!!!! poc speak !!!!

institutional racism and its effect on education// kiwihoods

it's the summer of 2014. my family is moving from iowa to cali, primarily to give my sister and i exposure to more diverse areas of the usa and to give us a good chance of going to a prestigious college. 

 maybe two days after we settle down in a house, news comes out that harvard is being accused of discriminating against asian americans. an article in the wall street journal says that specifically for asian americans (indians included), harvard is setting the bar higher so that the number of asians admitted is limited to as small a number as possible. i keep looking. the la times accuses most elite and private universities of discriminating against asians- the data shows us that asian americans have the lowest acceptance rate to these universities out of all other races. in fact, asian applicants have 67% lower chances of admission than white applicants--even with the same test scores. 

 this is called institutional racism. racism that has developed and ingrained itself in our daily lives, in the system we live in. 

 in february of this year a cop in alabama partially paralyzed a 57 year old indian man who was visiting his son and was out on a walk because, apparently, he "looked like a terrorist" and "did not speak english." 

 this is the uglier face of institutional racism in america. the chapel hill shooting is the uglier face of institutional racism in america. the 2012 massacre at a sikh temple that left six innocent worshippers dead, perpetrated by a white man because he thought he was killing terrorists, is the uglier face of institutional racism in america. 

 if you think or say things like "all indians are smart" and "all asian mothers are strict" and "all black people are uneducated" then you are contributing to institutional racism. you are a part of the issue. stop using characteristics to describe entire races and put an end to racism in your daily life before this gets more out of hand than it is already.

 -kita,14, usa, indian