You need to improve.

Educational inequality. Its hard to pretend it doesn't exist, especially when you constitute the latter part of the spectrum. Back in high school I was a student who worked very hard in order to be placed in the G.A.T.E./A.P./Honors track. My high school was one of the newer ones in the city of Bakersfield. Its location placed it in the middle of various of low income neighborhoods. The majority of our student body consisted of Latino students which constituted approximately 85% of racial demographics. This reflects the city's demographics where Hispanics or Latinos make up 32.5% of the city's population, making this second highest after the 65.5% of whites. Due to our limited selection and availability of classes any student that was placed in the higher achieving tracks pretty much shared the same schedule with the rest of the students that comprised this track, the majority Latino students. 

I don't recall the exact date, but I remember that it was a Monday morning when revised class rankings were released. This was a big day for all of the senior students, we were close to graduation and ready to part for college. Our homeroom teacher was vey excited to share this with us. As soon as we were all seated she called out the names of five students. One by one the students stood up and walked to the front of the classroom. First a white student, two asians, a black student, and finally another white student."Look at the top five students of school". We were asked to clap for them and congratulate them on their success. I'll admit, I was jealous. I had worked very hard despite some very hard obstacles but that wasn't enough to compete with the first 5, I was ranked 12th. Our teacher then attempted to lead a discussion that would further celebrate the students' success and encourage us to continue working hard. There was something she said that stood out for me. She said that it amazed her that the "minority" students in our school could be so successful and stand apart from others, and that we should also strive to do so and work to improve and stand as a competent minority (or as Latinos). 

This was a slap to the face. 

It infuriated me to know that our own teacher viewed our race or ethnicity as incompetent. How could someone who I deemed to be educated be so ignorant to the inequalities that made our struggle so hard? As I'm writing this I can't help but feel the rush of feelings that frustrate me and think, why didn't I speak up? How could I just let her get away with saying something so ignorant... so humiliating? A person, who as an educator forms part of the educational institution had the audacity to voice her individual beliefs and discriminate against not only another individual, but a whole class full of Latino students; color-blind racism. This teacher chose to ignore or dismiss our distinctive needs, experiences, and identities that differentiate us from whites. There are structural inequalities that hinder the Latino population in my community and make it that much harder for us to be able to compete when we are so disadvantaged. As a teacher, I would expect that she would know about the structural inequalities that exist and understand how this could possibly be a detriment to our success. Rather than encourage students to compete as a minority she should advocate for additional resources. Something as small as offering individual tutoring could make a difference in the underresourced schools that we are obliged to attend to due to  our family's socio-economic status. 

It is true.. that educational inequality is real. We can see this reflected directly in the higher education and GPA. Figure 8-3 of Golash-Boza's book Race & Racism presents the national average GPA by race/ethnicity in 2008-2009. According to the National Center for Education Statistics the averages are as follows: 3.26 for Asian/Pacific Islanders, 3.09 for Whites, 2.84 for Hispanics, and 2.69 for Blacks. There is a statistically significant difference between these different ethnicities. Furthermore, the percentage of the population 25 years and over with a bachelor's degree or higher placed Asians at 50.2%, Whites at 29.3%, Blacks at 17.7%, and Hispanics at 13%. 

Racism, it persists. This isn't just because we don't have laws that no longer permit it. Its because it have laws that don't explicitly permit it. They do so implicitly. By just looking at immigration statistics we can see the whole story of racism illustrated. Immigration laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 directly excluded the Chinese from coming to the United States. Today, immigration policies are targeted at Hispanics, specifically Mexicans who "threaten" American color and culture. There is no way anybody can say this is not racism because it directly targets a group, a racial group and goes further to the extent of dehumanizing them. We deny them due process, we deny them a voice, we deny them an opportunity to pursue the American Dream (which in itself is a false notion). 

It is also because there are so many ignorant people that either aren't educated or choose not to be. They turn a blind eye to the inequalities that affect each and every person that it not white. And why would they? Racial ideologies divides humans, serving the interest of one group; the white. Race justifies the inequality that exists.