The Chancellor Lecture Series for the Fall 2009 semester came to a close on Nov. 18 with guest speaker Lisa Delpit. Delpit is a renowned professor, author, and scholar of urban education. The Baton Rouge native has numerous awards within the realm of education, which include a Harvard University Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education.
The theme of the lecture targeted and unraveled the myth of African American children incapacity to learn and being labeled as inferiors. She elaborated on the myth by juxtaposing statistics of Cuban children’s test scores to other Latin countries in Latin America.
“Cuba is one of the poorest countries in Latin America”, informed Delpit. “The vast majority of the children in Cuba are of African descent and the Cuban education system is categorized by sustained and high level of investment education.”
In Cuba when a mother gives birth, the government writes a thank you letter to the mother for contributing to the country, regardless of marital status or age.
“What do our mothers get when they give birth?” asked Delpit.
According to Delpit, societal and internalized racism is another aspect contributing to African American students low score achievement. Studies and research conducted by James Watson, a white geneticists and Nobel Prize winner, were exposed by Delpit.
She discussed research and studies published in the 1920’s of the so-called Negro. Researchers believed the Negro would never be the mental equal of the white race.
“One author said, ‘When you’re in LA you breathe smog. You don’t mean to breathe smog. You really can’t help it. It’s just all around you. When you’re in the U.S., you breathe racism. You don’t mean to breathe racism. You’re not trying to be racist. It just surrounds you that you can not help but to be affected by it’,” quoted Delpit.
Delpit also analyzed the problem of racism by deciphering the negative connotation of the term “black” by reading an excerpt from Robert B. Moore’s poem, Racism in the English Language. The poem used the term black for everything bad or negative and white for everything good or positive.
This assumption is proven to be false according to Delpit.
“In Mali, things that are black are good. When the sun is setting at its highest, it is said to be nurturing which is called the Black sun, informed Delpit. “The soil is most productive when it is black,” continued Delpit.
Delpit closed by providing solutions to the problems of African American children underachieving. She recalls her past and discussed the motivation and encouragement she, her family, and her community received during early childhood.
“When I was in school we were told explicitly that we were intelligent and there was no reason for us to succeed,” recalled Delpit.” We saw that all our teachers looked like us and lived in our community and were told we were expected to achieve more than the white children,” continued Delpit.