Welcoming Families From Around the World

African Americans often seem cut off from the economic mainstream. They face higher risks of poverty, joblessness and incarceration than their fellow citizens do. Community organizing, civil rights legislation, landmark court decisions and rising education have advanced the cause of racial equality. Overt bigotry has been banished from public places, and polls show that whites harbor fewer prejudices than they used to. But these improvements have not been enough.

How can disadvantage persist so long after most laws, minds and practices have changed? Thomas M. Shapiro argues in this sober and authoritative book that we should look to disparities of wealth for the answer. Whites are wealthier than African Americans, and whites' wealth advantage is much bigger than their advantages in either income or education (the point of Shapiro's earlier study, Black Wealth/White Wealth, co-authored with Melvin Oliver). Whites start out ahead because they inherit more from their parents, and America's racially segregated housing markets boost whites' home equities, while depressing those of African-American families. Shapiro, a professor of sociology at Brandeis, takes readers through the implications of these inequities and concludes that African Americans will not gain significant ground in the wealth divide until inheritance and housing policies change.

Wealth is the sum of the important assets a person or family owns -- home equity, pension funds,saving accounts and investments. Wealth is better than income because it is durable. People use income to meet daily expenses, whereas wealth accumulates. People who have wealth tap it only to deal with emergencies or to take advantage of opportunities -- opportunities that usually build more wealth.

Wealth passes down from generation to generation. The main reason African Americans are currently worse off than whites, according to Shapiro, is that today's African Americans inherited less wealth from their parents than today's whites did. It is not hard to see why: The generation of African Americans now passed away accumulated less wealth because discrimination in their day kept most of them poor and denied them opportunities other Americans enjoyed.

The disparity in wealth not only persists, it mushrooms. Without a cushion of inherited wealth, emergencies hit harder, and people who have no nest egg have to let opportunities pass by. Because of the wealth deficit, African Americans find themselves more vulnerable to shocks and less able to capitalize on breaks than whites with the same income. So the next generation will inherit less, too. The wealth gap will not close anytime soon.

Shapiro blends statistical analysis and case studies of selected families in Boston, St. Louis and Los Angeles, showing the relative importance of wealth and the disparities in inheritance by class and race. He also supplies some individual case studies, which give depth and humanity to the numbers.

Wealth begins at home. A home-equity loan can see a family through a spell of unemployment or leverage an investment. Millions of middle-class Americans use tax-deductible home-equity loans to pay for their children's educations. Others buy rental property.

Because neighborhoods are racially segregated, African Americans' homes do not grow in value as fast as whites' homes do. Shapiro calculates that housing segregation costs African Americans tens of thousands of dollars in home equity. Homebuyers look for amenities commonly found in predominantly white neighborhoods. They pay extra for parks, convenient shopping and attractive views. Parents pay huge premiums for what they perceive to be good schools. Few parents can judge schools objectively. Instead, they use easy-to-observe markers, including the race of the students. These preferences raise the costs that first-time homebuyers face when they attempt to buy houses in those mostly white neighborhoods. Economic theory implies that if whites continue to waste money on irrational prejudices like this, market forces will eventually undo the racial disparity in wealth. But the experience of the last 50 years suggests otherwise. Inequality has grown because each new generation has been willing to pay a higher premium for these amenities. The market doesn't punish discrimination; it rewards it.

Whites fail to see any injustice in these differences. Shapiro's interviews convinced him that whites hide their privilege from themselves and, accordingly, feel no guilt for the hidden costs they impose on African Americans. People who inherited tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars nonetheless told Shapiro that they were self-made and self-reliant. They proudly told him how the assets they inherited grew under their stewardship. White parents use wealth to send their children to private schools or to give their adult children down payments for homes. They do not see how such practices hand today's inequalities on to the next generation.

Shapiro argues convincingly that these private matters spill over into public investment, too. He interviewed one upper-middle-class woman who told him that she was unconcerned with troubles in the local public school because she never intended to send her children there. Shapiro points out that her indifference -- and that of others like her -- is just one more obstacle in the path of people trying to improve local public education.

Families and generations are at the core of Shapiro's analysis. So I was surprised that he did not directly address how marriage and family structure fit into the cycles of accumulation, inheritance and investment. Married couples accumulate more than single parents do, according to other researchers. That suggests to me that African-American family issues must play a role in the wealth gap.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Throughout the greater half of the twentieth century, African Americans were stereotyped as dirty and contaminated. Although it is easy to imagine that lower income individuals may not have had sufficient money for cleaning supplies,and might be less concerned about cleanliness, this was simply never true about African Americans. Rather, this stereotype festered to justify laws segregating Black and White Americans under the false notion of cleanliness and disease prevention. Segregation statutes prevented Blacks and Whites from utilizing the same restrooms, drinking fountains, and swimming facilities under the assumption that Whites would be contaminated by shared use. Back in the day, Jim Crow was "just common sense." The medical establishment agreed, proclaiming that African Americans were carriers of disease, "a social menace whose collective superstitions, ignorance, and carefree demeanour stood as a stubborn affront to modern notions of hygiene..." (Wailoo, 2006).

Meanwhile, Blacks Americans were commonly employed as cleaning ladies in White establishments, and nannies and maids for White families, illustrating the paradoxical nature of pathological stereotypes. Black people could cook food for White people, but could not sit at the same dinner table. Blacks could enter homes in White neighborhoods to clean them but not to buy them.

Even today, despite lower per capita incomes, Black Americans spend more on laundry  than their White counterparts, even after adjusting for differences in average annual spending. African American women engage in increased hygiene practices and report more cleaning and grooming behaviors. In fact, a greater emphasis on cleaning behaviors appears to be a cultural norm for African Americans. When taking in these facts and our history as a whole, it's not difficult to see how the stereotype was wrong, and distortion of reality was used to justify the disenfranchisement of a disadvantaged population.

Current Example

So, that was history, what about today? If I ask you what a "typical drug user" looks like, who do you see — a Black person? Most people are surprised to learn that African American youth are significantly less likely to use tobacco, alcohol or drugs than White or Hispanic Americans. Large-scale national surveys like the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) find that African Americans are significantly less likely to have substance use disorders than their White counterparts. Given that African Americans are a statistical minority in the US, the overwhelming majority of drug abusers will therefore be White. Nonetheless, African Americans are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and jailed for drug related crimes. People use the pathological stereotype of the Black junkie or drug dealer to rationalize the imbalanced scales of justice. We stuff our prisons with "those people" to propagate an illusion of safety. We like to think the world is fair, so if Black people are overrepresented in jails for drug-related crimes, we think they must be locked up because deserve it, perpetuating the pathological stereotype.

What if pathological stereotypes are true?

Certainly in some cases, it would seem that the stereotype must represent real differences between groups. For example, African Americans are pathologically stereotyped as poor, and indeed on average Black Americans are poorer than their White counterparts, though not in numbers nearly as high as estimated by the average American (29% reality versus 50% believed). Wouldn't this amount to a 'kernel of truth,' about group members?

Although some pathological stereotypes may represent measurable differences between groups, there will be many members of the group that possess some or none of the stereotypical traits. If we pathologically stereotype Blacks as 'poor,' and two out of three Black people are not poor, we'll be wrong most of the time. Despite what you might see on the nightly news, most Black people are in the middle class and many are upper class as well.

So, when you are standing in line at the supermarket next to a random Black woman in a hoodie and jogging pants, don't make assumptions about class or income. That woman may have a Ph.D. in neurobiology, speak fluent German and French, and earn more than you as a clinical director at a European pharmaceutical company. And if you do bump her, give her a hearty "Guten Tag!" from me, because you've probably run into my younger sister.

Racial Microaggressions In Everyday Life

Recently I went on a trip on a with my family, and we took a train early in the  morning. There were only a few passengers,and the attendant told us to sit anywhere, so we choose seats near the front of the train and across the aisle from one another.

At the last minute, three White men entered the train and took seats in front of us. Just before takeoff, the flight attendant, who is White, asked if we would mind moving to the back of the train to better accommodate everyone . We grudgingly complied but felt singled out as passengers of color in being told to "move to the back of the bus." When we expressed these feelings to the attendant, she indignantly denied the charge, became defensive, stated that her intent was to ensure the trains safety, and wanted to give us some privacy.

Since we had entered the train first, I asked why she did not ask the White men to move instead of us. She became indignant, stated that we had misunderstood her intentions, claimed she did not see "color," suggested that we were being "oversensitive," and refused to talk about the matter any further.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Cultural perspectives impact the way children participate in education.  The table below describes different expectations about "normal" school behavior for students from individualist and collectivist cultures.

Individualist and Collectivist Cultural Perspectives on Education

Individualist Perspective	Collectivist Perspective
Students work independently; helping others may be cheating.	Students work with peers and provide assistance when needed.
Students engage in discussion and argument to learn to think critically.	Students are quiet and respectful in class in order to learn more efficiently.
Property belongs to individuals, and others must ask to borrow it.	Property is communal.
Teacher manages the school environment indirectly and encourages student self - control.	Teacher is the primary authority, but peers guide each other's behavior.
Parents are integral to child's academic progress and participate actively.	Parents yield to teacher's expertise to provide academic instruction and guidance.

Source: Adapted from Individualist and Collectivist Perspectives on Education, from the Diversity Kit (2002) Providence, R.I.: The Education Alliance.

The influence of culture on beliefs about education, the value of education, and participation styles cannot be overestimated. With Asian students, for example, tend to be quiet in class, and making eye contact with teachers is considered inappropriate for many of these children. In contrast, most European American children are taught to value active classroom discussion and to look teachers directly in the eye to show respect, while their teachers view students' participation as a sign of engagement and competence.

Another contrast involves the role of Hispanic parents in education. Parents from some Hispanic cultures tend to regard teachers as experts and will often defer educational decision making to them. In contrast, European American parents are often more actively involved in their children's classrooms, are visible in the classrooms, or volunteer and assist teachers .These cultural differences in value and belief may cause educators to make inaccurate judgments regarding the value that non–European American families place on education. While it is important to keep in mind that different cultural groups tend to follow particular language and interaction styles, there is tremendous variability within cultural groups. 

My Family Culture

I honestly don’t know of many things I will take, seeing that my family is already with me. If the question was stated differently I would haves stated my family. Seeing that will be already with me, I’ve chose three things that mean the most to me.

I’m the type of person that really doesn’t value material things. As long as my family and my health are intact, I’m a happy camper. So for starters I would like to take all the money in my account. Money is universal, so I don’t think that would be a problem. Money is the only thing that I would have a problem with if they said I could not bring it. My logic is that if I had money my family will be efficient.

My second item would be my cell phone. My cell phone contains my life. In my cell phone I have my contacts, and pictures. If I want to contact anyone, I would   need their information to contact them.

Lastly I would bring a necklace that my mom got for me. I absolutely love the necklace, and for personal reasons it mean a lot to me.

When I Think of Research

1. Good interpersonal skills trump everything.  If you don’t have them, then nothing else you do will matter.  People will not want to work with you.   Everything we do and seek to accomplish in life depends upon being able to work well with others.  In modern terms:  “don’t be a douche.”
2. Seek out and rely upon mentors.  You need to find the people whose point of view you respect and turn to them for advice.  Don’t ask them in some cheesy way to be your mentor, rather cultivate this type of relationship with them by going to them out of respect with genuine questions and rely upon them sincerely.  It should not be artificial and contrived.  Don’t make it contrived networking and politiking.  People naturally want to help others and to share their wisdom, so take advantage of this to learn and to grow.  Ultimately, everyone has something to share and to teach you.  When people see that you are earnest, that you respect them and that you rely upon their counsel, they will naturally come to respect you.  Express appropriate gratitude and appreciation for what others have done to help your way.
3. Focus on doing a really good job in everything you do.  Take the time to do things right, to do it right the first time and to do it on-time.  As Grandma says, “a job worth doing is a job worth doing right.”  Ultimately, if we just focus on doing a good job (and we are easy and pleasant to work with) then everything else will take care of itself with time.

Research Around The World

 I read an article that focused on research relating to promoting music in early childhood programs. The  intent of this program is to further the quality of research  in the field of early childhood music education and to stimulate thought and the practice of music in early childhood throughout the world. They bring music educators around  the world to learn and to share the newest ideas regarding research and pedagogical practices in early childhood music education. Their personal theories about the nature of music, the responsiveness of children, and what constitutes effective practice in bringing the two together interest other practitioners. 

The programs goals are :

1. promote music in the lives of young children, regardless of talent, to create an enhanced environment that will result in the well-being and development of the whole child;
2. provide an international forum for the exchange of ideas regarding music and the young child, birth to age eight (and even pre-birth, as more scientific knowledge becomes available in this area);
3. stimulate the growth of quality music instruction, teacher training and research in musical development and instruction with the young child;
4. learn ways that various cultures approach musical enculturation in the young child (i.e. natural absorption of the practices and values of a culture); compare and discuss similarities and differences in music instruction and music learning across cultures; and to
5. examine issues which are of importance to the future of music in the lives of young children such as the influence of mass media and technology; the rapid change of society; the role of the family in musical development; the role of culture and schooling in musical development; and preservation of cultural traditions in the light of the breakdown of cultural barriers.

To accomplish these goals the programl:

1. hold biennial conferences or seminars in conjunction with ISME world conferences every two years in a venue geographically near the site of the conference;
2. contribute to the ISME electronic newsletter regarding early childhood music education; solicit and publish articles in other ISME publications;
3. endorse extra occasional courses which would focus in greater depth in promoting the general practices and principles of the commission. Endorsement of any proposed course, seminar, or conference will require a unanimous vote of approval from all six Commission Members currently serving, and would involve no financial support;
4. present early childhood sessions at ISME world conferences; and
5. work to reach early childhood music educators throughout the world - to maintain regular contact through the ISME electronic newsletter, the Commission Web Site, and biennial conferences and seminars.