Author: Elsadig Abdelaziz (Page 1 of 2)

Elsadig Abdelaziz        

Week 2 

One thing I found useful about the First-Year Companion is that how it literally combats all the problems new people into college face. And I know personally because I have gone through this. For example, before in high school I never took notes, so I really didn’t know how too coming into college. But now in a section called the three stages of taking notes, it literally tells you how and it explains all the whole way. So honestly that’s what I found useful about the First-Year Companion. 

Week 2, part 2 

In my opinion I felt that the main idea in Prof.Hellman article is that in class learning is way more sacred because of how you get to see all these different ethnicities come together from all across the world to sit in this small area, and how each and every one of them have different personalities and different perspectives. In my opinion I feel like online school can never accomplish that because of how 90% of the time the camera is turned off, and if not it’s the mic that is muted. 

Week 3 

In Toni Morrison, “The Reader as Artist”(2006), The Author was great in giving multiple ideas and tips to becoming an excellent reader.  She explained that just reading as a skill is enough, but the act of imagining the story is magnificent. Which ultimately meant you should be able to broadcast what you’re reading. She also described that you also should be able to listen but be alert. Meaning you should always dig for information and try to find what’s there. She uses this method to explain in paragraph one what Mr. Head was doing. Finally, you should always reread because reading can always be refined or clarified. In “How to Read Like a Writer” 3 important ideas from the article are, 1 if you want to read like a writer you need to see what writing technique the author uses and which technique you will use. 2, the most important thing to reading as a writer is seeing how you can improve your own writing. 3. see how the author captures a readers attention and how he/she able to allow the reader to better understand the text. 

Week 4 

I was not able to read “The Cage Bird prevails”, since it was too blurry, so I’m sorry I couldn’t state some similarities. But a quote that stood out to me from the first text is “We were empty bank accounts, and it was our teachers’ responsibility to deposit facts.” because me reading this quote. automatically made me think that its true because to be honest I always thought that the school system was just a waste of time. Or to put it in better terms it really didn’t prepare us for the life. And the way I look at this quote is: you go to the bank and you are trying to deposit money that you don’t need at the moment or you don’t have any use for, same thing with school you are being thought this thing that have no meaning in life and that you are probably never going to use ever again. Like teach us how to file taxes, teach us how health care works, teach us how to change the oil in our cars, etc. I just feel like we weren’t prepared at all for the real world. 

Week 5 

Finished already 

Racial injustices and its impact on children of color 

Elsadig Abdelaziz 

ENG 1101 

Page Break 

Racial injustices and its impact on children of color 

In unit 2, we discussed the impact of racial discrimination on children of color’s childhood experiences. It is sad to note that a black or Hispanic child is treated as an adult at barely twelve years and has to serve a jail-term served by adults (Petersilia, 1983). On the other hand, a seventeen-year-old white is treated like a young and immature child who can’t face jail because he is young. In schools, teachers treat children of color with contempt, and immediately after a black child enrolls in a school, the teachers already know that his/her days in school are numbered. In other words, black children’s childhood experience is very horrible and unbearable. But how do these experiences affect them in the future? Who do they become after going through such awful experiences in their childhood? 

Discrimination encountered in one domain or one point at a time, for example, the labor market of school, seems very minimal and less impactful. We might not feel its impacts on the lives of the children and the people involved. However, small effects could cumulate over time, causing substantial differences.  According to Dotterer et al (2009), discrimination in one generation that is affecting wealth accumulation or economic opportunities in a specific group of people might diminish the later generations.  For example, the parent’s poor education and unemployment status may limit their ability to support their children’s education. Consequently, this lowers the children’s education success, leading to a low economic situation like the parents.  

Secondly, discrimination within a domain such as the educational domain might affect the entire learning process. For instance, if a child was racially discriminated against in kindergarten, his/her secondary primary and secondary school performance might be affected, diminishing their chances to attend a college or a university (Dotterer et al, 2009). Additionally, a single instance of discrimination at a critical point decision might have long-term effects on the victim. For example, a teacher’s discriminative behavior during student evaluation has a probability of continuing during grading from elementary school to middle school. This discrimination affects the victim’s life from early learning levels to higher learning levels and finally his/her future dreams.  

Thirdly, racial discrimination in one domain has impacts on other environments. Let take an example of people living in segregated areas because they experience poor housing, limited access to quality health centers, employment, and quality schools. Children living in these segregated areas are forced to attend segregated schools with fewer learning resources, which affects their academic performance. In turn, poor performance limits the child’s access to employment opportunities and good housing programs. When faced with numerous discriminations and societal disadvantages, the children of color make life choices under these biased conditions limiting their life chances and future opportunities. Due to poverty, some children have no choice but to give schooling and support their families to buy basic needs and support their siblings. Some whose parents were arrested due to some issues have to become the family’s adult and take responsibility for the younger ones (Weitzer & Tuch, 1999). For instance, the picture below shows a black man being taken away by the police. All I ask myself is where his children will go after he has been arrested, sadly the police and the law system does not care for these children.  

The picture below indicates police brutality towards the black people. As children watch and experience their close families going through this kind of torture, their perception towards the justice system and also the police changes. Therefore, they involve themselves in other activities in an attempt to defend themselves against these tortures.  

Walter Gadsden, an African American high school student, being attacked by a police dog during a civil rights demonstration in Birmingham, Ala., on May 3, 1963. 

(Ggarrison@al.com, 2014) 

In most cases, the differences in racial outcomes can be linked to the individual’s behavior differences. Some research shows that black children and teenagers offer high rates of committing severe crimes than whites. This outcome has led many to believe that these behaviors are caused by individual choices rather than past discrimination experiences. However, individual actions do not occur independently in a society or a community because the social factors influence people’s characters. Some of these behaviors develop over time due to incidents of discriminatory treatment and discrimination. Youths who feel alienated from mainstream social and economic institutions are more likely to involve themselves in risky and self-destructive activities such as drug addiction, trafficking, and other crime. Therefore, the youth activism movements such as “black lives matter” and others should stand firm and fight for the children’s future and their welfares.  

Artistic statement 

Racial discrimination is an exciting yet sensitive topic to discuss. Social isolation, the concentration of poverty marginalizes low-income families from mainstream society. Racial discrimination has affected children’s growth and development in many areas, especially socially. The childhood experience of children of color has a disparity from that of the white children. How do these cumulative discriminations affect children do and what can the activists do to change these children’s lives? For an activist like Nupol to join activism at age twelve, she must have seen or experienced black people being treated nastily. Due to racial discrimination, many black children’s future careers and dreams have been cut short, and because they don’t have power, all they can is watch helplessly as their lives become a mess.   

I chose to use a photo essay because it will reveal my feelings and opinions towards racial discrimination. It will also help me reach my audience, who are the activists fighting for social justice and equality. I believe that most of these activists went through some discrimination that ignites their spirit to fight against the injustices. But what about those vulnerable youths who lose hope after being discriminated against in school and they drop-out? Those children will join other risky activities that will distract them from the truth and reality. Eventually, the youths will end up committing crimes and getting into jail at such a young age. However, activists can change the story of children of color. They can stand firm and fight for their rights, equal treatment in schools, health centers, and juvenile systems. The essay has discussed the impacts caused by cumulative discrimination, including poor performances in school, leading to limitations to Access Colleges, good job opportunities, and subsequently, proper housing.  

References 

Dotterer, A. M., McHale, S. M., & Crouter, A. C. (2009). Sociocultural factors and school engagement among African American youth: The roles of racial discrimination, racial socialization, and ethnic identity. Applied development science, 13(2), 61-73. 

Ggarrison@al.com, G. G. (2014, February 22). Young man who confronted police dogs in 1963 was little-known civil rights icon (Life Stories: Walter Lee Fowlkes). Retrieved from https://www.al.com/living/2014/02/young_man_attacked_by_german_s.html 

Petersilia, J. (1983). Racial disparities in the criminal justice system (Vol. 2947). Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. 

Weitzer, R., & Tuch, S. A. (1999). Race, class, and perceptions of discrimination by the police. Crime & Delinquency, 45(4), 494-507. 

Reflective Annotated Bibliography  

Elsadig Abdelaziz 

ENG 1101 

Page Break 

Racial Discrimination and its effects on children’s of color growth and development 

Since the world organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in early March this year, the United States has experienced increased rates of unemployment and economic instability. Consequently, many health measures were put into place, including restrictions on social interactions, stay-at-home orders, and childcare and school closures, which brought disastrous effects to the country. The news spread about how the impacts of the pandemic affected the communities of color, including acts of violence by the police against African Americans, which reignited the black lives matter movement in the country. If the events have profoundly affected the lives of Black American adults, how much do they affect children’s lives? 

Black lives matter is a political and social movement that protests against police brutality, social injustices and racially motivated violence against the black people, among other racial discriminations. In the past few months, the movement has stepped up to voice out their grievances, fight against the systemic racism, trying to create changes and help the community to make a change concerning the matters at hand. Some of the black lives matter activists began these protests while they were young children or adolescents. An example of these activists is Nupol Kiazolu, the current president of the movement, who started the activism job as early as twelve years old. She became an activist when she witnessed the murder of a black man Trayvon Martin, and she walked to her school wearing a hoodie written “do I look like a suspect” on the back of it. After reading her story, I couldn’t stop wondering the kind of things she experienced during her childhood to decide that she wants to fight for her fellow black people. What experience do the children of the color face during their childhood? How do these experiences affect their development and growth and their future as American citizens? 

McClain, Dani. We live for we: The political power of Black motherhood. Hachette UK, 2019. 

The book talks about how black mothers try to help their children navigate schools where they are perceived as a threat or are made to feel unwelcome by both teachers and other children. Jessica, a mother of two children living in California, talks about how her children have been disciplined severally for petty issues in school. She says that her son has been reprimanded and even suspended for not taking off his hoodie while in class and also for raising his voice (McClain, 2019). A research recorded in the book revealed that black children are suspended or expelled from school for minor jokes such as an ill-timed joke to an adult, and due to this, they lose their learning time and end up in the school-to-prison pipeline. 

Although it is evident that these black children behave like any other child at this stage, the treatment they receive from the teachers is quite different from how the white children are treated in the same school.  The school staff treat them with contempt, suspend them for making noise and violating the school dressing code, a behaviour that can be exuded by any child.  The book reports a large disparity between the white and black children, where the percentage of suspension, expulsion, and school dropout of children of color is higher the white children. The mothers interviewed by the researcher reveals their grievances on discriminations their children face while in school (McClain, 2019). Some enrolled their children in white suburban schools where education is better, but they had to prepare them for the discriminations that they might face. 

 Discrimination in school have an impact on the black children because they affect their academic performance and future careers. Frequent suspensions can make the children become taunt, drop out of school, and because the outside environment is not safe for them, they end up in the juvenile justice system. These experiences affect a child’s perception towards the white people and the society they live in. The mothers in the book claim that they find it difficult to encourage their children to be suitable or to accept a society that does not accept and acknowledge them. I chose this book as it reveals how discriminations in schools erode black children’s self-esteem, and destroys their future careers, and affects their perception towards the white society. It explains some of the reasons why black children join activism movements at a very young age to fight for their rights. 

Post, Washington. “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” (2018).  

The article speaks about the black children’s encounters and perceptions about the police. During the protests by the political activists, they have also lobbied to end the contracts between public schools and get them out of the schools. The activists have made it clear that the police do not make the black American children feel protected. The United States has a long history of the state-sanctioned violence against the children of color, which affected their perspectives towards them. Black children regularly experience bad encounters with the police and state-authorities like adults. For instance, Tamir, 12years old and Aiyana, seven years, were shot to death by the police for a crime best known to the police. Moreover, the case of the police violently assaulting black children is reported frequently.   

For many decades, the government has imposed violence against children of color as a way to build and maintain white supremacy. To suppress the black children’s present and future attainment of their rights as citizens, the government has treated them violently such that the society does not view them as young children like whites. The article connects this brutality to black slavery in ancient’s years, where the blacks were punished harshly. While the black children were treated brutally, the white children were viewed as the right beneficiaries of the social reform; therefore, they were increasingly protected from any security threats. 

The black children’s mistreatment in the justice system spurred and radicalized many social movements like black life matters. In the eyes of the white children, the police is an authoritative agency that provides safety and security when necessary, while in the eyes of the black children, police are brutal people to be feared and avoided at all cost.   I think the black children’s experience with the law affects their perceptions towards them, and some of the kids hide, or they are in constant fear of being assaulted by the police. The article explains the experiences encountered by young black men and women with the authority that has led to the emergence of activism movements. As the young ones grow in an environment where their safety is not guaranteed, and where they are treated like adults, they have to act them and be strong enough to voice out their encounters. 

Spears Brown, Christia, and Rebecca S. Bigler. “Children’s perceptions of discrimination: A developmental model.” Child development 76.3 (2005): 533-553. 

Discrimination affects millions of children in the United States and many other countries in the world. The article examines the children’s perceptions of racial discrimination. While on an interview about family and school, one of the participants said that that he felt like they are starting all over again that year because they were having new teachers. The student says that a teacher looks at him and seems to think that since he is black, he will be staying in school for utmost three weeks. Another European student said that they could access any book they require from the library without being monitored, unlike the Mexican and black students. The latter are followed around by store managers to prevent them from stealing anything. 

Consequently, many students reported to have experienced discrimination in many places such as courts, social services centres and have impacted their perception towards themselves and other people. Individually perceiving oneself to be the target of discrimination affects the children’s formation of identity, relationship with peers, educational achievements and dreams, and mental and physical health. Perceiving other people as victims of discrimination also affects the way children behave and react towards these individuals. For instance, a child is likely to get closer to the victim of racism than the discriminator. 

As the article says, it is important to examine and understand children’s perception towards discrimination as it will help in helping these children to develop in a better way. It is difficult to teach a child about being passionate to everybody regardless of their color while what she/he experiences in school is different. Racial discrimination causes discomfort for children in school and schooling becomes a burden to them. Some develop adverse characters as they start discriminating others to fill the vacuum in them. Racial discrimination affects children’s experience of their childhood and development. 

Trent, Maria, Danielle G. Dooley, and Jacqueline Dougé. “The impact of racism on child and adolescent health.” Pediatrics 144.2 (2019): e20191765. 

One of the factors that affect children and adolescents health is racism and racial discrimination. Even though the country is making some progress towards racial equity and equality, there are still negative impacts of racism on the health and wellbeing of the children of color. The children face discrimination in institutional structures such as schools, medical institutions, and other government programs. The social environment where a child is brought up, shapes his/her development. Racism has dire impacts on who witnesses, receives or commits it. Racism is a major social determinant of health which means that it is a controller of health inequities. World health organization defines this social determinant as conditions under which humans are born, grow, live, and work. 

The effects of racism can be linked to birth disparities and mental health problems in children. For instance, racial differences in the mortality of children are associated with racial discrimination that leads to stress in children and also mothers. Since many black people live in poverty due to lack of proper jobs and even education, these children lack adequate housing, and nutritious foods leading to health problems. Another aspect that affects children’s health is the juvenile criminal system. Due to racial discrimination, the children of color are treated like adults and sentenced in court like other adults and also incarcerated in adult jails. This kind of treatment caused stress in the children leading to depression, and some even hung themselves in these cells. 

It is such a pity that young children of color are treated so differently from the white children in every system of the public. These discriminations degrade children’s self-esteem and identity as the United States’ citizens. I agree with the paediatrics that racism causes mental illness and other health problems. With families living under poor housing conditions where proper sanitation is a challenge, they are prone to all kinds of diseases. These families also lack appropriate employment due to discrimination, and therefore health insurance is challenging to attain. Another thing is that the medical services near these families are very low quality which is one of the causes of health problems for the children of color. I chose the article because it elaborates on the impacts of racism on children’s physical and mental health. 

Conclusion  

Reading the four sources of information has expanded my knowledge concerning racial discrimination and its impact on children growth and development. Although I knew that discrimination and social injustices in the United States has effects of the development of children of color, I had no idea how significant this impact was. The article that had new knowledge was the one that talked about how racial discrimination impacts the health conditions of children. Racism, especially in schools seems like just saying a few hateful words towards a person. However, those hostilities makes children withdraw from others, lose their self-esteem, and due to these stresses, children can develop a mental illness or other physical disorders. Poverty is also another aspect that affects children experience of childhood. Living in a poor environment, relating to uneducated people around the neighbourhood affects children’s social behavior and their childhood experience is quite different from the whites living in urban areas.  

Juvenile criminal system injustices are other factors that cause disparities between white’s childhood experiences and children of color. Two children who have committed the same crime are treated differently because one is white while the other one is either black, Latino, or Hispanic. The whites are treated as children without full knowledge, while black children as adults and they have to face the court of law as an adult. Police forces protect the white children against any insecurities, while the blacks are treated with contempt and suspicion. All these unequal treatments shape the black’s childhood experience affecting their future. With these horrible childhood experiences, the youth are compelled towards joining activism activities and movements where they can stand together and voice out their grievances and fight for their rights.  It is through these movements that the children and youth of color can create awareness to the community that their lives matters, their childhood experiences matters and their future goals matters. Therefore, I would say that these movements should press until they bring a change to their country.  

Unit 2 bibliography 

1)A developmental model.” Child development 76.3 (2005): 533-553. 

2)McClain, Dani. We live for we: The political power of Black motherhood. Hachette UK, 2019. 

3)Post, Washington. “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” (2018). 

4)Spears Brown, Christia, and Rebecca S. Bigler. “Children’s perceptions of discrimination:  

5)Trent, Maria, Danielle G. Dooley, and Jacqueline Dougé. “The impact of racism on child and adolescent health.” Pediatrics 144.2 (2019): e20191765.