Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in America. This greatly affects our students in MPS. When you cross a bridge and 99% of the people in e neighborhood are a minority race, you know something is wrong in this city. Students are greatly affected by this since they are with each other on a day to day basis but can live in completely different areas and live completely different lives.
While I was in Jackson, MS for a mission trip we spent a great deal of time discussing social injustices. West Jackson is a completely different place than downtown Jackson that mostly people think of. West Jackson is predominantly African American and about one out of every four houses is boarded up and abandoned. Since these people cannot afford to pay rent to the unreasonable landlords, they abandon the houses and therefore have no credit. By having no credit you cannot buy your own home, which means you have no equity. When you cannot own your own property you must continuously pay rent which is like basically flushing your money down the drain every month; your money is not going anywhere except someone else's pocket. Also, if you do not own the property reside on, you usually do not care about the upkeep of it either.
This vicious cycle that the African Americans are currently in begins with education. If you are not able to get an equal education, or do not care to since you might have much larger problems in your life, then you will not go to college and eventually get a good job. As a future educator, my job will be to empower the students to take hold of their future and realize that they have the ability to break this cycle. With a solid education, they can go anywhere that they want, but they need to be interactive and engaged in the classroom and the content. This is where the educator needs to step in and create a positive learning environment.
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I agree we need to figure out a way to help change the social injustices that face alot of minority students. I was in Africa twice and I couldn't help but notice the social injustice being done to people over there by some rich people of a different race and by people of the same race. I think that we really need to look at ourselves and see how we can make changes to the system here and how we as teachers can help end the cycle. We as teachers are in a position to help make profound impacts on students and if we can point out injustices and make them advocate for change I think we will be doing our jobs.
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