Race Issues & Education

From Paul Steinmetz blog, he talks about his interview with Elizabeth Alexander, a poet and chariman of the African American Studies at Yale who was at Obama's inauguration.  She speaks on racial issues and the education system in the United States and how come its not being looked at as an important factor. “Education is incredibly important,” she said. “Issues of curriculum and curriculum reform are important. Kids have to go to school and we have to ask, are going to teach them about this important, complex country we live in or not?”  I replied:

As an African American woman, I agree there is work to be done. However, I think Americans are learning about race diversity through society and media. I’m not saying its the right way because a lot of media is stereotyping and manipulates its audience. More culture classes should be added to the school systems and not just African American culture, but Latin and others since there’s such a great amount of races in the nation. With my experience enrolling in a African American culture class, if a college class doesn’t have a good amount of people enrolled in it, it will be canceled, which it was. I honestly see that as a problem, not just with the school but with students as well. But, as a student, increases in tuition and so on, we fight for our classes towards our degree and even when we have room for electives, we try to get courses related to our major. And I bet with Obama becoming the first black president, we all thought there would be an increase in black history. I haven’t seen it except for the month of February, black history month go figure.