White supremacy is an aspect that negatively affects students of color's performance. In mixed-race universities, racial discrimination is a common occurrence, whereby most minority students are the main victims. Many black students have their first experience of personalized racism in the higher institutions of learning as they live in minority groups' neighborhoods as well as attend high schools with all-black kids. American law guarantees social protection and equal opportunities to all people, making white supremacy a violation of the minority groups' civil rights. White supremacy affects relationships among students and learners, which has negative impacts on the learners' performance. Additionally, white supremacy intimidates the minority learners making them perceive themselves as inferior. This essay analyzes white supremacy in higher institutions of learning and its impacts on the students of color's performance. It avails evidence of inequalities in these institutions and the reasons for poor performance among the minority groups. The essay includes a detailed discussion on various approaches such as peaceful protests that can be adopted in the fight for equality and minimizing the effects of white supremacy in the higher institutions of learning.
Importance of Addressing the Issue of White Supremacy in Higher Institutions of Learning
Racism appears to be sustained and supported in the United States' higher institutions of learning despite its negative effects on the students of color success. Jenkins (n.d.) defines racism as a form of systematic oppression that affects the social, cultural, and political structures. Additionally, racism perpetuates and institutionalizes norms, beliefs, and unequal allocation of assets and privileges among the people of color and whites. Jenkins (n.d.) asserts that American history confirms that the whites have been privileged in accessing education in the high institutions of learning. White privilege is a form of racism guiding and propelling various aspects of the higher education process, including admission, curricula, and students' retention. Therefore, white privilege influences major aspects in the higher institutions, in which the students of color are the less privileged as evident in the number of students completing and admitted in the schools.
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White privilege appears to be less acknowledged and addressed, in which the issue tends to worsen the dynamics between learners of color, white educators, and white learners. As white privilege and racism are permitted in the United States colleges and universities, white learners are advantaged over the students of color in succeeding academically (Haynes, 2017). Therefore, white privilege appears as a counterbalance of racism, which favors the whites. For example, racism and white privilege adversely affect the learning and teaching process, especially in areas where a white professor teaches learners from diversified cultural, racial, and ethnic groups. According to Heynes (2017), racism appears to be invisible to the privileged, who are the majority groups in these higher education institutions. Therefore, white privilege and racism appear to be invisible to these white professors who express their dominant beliefs, views, and their way of addressing issues as the norm, which all learners must conform to. Therefore, students' failure to conform to the teacher's norms makes these students appear incapacitated, thus excluded and marginalized from the rest of the learners.
There are many racist processes in the higher institutions of learning that limit and benefit white students. According to Jenkins (n.d.), the curricular content in the American universities and colleges tend to reflect various intellectual and sociocultural histories of the whites and their worldviews. Therefore, this curriculum socializes the whites students to perceive themselves in the positive primary mode while viewing the learners of color from a negative secondary mode (Jenkins, n.d). Additionally, the general students' experiences in mixed-race universities and colleges are greatly influenced by the race concept. For example, GRE and MAT graduate entrance examinations are confirmed to be socioeconomically, racially, linguistically biased, such that they disadvantage the minority students but most American universities use these exams as a major requirement to admit students.
Higher institutions' climate, class, and department structure greatly affect the minority group students from continuing with their education. According to Jenkins (n.d.), most of the students of color were unlikely to continue with their schooling in the mixed-race universities as they could not access graduate assistants as the faculty concluded that they lack the potential. More so, under-representation of the minority groups in the faculty and the curriculum increased the dropout rates among these learners. Currently, mixed-race universities expect the students of color to conform to the standards and educational expectations that are set by both white learners and teachers, in which if they deviate, they risk becoming failures. Additionally, the students of color are required to change their beliefs, actions, and perspectives to the status quo, while the white students and tutors maintain it. These minority learners have to deal with racial stereotyping, racially offensive comments, unthoughtful integration of cultural histories in the curriculum as well as the threat to the sense of belonging in the mixed-race college classrooms (Jenkins, n.d.). By addressing the white supremacy issue, the various ways in which this form of discrimination occurs against the students of color are identified, thus helping to devise approaches to fight for equality to minimize the educational gap between whites and minority groups students.
History of White Supremacy
White dominance and racism persist in the American higher institutions of learning. According to Ash et al. (2020), the privileged mindset of the white male founders that allowed Harvard college to admit white men from rich backgrounds is pervasive in today's society in both the covert and overt forms. The United States still lags in addressing the issue of white dominance despite the many approaches to attend to the racial issue. Since the colonial era, the American colleges and universities were not meant to provide education to the minority groups, despite the Black slaves participating in the construction of some of the learning institutions. Ash et al. (2020) assert that in the early colonial era, there was no commitment or the desire to educate the minority groups, in which many American universities were established with an anti-black ideology. Hults (1999) affirms that the law from higher education barred African Americans from education while in most States, they could not access education altogether. Therefore, African Americans tried by all means to educate their children and themselves.
As an approach to avail education to the Blacks who could not access education from the traditionally white institutions, black universities and colleges were developed to avail education, although their institutions were under-resourced. Hults (1999) highlights universities such as Morehouse, Wilberforce, Shaw, and Lincoln, which were established immediately after the civil war to avail education to the blacks. Ash et al. (2020) assert that until the 1960s, many students of color could not access, persist, and graduate from traditionally white universities and colleges. However, despite the recent increase in the minority students accessing and persisting in the white universities, there exists constant assault on the people of color's intellectual capacity, that resulted in practices and policies limiting these students’ full access to the higher institutions of learning (Ash et al., 2020). Additionally, other forms of racism are embedded in the higher education structures, which are manifested in the campus climate resulting in an unfavorable climate for the minority students to persists in these colleges, as well as resulting in their high rates of underperformances.
Current Conditions of White Supremacy in the Higher Institutions of Learning
The American higher education is still segregated despite the purports of how the system is in the post-racial discrimination era. According to Martin et al. (2016), many students of color are still experiencing structural inequalities within their learning institutions. Most students of color are likely to leave school due to the various differential treatment they experience in the higher institutions, unlike their white counterparts. These students face the stereotype threat from their teachers. According to Martin et al. (2016), students of color are always in fear when they find themselves in situations that are likely to confirm the stereotypes held upon their ethnic group. Therefore, these situations result in stress, which negatively affects students of color's academic performance.
The cultural mismatches that exist in the language differences among the teachers and the learners cause misunderstandings that are harmful to the learners. For example, intonation differences when responding and asking questions, as well as the everyday interactions, can be viewed as a lack of disrespect, which results in many disciplinary actions towards the minority groups compared to their white counterparts. Additionally, the frequent referrals of the minority students for the special type of education from the white tutors due to the cultural mismatches leads to the mislabeling and stereotyping of these minority students, which affects their performance negatively. Students of color constantly complain of racial discrimination in mixed-race universities (Smith et al., 2020). For example, in the experiential learning activity, the students from the University of California expressed in the questionnaires that they felt unwelcome in the university and unaccepted by the faculty. Therefore, the students of color feel that the classroom environment is not emotionally healthy, which shows that they do not feel respected by the faculty.
Current Debate on the Issue of White Supremacy
White supremacy has been discussed alongside poverty. Sage Publications Inc. (2016) argue that poverty is one of the major factors affecting the minority groups, in which it increases the incarceration rates as well as reduces the educational opportunities among these groups. In the aspect of colorblindness, an institutionalized form of racism is embedded in the American social policies, since the colonial era (Sage Publications Inc., 2016). There are changes in the aspect of white supremacy, as some of the formerly subordinated groups are being accepted. Additionally, a variety of protective legislation that provides full civil rights has been passed, minimizing the racial problems among the minority groups. Sage Publications Inc. (2016) argue that racial problems are inevitable in the current society as situational changes such as economic declines and backlash bring back the issue of racial supremacy.
White supremacy is associated with oppression. Sage Publication Inc. (2016) define the term oppression as the social act of restricting a group, individual, or an institution. The oppressed people tend to be exploited, devalued, and deprived of the privileges by the particular group, which has the privileges. Sage Publications Inc. (2016) argue that the passing of certain discriminatory laws greatly influences the social acceptability of a particular group. Mandating discrimination in the law results in prejudice against the protected minority groups, which results in increased hate crimes. Therefore, the students of color protection rights can be associated with bullying and other application of hateful languages towards them. Another concept explained in the recent white supremacy topics is that people are more privileged than others in the society because they possess characteristics such as being white and male, which are the values favored in the society. Therefore, white supremacy exists in universities as it is highly valued in the higher institutions of learning, and it is invisible to the white people that have the benefits.
Position on the Aspect of White Supremacy and the Goals of What needs to Change
White supremacy to me is an epistemology of ignorance among the whites, which serves to preserve a sense of self, which is decent while obtaining privileges that depend on the injustices against the people of color. Maintaining white supremacy requires people to actively maintain ignorance on certain aspects to enjoy the privileges, dominate as well as preserve the sense of self. White supremacy encourages whites to refuse the concept of humanity in which people are willing to allow minority groups to be exploited (Gibbons, 2018). These whites refuse to acknowledge and listen to the experiences of other people, which results in active silencing and marginalization, as evident in the American curriculum, which only acknowledges the history of the whites.
White supremacy is perpetuated by people's refusal to confront the violent histories and white domination of the other minority groups and how they continue to impact the present social life. Whites also refuse to share their space, including the residential areas, which results in highly segregated geographies that are capable of insulating the white ignorance as well as increasing the inequality (Gibbons, 2018). Finally, white supremacy refuses to face the structural causes of capitalism, which is incorporated in the aspects of white supremacy. Therefore, the main goals in the aspect of white supremacy are to challenge whites' ignorance of humanity and refusal to acknowledge the experiences of other people. Additionally, challenging whites' ignorance of capitalism, the long history of white domination, and social segregation are the aspects I wish to change.
Form of Protests
The public support in the fight against white supremacy war in the universities is necessary. According to Selvanathan and Jetten (2020), the public tends to support a movement if their actions are non-violent. Therefore, to get sympathy in the fight against white supremacy and get equal opportunities for these students, organization of peaceful protests in which we communicate the illegitimacy of the situation and promote the perception that collective action is an effective way for achieving social change is necessary (Jonathan & Lickel, 2019). The government is likely to listen to the white supremacy concerns impact on university education among the minority students if we remain non-violent. Therefore, to hold the peaceful protests, an online platform is created to gather all the minority university students and the white students that share the views that white supremacy should be eliminated in schools. The protests will involve posters, with pictures of the underprivileged and the lives they live due to the persisting white supremacy. Later on, if the peaceful protests do not yield positive feedback immediately, the minority groups will boycott classes in various mixed-race universities led by the leaders selected to manage the processes.
Conclusion
White supremacy is responsible for the various inequalities in higher institutions learning. It is responsible for the increased economic gap as it limits the number of minority groups accessing higher education, thus affecting the type of jobs they can access. If white supremacy is demolished people are likely to share their experiences, space and minimize the geographical segregations that exist. Demolition of white supremacy will reduce hate crimes that are associated with laws that favor a certain minority group. The capitalist nature is likely to be demolished, especially because of its exploitive nature, and encourage more communism. Equality will be rampant in which people will express their views openly concerning any community group without any form of stereotyping and application of hateful words. Therefore, white supremacy demolition will increase love and cooperation among people, especially learners and teachers, thus creating an atmosphere for one to learn and grow and become successful in society.
References
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Sage Publications, Inc. (2016). Minority Groups and the Impact of Oppression . Sagepub.com. Retrieved 6 December 2020, from https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-assets/68025_book_item_68025.pdf
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