The inextricable linkage between education and self-empowerment or freedom is the primary reason despots have always opposed education for the masses.
American educators had no need to title their educational responsibilities DEI, or succumb to such titling. They simply had to continue providing high quality/high quantity education to all students – pre-K-college, if that is what they were doing. But Americans like to label stuff! Unfortunately, labels affixed to very complex, controversial concepts too often fail to stimulate greater understanding, but instead result in simplification to irrelevance or obfuscation.
The DEI label—against which White Supremacists organized their weapons of misogyny, heteropatriarchy, theocracy and, in particular, racism — gave Trumpists a convenient, delineated target for a stepped-up assault on Democratic Principles, and, thus, on America.
The history of education for Black Americans is THE classic example of how quality education can be withheld with widespread support, including the governments’, because of DETRIMENTAL RELIANCE.
DETRIMENTAL RELIANCE and BROWN V. THE BOARD OF EDUCATION: A critically significant promise was made; relying on that promise seemed rational; opposers were chastised; justice would have ensued only if the promise had been fulfilled; but reliance led to detrimental outcomes.
There are three means by which educational excellence is withheld from children. The first is the legal separation of children into different schools with different missions, standards and resources. The second is where children are admitted into the same school buildings but placed into classes with drastically different levels of course content — college prep to worthless. The third is to treat students in the same classroom in ways that enhance learning in some and discourage learning in others; e.g., teacher attitudes, expectations, and behavior. The third means was exposed in an MIT study that found that white teachers thought Black children were genetically incapable of academic excellence.
BROWN – widely touted during debates to be of significant educational benefit for Black children if enacted — exemplified all three means of preventing children from gaining access to high quality educational resources because of preventative strategies employed by racist leaders.
When I graduated from All-Black Lucy Addison High School in 1958, I did not understand Brown at all. By the time I understood – allegedly to provide Pre- K–12 education for all students equal to mine – I was delighted because of my achievements in military schools and “white” colleges were stellar, as I fulfilled my responsibilities to my people. Eventually, I was inducted into three academic honor societies including Phi Beta Kappa, and received free college education through the PhD.
During the revolving-door era, I saw massive numbers of college failures by Black students at white colleges, which made me aware of Brown’s broken promise long before Jack Greenburg, fifty years after enactment, said that Brown had been a failure for poor Black school children.
Currently, huge percentages of African-American students fail to meet any of the American College Testing’s (ACT) benchmarks that assess college readiness.
The most striking ACT statistic in 2021 was that only 6% of all Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in English, mathematics, science, and reading. Whites were more than five times as likely as Blacks to be prepared for college-level work in all four areas. (The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2022)
Don’t be deceived by college admissions data — attend to graduation rates.
The correlation between the quantity and quality of education and success in America is incontrovertible.
REMINDER: In 2018, a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that there had been “no progress” for African Americans on homeownership, unemployment, incarceration/Criminal Justice and poverty in 50 years. I add Education!
Anyone who interferes with citizens’ access to high quality education, i.e., attacks on DEI, is a Traitor — a Domestic Enemy — of the highest possible order to individual citizens and, therefore, to America. The Fascists who now control the GOP have made their intentions clear with respect to education for the masses and the fostering of a Trump Dynasty, and they must be thwarted.
NOTE, AGAIN: 190 million eligible voters did not choose Trump in 2024, 111 million of whom self-disenfranchised. The DNC must understand that Advocates for Democratic Principles wear all the party labels. Some, gaslighted, voted for Trump, but are now disaffected. The DNC insistence that people affix the Democratic Party label to themselves IS going to lead to a squandering of alienated Republicans’ votes.
Given Trump’s ownership of JOHN ROBERTS/SCOTUS and his Punks in congress, the only sure way to stop the attacks on education and Democracy is to vote to unseat Trump’s congressional allies – House and Senate — on November 3, 2026.
If there is not a resounding defeat of Trumpists in 2026, 2028 will be irrelevant.
