By Leah Spencer Hopkins
The issues of equality remain a top priority in education
and in American culture but one must recognize that inequality is merely a
symptom and not the cause for the lack of social justice in education and other
systems. Too often our society chooses to turn its face to the matters that tarnish
American culture and society in general. While segregation, racism, and slavery,
have proven to be very much alive today, despite the good efforts of leaders over
the generations, who have fought to make equitable change in our society;
somehow, we still find that inequality is interwoven in every institution of
our society.
Individuals continue to fight for civil rights and for
acceptance, respect, equality, and freedom. When racism is symptomatic, the
spectator often has no idea of what the victims of inequality feel and why they
feel disquieted about their condition. Although one can only imagine what it is
like to grow up as a superior race, the superior race can only seek to identify
with what the non-superior race experience in America. Entitlement is real, and
the entitled know that they are entitled to privilege on every level in
America.
Entitlement contributes to one’s ability to make a decent
wage for living in this economy. If one earns a good education, then one will
qualify for a good job to help to avoid the stresses that so many in the lower
class face. Good education does not guarantee a good job if one is in the
minority race but the quality of the education will certainly create a
greater-odds ratio (OR). If one happens to be privileged to attend a grade
school and high school in an affluent community, then one may have exposure enough to
gain the thinking needed for achieving high scores on standardized testing and
will possibly receive scholarship or help for college tuition. On the other
hand, if one is not so fortunate and had to grow up in a non-affluent community
where one’s parent’s struggled and have to take out loans for paying tuition,
then one has begun what I call the modern day educational slavery trade. The lower class seek out higher education only
to find that they have fallen into the rich man’s trap of taking risky loans in
order to pay the tuition for schools that often do not prepare students for the
current economy. Upon graduation, the loan payments begin, the debt to the rich
continues and the cycle for the poor is perpetuated. The real battle is not a
race war but a class war and the race war is a symptom and often a tool used by
the super rich. As King Solomon would say, this too, I have learned under the sun.
While big business obviously has no compassion for small
businesses, the middle class and lower class small business continue to support
large businesses that do not care about the poor. This too is another modern
day form of slavery. Paying low wages for an honest day’s work is slavery. The
big companies pay minimal wages to employees that cannot begin to support their
families. Big companies barely pay crumbs for earned education and hard labor
while they earn billions off of the backs of the poor and poorly educated.
Race tensions have never ceased, as no matter how much money
African Americans have made in this country over the years, we continue to
witness their senseless demise, as their money is soon taken away through the
hands of conniving individuals through intentional ruthless means whether
through death or unjust courts. The senseless destruction, credibility, and the
name of a rich Black man seems like fair game, but this too is slavery as the
mocking of the name of a great African American is modern day lynching and also for
the purpose of maintaining white supremacy. The savage attacks on successful
African Americans are only to castrate or emasculate that individual for purposes
of vain control. The evil has never stopped, as for centuries, history bears
witness of this evil.
The senseless struggle for more education, more money, and
more respect can obviously leave one with a feeling of futility, but I submit
that one must never quit. Despite the the cycle of historic and modern day
martyrs, we must maintain hope. However, our hope can never be in the man made
systems as the systems were made for the rule of men. Many have come before us, and have
fought for equality, civil rights, and social justice in education and society,
only to see the same issues exist in different forms hundreds of years later.
Evil may look different today than it did 200 years ago, but evil is still
evil. One can certainly recognize that the cycle and issues of mankind exist, even
as far back as Adolf Hitler; who hated the Jews, and the dark ages in American
history before the abolition of slavery. Man’s unwillingness to embrace the
good from all humanity, and those who are racially different is an awful blight. All over the world, inequality and senseless race wars exist.
Mankind is attacked and threatened for the elimination of a particular race or
group of people. This somehow provides a sense of satisfaction for the internal
hatred and contempt that exist as if the insatiable thrills of hate and evil
rule the world.
The evil is loose and has been loosed. We have witnessed the
evil but have not identified the evil. People adapt to the evil as though it is
a way of life and spend years seeking how to exist with the evil as if we have
no alternative. I believe that education
is a man made system and vehicle through which change can occur in our world as
the world is receptive to knowledge whether it is good or bad. Education is a mighty power but can also be
infiltrated. Although the system is usually quite biased, good can still
emerge.
One must know that we are not forsaken. The world is not forsaken
for God sees. Real resolution is beyond education and is found in the system
that God has given and that system is love. When love is present, hate, disdain, inequality, and all
other human corruption, and dishonorable behaviors will dissolve. Love seems unattainable
in our world and in education where God is not acknowledged, but God has
deposited himself in all of us in the form of a conscious. God calls us to
follow Him because His very essence is love and will solve problems of the
entire world. Evil will not survive where love rules. Through love, we will
learn that our differences are needed for helping one another to uncover the
the prosperity available through love and acceptance. For nations who boast of
their faith, but emphasize hate, these nations are far from God. God so loved
the world that He gave. The point is that God’s presence and influence in the
world is available as God is knocking at our door right now. He can heal the
world but we must let Him rule.
