Introduction

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Notes

Molefi K. Asante, The African-American Atlas: Black History and Culture—An Illustrated Reference (New York: Macmillan, 1998).

Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999; reprint: Oxford University Press, 2005).

According to the State of America's Children 2008, a report by the Children's Defense Fund, by the fourth grade, 86 percent of Black students cannot read at grade level. This is compared to 83 percent of Latino, 80 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native, and 58 percent of white fourth graders. By the fourth grade, 85 percent of Black students are performing below grade level in math, compared to 78 percent of Hispanic students and about half of white students. By the time students reach eighth grade, seven out of ten students are below grade level in both reading and math. Specifically, more than four out of five Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native students are below grade level in both reading and math by the eighth grade, as compared to three out of five white students. In terms of school discipline and newly implemented “zero tolerance” policies instituted by public schools, Black students are more than three times as likely to receive disciplinary action (suspension) as compared to all white and Asian/Pacific Islander students and more than twice as likely than Hispanic students to be disciplined. Black children are more than three times as likely to be placed in classes specialized to treat “mentally retarded” students as Asian/Pacific Islander students and twice as likely as white and Hispanic students. Black children are three times as likely to be placed in classes to treat “emotionally disturbed” students as their Hispanic counterparts and more than seven times as likely as Asian/Pacific Islander students. As a result, students who perform poorly academically and placed in special tracks are at a higher risk of being held back in grade level (twice as likely for Black students) and dropping out of school (50 percent for Black students). Consequently, school dropouts are at more risk of being “funneled down life paths leading to arrest, conviction and incarceration.” Graduation rates in New York City after four years for all students is 54.3 percent; those with Regents' diplomas were 18 percent of the class of 2004. This was a decline from about 35 percent of graduates from the class of 2002. It is estimated that 49 percent of African Americans and 46 percent of Hispanic students graduate on time (in four years), and that 9 percent of African Americans and 10 percent of Hispanics earn Regents' diplomas.

Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 82.

J. Kincheloe and S. Steinberg, Changing Multiculturalism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997); L. Semali and J. Kincheloe, eds., What Is Indigenous Knowledge? Voices from the Academy (New York: Falmer, 1999).