The Village Talk Analysis

An Analysis of the Problem of Racial Socialization in African American Children in Support of “The Village Talks: Racial Socialization of Our Children” by Harriette Pipes McAdoo

(187)Introduction:

The subject of this paper will define the problem of racial socialization of African American children in the educational and career development process. In the educational process, African American children must contend with a primarily white hegemonic system that devalues their race, cultural heritage, and value as students in the learning process. More so, these racialized values reduce their potential in a predominantly white society. Students have developed “double-consciousness” that forces them to see through a conflicting sense of “white”

In many white schools systems, many black children are being taught to embrace an Anglo-European culture without acknowledging African history or the long-term effects of slavery on black people in the United States. In fact, many white school systems employ predominantly white people to educate both black and white students in the American school system:

Not the least of which is to assure that the disproportionate presence of w\White teachers in our nation’s classrooms is not causally related to the disproportionate presence of children of color in the lower quartiles of academic achievement (Howard “We Can’t Teach” 5).

In this white hegemonic educational environment, McAdoo’s articled expresses the problem of passive racial education as a problem for African American students that are sidelined in favor of white educational values. The preference to educating white children with white teachers defines the necessity of African American parents teaching their children racial and cultural values at home to displace this unequal cultural and racially divided school

Therefore, many African American parents may feel safe in knowing that white schools teach racial diversity in the classroom: “They seem to think that if the concept of race is not discussed, it will never hurt their children” (50). The counter argument put forth by white teachers and administrators would be that white schools offer racial diversity and acceptance of minority values. However, many of these schools feel that ignoring the issue of historical issues, such as slavery, will encourage black children to assimilate into a racially diverse culture. This is an important reason why African American parents need to become more aware of the issue of racial socialization in the white school systems, which can be resolved by educating the child on racial history and social interaction in the home. McAdoo makes very important arguments about the veneer of racial diversity in the white public school systems, which African American parents can more adequately teach their