June 21, 2017
Page 7
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O PINION
What Black Parents Must Do This Summer
Activities to
make up for the
education gap
J aWanZa K unJufu
There is a three year edu-
cational gap between black
and white students. Many
people love to believe it’s
due to income, fatherless-
ness, educational attainment
of the parent, and lack of paren-
tal involvement. I believe a major
reason for the gap is we continue
to close schools for the summer as
if we are an agrarian economy.
Very few black youth will be
farming this summer. If you mul-
tiply three months by 12 years you
will see the three year gap. There
is no shortcoming with black
youth if their schools remained
open during the summer and/or
their parents kept them academi-
cally engaged.
Many middle-income parents
who value education enroll their
children in some type of academ-
ic experience during the summer.
They also visit libraries, muse-
ums, zoos and colleges. Other par-
ents allow their children to sleep
longer, play more video games,
by
watch more television and play
basketball until they can’t see the
hoop. These students will have to
review the same work they had
mastered in May in
September.
Black
parents
cannot allow their
child to lose three
months every year.
Black parents can-
not say they cannot
afford the library.
many people were staring at him.
His wife and children had to tell
him he was the only black man in
the building! I am appealing to ev-
ery father to take his children this
summer to the library, museum,
and the zoo. I am appealing to ev-
ery mother if he won’t, you will.
We need every parent to make
sure their child reads at least
one book per week and to write
a book report. I am reminded of
the formula Sonya Carson used
turn off the television, read a
book and write a report that her
sister would grade!
I have a theory that I can go into
your house and within five min-
utes tell you the type of student
who lives there and predict their
future. I believe that engineers,
doctors, lawyers, accountants etc.
need different items in their house
than ballplayers, rappers and crim-
inals. I am very concerned when I
visit a house that has more cds and
reasons boys dislike reading is
because of the content. The set
is titled Best Books for Boys. We
also have one for girls, parents and
teachers.
Enjoy your summer. Let’s close
the gap. I look forward to your
child’s teacher asking your child
what did you do for the summer?
And your child answering we
went to the library, museum, zoo,
colleges and other great educa-
tional places.
I have a theory that I can go into your house and within
five minutes tell you the type of student who lives there and
predict their future. I believe that engineers, doctors, lawyers,
accountants etc. need different items in their house than
ballplayers, rappers and criminals. I am very concerned when
I visit a house that has more cds and downloads than books.
It’s free! Most museums have
discounted days. A friend of mine
shared his experience with me
when he took his family to the
museum. He wondered why so
to develop Ben Carson to become
the best pediatric neurosurgeon.
This low-income single parent,
with a third grade education, had
enough sense to tell her sons to
downloads than books.
My company, African Amer-
ican Images has designed a spe-
cial collection of books for boys.
Research shows one of the major
Jawanza Kunjufu is a writer,
educator, publisher from Chicago
who has dedicated his career to
addressing the ills afflicting black
culture in the United States.
Juneteenth Still Resonates in Powerful Ways
It reminds us
how far we have
yet to go
J eSSicah p ierre
On June 19, 1865,
Union soldiers arrived
in Galveston, Texas.
They carried some his-
toric news: Slavery had
finally and completely
ended, they declared.
All of America’s enslaved people
were now free, some two and a
half years after President Lin-
coln’s Emancipation Proclama-
tion.
That day in June would soon
become “Juneteenth,” a holiday
still celebrated in communities
across the United States.
African Americans have now
been free from slavery for over
150 years. Over the course of
those years, the United States has
made some appreciable and even
impressive progress. In 1964, pas-
sage of the Civil Rights Act top-
pled Jim Crow. A year later, the
Voting Rights Act challenged dis-
criminatory voting laws.
by
We’ve even seen the election
— and re-election — of the na-
tion’s first black president.
So why, amid all this progress,
does the Juneteenth holiday still
resonate so powerful-
ly for so many Ameri-
cans?
Because Juneteenth
reminds us how far we
have yet to go. Racial
inequality remains one
of the top issues of our
time. Black households,
research shows, continue to lag
economically behind their white
counterparts, in both income and
wealth.
Last summer, the Institute for
Policy Studies and the Corpora-
tion for Enterprise Development
explored that inequality in a report
called the The Ever-Growing Gap,
which focused on the essential
role wealth plays in achieving fi-
nancial security and opportunity.
Over the past 30 years, the re-
port found, the average wealth
of white families grew at three
times the rate of growth for black
families. If those trends continue,
black families would have to work
another 228 years to amass the
amount of wealth white families
already hold today.
That’s almost as long as the 245
years that legal slavery stained co-
lonial America.
Over the course of those years,
slave labor built the backbone of
America’s economy — and gave
white families a 245-year head
start on building household wealth
and overcoming economic insecu-
rity.
Juneteenth helps us remember
this history — and we need to re-
member.
The conventional narrative
around wealth building in Ameri-
ca simply ignores slavery and its
aftermath. Those with more than
ample wealth, the narrative goes,
fully merit what they have. And
others merit less.
“Most people look at the sto-
ry of inequality through the lens
of deservedness: People get what
they deserve,” writes my col-
league Chuck Collins in his book
Born on Third Base.
The standard narrative, he says,
implies “that people are poor be-
cause they don’t try as hard, have
made mistakes, or lack wit and
wisdom.” And the rich, the same
story goes, have worked “harder,
smarter, or more creatively.”
This “deservedness” narrative
never acknowledges the discrimi-
nation and other barriers that have
blocked black economic progress,
or the public policies that have
kept these barriers intact — things
like housing and employment dis-
crimination, mass incarceration,
and tax policies that favor the
wealthy over poor people of all
colors.
It’s time to take a close look at
federal policies and the role they
play in keeping the growth of
black wealth stagnant. In honor of
Juneteenth, let’s rededicate our-
selves to closing the racial wealth
divide.
Jessicah Pierre is the Inequali-
ty Media Specialist at the Institute
for Policy Studies. Distributed by
OtherWords.org
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