Ethnic Studies- Sleeter

If we are going to be honest, I myself I have not experienced the same inequities as some of my fellow classmates and friends have experienced. Something so complicated cannot be understood and as stated by Sleeter, "educators, more specifically white educators, assume that publishers "took care" of most forms of biased and whites always appear to receive the most attention". However, the paragraph itself made me realize what not to do in my classroom. Along with the inequities they face, I believe it that there is a certain level/demeter people of color or different ethnicity are also held to. White people general stereotype based ethnic background; for example, Asian students always have straight A's or hispanic people rarely graduate. I have witnessed from high school, my principal gathering my senior class because lets face it, 80% of us were about to not graduate. He specifically called out the hispanic population (I grew up in Woonsocket, so there were more hispanics/ other ethnic groups then there are white people, so I am completely comfortable with being friends with anyone), stating that they are the reasoning for our graduation rate being so low. I swear it was like you could hear a pin drop in there; no one knew whether to cry or scream, and I felt horrible. At that moment, I knew that even my principal looked past them being human and just saw them as numbers weighing him down. His point came across horribly, although maybe he did not even mean it the way he said it, but everyone felt it; including me. Even studies as recent as 2007 in the passage that ''text(books) rarely emphasize racism, racial issues, or race relation''. This passage made me think about how racism is often perceived as something from the past and Sleeter used the word "divorced" from other historical issues. Whenever you mention the phrase 'racism' to people, the first thought is what they did to stop slavery/racism in the past, but never mention the current day problem that yet to be resolved. I also did not know Horace Mann was a real person haha that is so cool. Massachusetts school laws