in this case test taking ways, until the burden placed on them is lifted. So until the inner city mentality changes, the gap will forever be there. Works Cited CHRISTOPHER, JENCKS. The Black-White Test Score Gap. The New York Times. 1998. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. . Hughes, Langston. The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (1926). Welcome to English Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois. 926. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. . Sowell, Thomas. Thomas Sowell Crippled by Their Culture. OrthodoxyToday. org Home. 26 Apr. 2005. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. . Steele, Shelby. The Age of White Guilt and the Disappearance of the Black Individual. CIR Home. Nov. 2002. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. . Steele, Claude M. Thin Ice Stereotype Threat and Black College Students 99. 08. The Atlantic News and Analysis on Politics, Business, Culture, Technology, National, International, and viands a? TheAtlantic. com. 1999. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. .