Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? By Beverly Daniel Tatum

 Prologue Reflection:

Hello everyone and welcome to my first blog post!

    In the very first sentences of the prologue to "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?," the author explains how while working on the book, he was proposed the questions; "are things getting better" and "is that still happening." I believe that these questions really set the tone for the reading ahead. It causes us to stop and think, what does better even look like? As a society that stems from systemic racism, we find it difficult to come to a conclusion to that question, as the answer is not so black and white. 

    "The 2014 school year marked the first time in U.S. history that the majority of elementary and secondary school children were children of color - Black, Latinx, Asian or American Indian" (Tatum, p. 2)

   

    While reading this prologue, you are thrown many different statistics and claims your way. One that really stood out to me was that "our public schools are more segregated today than they were in 1980." (Tatum, p. 3) Author Tatum describes how children of color are attending schools that have student bodies "that are 10 percent or less White." (Tatum, p. 4) This is a direct correlation of housing patterns and the types of people that make up different communities, in which you can infer while reading. When communities are dominated by specific races, it is a cause of race-based policies and practices that have been in place for many years. Even if the divide is not currently intentional, it might very well have been during past times. 

    This all comes together and starts to relate because communities are what make up student bodies, so if the communities are segregated and heavily made up by a certain race there will be very little diversity inside schools. This really becomes known when you are living in small towns and cities such as places similar to Hopkinton. I also lived in a small town in upstate New York previously to Hopkinton, and you are faced with the same complications there as well. It is much harder to become educated when you don't have a variety of cultures influencing you and your understanding of people. You are forced to take the initiative and educate yourself, as that is essential for experiencing life. While schools do their best to educate their students, more must be done to really grasp an understanding of the differences you share from others. 

    When individuals suffer from a lack of education, whether it is because of their environment or own personal will, it affects others and not just them! For example, on page 26 the author goes to share the devastating story of Trayvon Martin and his brutal death. George Zimmerman is a prime example of someone who was uneducated, and made prejudiced decisions because of that. If you grow up only hearing about something or someone, or learning about it from a second-hand source the chances are that you don't quite have the understanding that you thought you did. George Zimmerman had "thought" that Trayvon "looked like he was up to no good, or on drugs or something," when in reality, he was simply trying to safely get home. While this occurred in 2012, there are many, MANY, examples of this in the current age. Gorge Floyd's death persisted as a major wake-up call to many during the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The list similar to these events goes on and on, and with many of them being very recent, it really makes you lean to the negative side when revisiting the questions previously asked of "are things getting better?"

Floyd's face on a mural in Berlin, Germany:

Works Cited:

Trayvon Martin was shot while walking home from a store in a gated neighborhood
     outside Orlando. npr.org, 21 Mar. 2012, www.npr.org/2012/03/21/149058865/
     trayvon-martin-was-afraid-too. Accessed 7 Mar. 2021.

Floyd's face on a mural in Berlin, Germany. BBC.com, 31 May 2020, www.bbc.com/
     news/world-us-canada-52871936. Accessed 7 Mar. 2021.

Tatum, Beverly Daniel. "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the
     Cafeteria?" : and Other Conversations about Race. New York :Basic Books,
     2003.