Suburban house. White picket fence. Family of four, maybe with a dog. The American Dream is a long-standing, romanticized ethos of American life. From the dawn of America, we have long wanted freedom, opportunity, liberty and justice for all. Americans have been taught from day one to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” or to “take the bull by the horns,” grabbing every opportunity available. However, is this spirit really attainable? Are we able to chase our goals relentlessly? Or are these opportunities all a hoax?
Since the dawn of the United States, we have always claimed to value freedom, individual rights and equal opportunity. Yet, those same people who claim “liberty and justice for all” were the same people who used and abused Black men, women and children for slavery. Feeling guilt for our past actions, we now “offer” opportunities for the minorities of our country. However, these opportunities are often unfair, prejudiced, or strictly unavailable. To grasp these fleeting, disproportionate opportunities, Black people have to be educated, however, quality education is difficult to obtain.
For the Black community, education has largely been a topic of taboo. A topic in which the amount of hurt inflicted from the lack of opportunities regarding education is disproportionately greater than the desire to gain education. Rutgers University psychologist, Dr. Kent Harber, found that in middle-class neighborhoods, white children are often graded harsher than black students, ultimately prompting the desire to succeed in white students while not offering the same level of rigor and opportunities to black students. Even with being in the same neighborhood with the same grades and the same performance, white teachers are so focused on attempting to remain non-prejudiced and egalitarian that they don’t offer the same opportunities to black students. While this may seem fair to outsiders, opportunities for black students to excel are being taken away because of a deep desire to remain fair even if the outcome isn’t fair.
However, this prejudiced, unfair extension of “the American Dream” doesn’t only affect minorities, but it even reaches our own schools. Take, for
example, the switch to the hour schedule. Initially,
students were offered eight classes per year. Now, the school only offers six. Numerous students are being sent to the alternative education school, or are failing their classes. With six classes, the margin for error is less. Students have fewer opportunities to make up classes, as they are only allowed six classes per year, compared to the initial eight. Coupled with the fact that the school didn’t consider faculty or student feelings with the switch to the six-hour day, opportunities for students to fail and ultimately grow are being stripped away.
In continuation, several states are also restricting which AP classes can be taken, as well as what books can be read in school. Florida, for example, has restricted an AP African-American studies class that would focus on the Black Lives Matter movement, Black feminism and amending the wrongdoings against the black community. Similarly, they’re also banning books such as “Gender Queer,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “This Book is Gay.” By doing this, we’re suppressing our own history, refusing to acknowledge our mistakes, and ultimately restricting opportunities to learn and grow from these mistakes.
The “American Dream,” is constantly being diminished because of prejudice. We’re continually letting pre-conceived notions foster a deep-rooted unwillingness to increase opportunities for those who lack opportunities. To combat this, we must call out the injustices, address them and open the door for change, equality and justice for all.