The Los Angeles Riots Revisited: The Changing Face of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Challenge for Educators

Abstract

This article provides a brief history of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), including an analysis of the demographic shifts and the tensions between the African American and Korean American communities at the time of the Los Angeles riots in 1992. The article includes my own experiences teaching high school English during the uprising, and relies on some of the ideas of Critical Race Theory to stress the need for educators to hold uncomfortable discussions about race and racism in educational settings. The article further includes an examination of issues and concerns that faced the district in the years leading up to the King verdict (racial isolation, poor academic achievement in some schools, teacher frustration, and, an ultimate strike in 1989, gang violence), and provides a snapshot of current achievement levels for children in LAUSD.

Walkin' down the street, smoggy-eyed

Looking at the sky, starry-eyed

Searchin' for the place, weary-eyed

Crying in the night, teary-eyed

Don't you know, that it's true

That for me, and for you, The world is a ghetto.

From The World is a Ghetto (War 1972).

Latin and soul musical group War embodied the multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic reality of southern California, and their lyrics often reflected the challenging conditions of folks living in urban communities. What was unique about this group was that its members were African American, Latino, and White, and although they certainly recognized the some of the problems associated with urban life and the reality of tension among various racial groups, they would also pose the question, “Why Can't We Be Friends?” This almost silly anthem that, on its surface, seemed frivolous asked specifically if people from different racial groups could “live in harmony” and revealed the fact that, as Cornel West says, race still matters (West 1994). Indeed, as I write this, a white radio host, Don Imus, whose popular show was broadcast on CBS and MSNBC, found himself under attack for calling members of the Rutgers Women's Basketball team, “nappy-headed hos” after their NCAA championship game (Carter and Story 2007). Although his firing and the outrage that has resulted seems like people may have made progress in the area of race relations in some respects, the fact that he said these comments at all means that there is still much work to do. Thus, as I begin this discussion on the anniversary of the Los Angeles riots and what this means for educators, I must do so with the notion of race in mind.

Remembering the Riots: My Story

Washington Preparatory High School (WPHS) is located in the heart of South Los Angeles. Hailed during the 1980s as a beacon of hope and achievement, mostly because of its charismatic and gifted principal, George McKenna, this high school continues to struggle to maintain a level of achievement equal to that of schools in suburban settings. Indeed, in 2006, Washington met only one of 22 performance criteria outlined in No Child Left Behind (NCLB; 107th Congress 2001). In 1992, when I was teaching English at WPHS, students were forced to take a few days off. Indeed, on April 29th and in the days following, many schools in the surrounding area shut down for fear of violence erupting in the community, and getting students to and from school was problematic. The verdict in the Rodney King beating trial, in which four Los Angeles police officers were found innocent, resulted in a sequence of events that is now quite well known and intensely tragic.

At WPHS, fears of violence were not so far-fetched. One student's older brother was ultimately charged with assaulting truck driver Reginald Denny. ¹ The National Guard was posted just outside the school yard and many businesses in the neighborhood were in ruins. When school did reopen, students were eager to get back to their routines and to see each other. For them, school was a constant, and a necessary tool for regaining a sense of belonging and purpose. Indeed, my own students spent their first day back simply reflecting on and sharing experiences and it seemed each had a story to tell. Teachers also had stories. One friend and colleague, who is an African American woman married to a White man, called me frantically on the first night of the riots. She lived very close to the corner of Florence and Normandie (where Denny was beaten) and she had seen some men pointing at her house, gesturing and yelling that they were going to attack her husband as well. She smuggled him in her car under a blanket, and they spent the next two days with us.

As I reflect on the aftermath and how I spent it with my students in school, what becomes clear is that even amidst the most horrific of circumstances, these young adults were anxious to see their neighborhoods and lives rebuilt, and were more than willing to do the work. They found no fun in hanging out at home watching those they called fools burn down their streets. They were beyond resilient, for resiliency suggests survival; my students seemed to be doing more than merely surviving the riots. Indeed, they were indignant, motivated to act, and desperate for change. And so it makes sense to revisit the days of the unrest and determine if change has happened and, if so, in what ways and to what degree. Thus, although 15 years have passed since that terrible time, the story of Los Angeles and the uprising is important because as society continues to deal with issues that plague many urban schools across this county—poverty, racial and ethnic isolation, teacher burnout, gang violence—we may discover strategies for confronting them.

I rely on some of the principles of critical race theory (CRT) to frame a discussion about the changing face of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and what that might mean for educators. ² CRT suggests, among other things, that racism is “normal, not aberrant, in American society” (Delgado 1995, xvi), and that the challenge is to expose racist attitudes, policies, and practices whenever possible. Further, one way critical race theorists reveal individual and collective ideas about race is through storytelling, and they use this method as a means for deconstructing perceptions that may be problematic in the educational setting (Ladson-Billings 1998). Indeed, I share some of my own story about my experiences during the riots primarily as a tool for understanding the complexities of the uprising and how they affected schoolchildren. Ladson-Billings states:

Stories provide the necessary context for understanding, feeling, and interpreting. … Critical race theorists [have attempted] to interject minority cultural viewpoints, derived from a common history of oppression, into their efforts to reconstruct a society crumbling under the burden of racial hegemony (13).

Thus, although part of this article will deal with factual data about the history of the district and current demographic and achievement trends, other sections will try to respond to the call of critical race theorists to confront the issue of race as educators develop educational systems to meet the needs of children.

The LAUSD: Then and Now

From the time children first attended public schools in Los Angeles, California in 1817 until today, there has existed a tension as the result of vast expansion and massive demographic shifts. Indeed, the rapid expansion of the city's school system, although exciting and progressive in some respects, led to the creation of various culturally divided communities, each with its own agenda. In fact, the district has a long and complex history of various racial groups moving in and out of neighborhoods, changing the faces and cultures of schools.

The earliest settlers arrived in Los Angeles in the late 1700s. Indeed, “El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles, or the Town of the Queen of the Angels, was officially established on September 4, 1781 with a population of 14 families, including 44 adults and 22 children” (LAUSD 2002, 2). When Spanish rule ended in 1821 as the result of 11 years of civil unrest following the Mexican Revolution, California became a territory of Mexico and would remain so until 1848, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) made California a United States territory. ³ The few families that lived in the new territory during this time sent their children to school intermittently, and truancy was a problem for this largely rural community. Further,

the distant civil war took its toll on state resources and the attentions of those in state and local government, serious local droughts caused economic collapse throughout southern California, and the disastrous 1861–1862 floods washed away a substantial portion of the new city (LAUSD 2002, 4).

It would not be until the late 1800s that the school system would be able to take advantage of the exploding population and prosperity of the area, and indeed the population grew from 11,000 to 100,000 in the 1880s. By 1910, the population in the City of Los Angeles had reached 319,000. This trend would continue at an impressive rate:

A 1931 report prepared by the School Board for teachers and visitors associated with a National Education Association Convention describes the recent growth of the District's area, including elementary and high school districts, from 482 square miles around 1915 to 688 square miles within the elementary school district and 1,039 square miles, or three times the size of the area of the City of Los Angeles, within the high school district. Student enrollment stood at 102,340 in 1915; it reached 404,351, a fourfold increase, by 1930. School facilities in 1930 totaled 350 and included 260 kindergartens, 294 elementary schools, 23 junior high schools and 31 high schools, one trade school and one junior college. The boom in school attendance and new school construction during the 1920s reflected a correspondingly dramatic growth in Los Angeles County, when new subdivisions were being opened at one point at a rate of 40 per week in Los Angeles city alone. By the end of the decade Los Angeles was the fifth largest city in America, with a population of 1,238,048; county population had reached 2,208,492. (LAUSD 2002, 5).

This kind of growth would continue for decades, but what is important for this discussion is that as the numbers of children steadily increased, the racial makeup of the student population would shift considerably. In 1940, for example, most neighborhoods in Southern California were predominantly white, but by 2000 most of the neighborhoods with children attending schools in Los Angeles became predominately Latina/o (Zonta and Ong 2003). Today, the district that serves over 700,000 students is about 73% Latina/o, 11% African American, 9% White, 4% Asian, 2% Filipino, .3% American Indian and Alaska Native, and .3% Pacific Islander (LAUSD 2007a, 2). Although a shrinking White population from the urban core is nothing particularly striking, considering that the trend of “white flight” is well documented (Kozol 2005; Frankenberg, Lee, and Orfield 2003), what is interesting is that the African American student population in LAUSD, which peaked at about 15% in 1992, has decreased significantly since the riots (Bio 2007) and only a few schools remain with predominantly Black populations. What should be the result of this enormous shift is a rethinking about exactly who the school system currently serves, what dynamics are at work in designing programs and services, and how beliefs about race play into the creation and implementation of policy. To be sure, what has continued throughout all of the demographic transformations in recent history is the sad reality that many of the schools in Los Angeles, whose children come from impoverished homes and communities, continue to lag behind their White counterparts in more affluent neighborhoods in every measure of success. Further, the last 15 years of schooling in Los Angeles have included significant policy transformations with the implementation of reform efforts like NCLB, leadership changes at the district level, legislative battles over control, and complete bureaucratic restructuring. With the Los Angeles story in mind, it is critical that educators wade through the rhetoric and create structures and mechanisms for addressing exactly how race and racism influences what they do. At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves: Can school systems be a part of revolutionary change that increases positive interactions for children of diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds, and a driving factor in improving communities at large? Essentially, what role should schools play in helping to prevent the kind of eruption that occurred 15 years ago?

Before the Storm

In the mid-1980s, with The Cosby Show claiming to showcase a new kind Black family on television and with uplifting movies like Stand and Deliver (see Menéndez 1988) portraying positive images of educators in urban settings, WPHS enjoyed a bit of publicity and acclaim. As stated earlier, principal George McKenna offered a new way of thinking about schooling in urban settings that was considered revolutionary. Indeed, a television movie, The George McKenna Story (see Laneuville 1996), would be made about his life and work at the school, with Denzel Washington playing the lead. Movies about tough urban schools with amazing educators were nothing new, but the tale of McKenna was interesting because his approach was wholly unlike counterpart Joe Clark—himself the subject of a major motion picture, and who, with his baseball bat and bullhorn, told everyone to lean on him. McKenna wanted students, teachers, and staff to think of themselves as “family” and the school as a place where an ethic of care permeated all aspects of policymaking. And he had the results to back up this approach. Graduation rates were higher than they had been in years. When I arrived in 1987, the school was still riding this wave of productivity and praise. Interestingly, Jonathan Kozol asserts that this kind of publicity, although very positive for the individual school and particular students, does little to bring about categorical, systemic change (Davis 2007). When success is tied to one leader, or one set of circumstances, very little can be done to replicate the “magic.” Further, according to Kozol, these “against the odds” movies give policymakers and others in positions of power excuses for not doing more to meet the very real needs of urban classrooms. It becomes easy for them to say, essentially, that every teacher just needs to be a bit more like Jaime Escalante—then we would have no problems in poor schools.

Kozol's criticisms can be applied, somewhat, to WPHS. With a change in leadership at the school and with outside forces at work, including increasing pressure from the teachers union for better wages and site-based management, some of the progress made under McKenna's tenure began to slip. Indeed, in 1989, teachers in Los Angeles waged a nine-day strike, and, at the time, found the struggle intensely important. One day, with 80% of teachers joining in the strike, thousands of them filled the Los Angeles Sports Arena for a rally claiming that they wanted to influence school operations and to be a part of planning at all levels of decision-making (United Teachers Los Angeles 2007). It would still be a couple of years before anyone would see the King beating.

As I now look at the worn-out, faded t-shirt with the slogan, “I'll Walk the Line in 89!” blazing across the front (now sometimes serving as nightgown for my youngest daughter) it is hard not to feel that we have far more to march about than wages and school control. Although important issues, of course, they pale in comparison to the need for honest, uncomfortable dialogue about race and racism in this country and in our school systems. To be sure, the reality of conflict in and around schools concerning the issue of race should be at the forefront of discussions among educators. It is only through this deconstruction that real change can occur. An examination of the tensions between the African American and Korean American communities during the time leading up to the riots can illuminate some of the problems that become evident when groups of people living in close proximity know nothing about each other.

The Black–Korean Conflict

Yo yo, check it out

So don't follow me, up and down your market. Or your little chop suey ass'll be a target of the nationwide boycott.

Juice with the people, that's what the boy got.

So pay respect to the black fist

or we'll burn your store, right down to a crisp.

And then we'll see ya!

Cause you can't turn the ghetto into Black Korea.

From Black Korea (Ice Cube, 1991).

Rapper Ice Cube's sentiment predates the Los Angeles riots a bit, but he clearly illustrates a deep conflict within the African American and Korean American communities that had existed for years, and that would ultimately partially fuel the uprising. Regina Freer (1994) notes:

Obviously, there is an expansive history to draw from for both the African American and Korean American communities in this country and even in Los Angeles itself. However, in attempting to make sense of their conflicted relationship, the 1970s are perhaps best viewed as a watershed period for both groups. Massive economic restructuring internationally, coupled with the aftermath of the civil rights movement, the rebellions of the late sixties, and the effect of the immigration reform of the late sixties, all combined to create a complex and often depressing environment for the interaction of the African American and Korean American communities (179).

An important chronology of the interactions of Blacks and Koreans illustrates a relationship that is very long and complex. Indeed, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, both groups migrated to Los Angeles and established communities. In 1910, with Japan occupying Korea, Los Angeles became the overseas center for the Korean Independence movement (Chang and Yu 1994). Around this same time, a strong African American community along Central Avenue developed, and both groups then coexisted in the city for decades. And of course, they both served together during the Korean War. In 1965, both the Voting Rights Act (see Voting Rights Act 1965) and the Immigration and Nationality Act (see Immigration and Nationality Act 1965) were passed, creating at the same time a sharp increase in Black voter registration and the largest Korean community in the United States. Although 1965 would also be the year of the Watts Riots, it would not be until 1974 that the first incidents of brawls between Korean and Black students in high school would be reported in local Korean newspapers (Chang and Yu 1994). In the 1980s, African Americans began boycotting Korean American owned stores nationwide, saying essentially that Korean storeowners had little respect for the communities they served (this is discussed in more detail in the next section). Although it is evident that tensions existed between the two communities before the riots in 1992, what seemed to crystallize the anger among Blacks in Los Angeles, and what would ultimately cause them specifically to target Korean shops during the riots, was the tragic shooting of LaTasha Harlins in March, 1991. Footage of her shooting was shown locally and throughout the country, and her death came less than two weeks after the sting of the King beating and its nonstop playing on the news.

The Good Die Young

Schools turn to war zones, even homes unsafe,

Leavin' children to play caged, and raged to hate,

How come? Someone explain, why the good die young,

Why the bad die slow, and outlive everyone?

It's time somethin' is done, for our young kids,

They growin' hopeless and that ain't the way to live,

Tell me why.

From The Good Die Young (Tupac Shakur, 1999).

The grainy, security-camera images of the LaTasha Harlins shooting were immensely dreadful. In them, 14-year-old high school freshman Harlins enters the Empire Liquor Market in Compton, California, ostensibly to purchase a bottle of orange juice. However, what results is a horrifying sequence of events. Korean market owner Soon Ja Du accuses Harlins of trying to steal the juice and grabs the child's backpack. Harlins fights back, striking Du and knocking her down. Harlins places the bottle of juice on the counter and turns to walk away. When Du emerges from behind the counter, she has a gun, and she points it at the back of Harlins' head and shoots. Harlins dies on the scene, holding in her hand the money she had intended to pay Du.

Stevenson (2004) provides a detailed account of the shooting and the backgrounds and histories of Harlins and Du. Interestingly, the two families had had a relationship prior to the tragedy. Indeed, Stevenson reports that at one time, Harlins' uncle worked for the Dus, but quit when they asked him to work free overtime. In fact, the Dus questioned why Harlins' uncle wouldn't donate his time, because he was a black man and that was what slaves did. Naturally, Harlins' uncle walked off the job. Also prior to the shooting, Harlins had been warned by her grandmother not to go into the store, because she felt the Dus always treated their customers rudely and accused them of stealing. The attitude that Korean shop owners were routinely offensive and mistrustful was widespread among Blacks in Los Angeles (Park 1994; Freer 1994). At WPHS, for example, my students regularly complained that the Korean store located a couple of blocks from the school would not allow them to shop in groups—only one or two students at a time were permitted into the store. They also echoed the sentiments that the cashiers were rude. In contrast, many shop owners believed Blacks were gang members who were extremely violent and to be feared. Stevenson notes:

It probably was not difficult for the Dus to generalize their fear and anger of local [gang] members to the larger Compton population. Interviews of Los Angeles Korean shopkeepers in 1989, for example, reveal that most felt blacks were inferior to them, and therefore did not deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect. Others were influenced by myths that characterized African Americans as lazy people who wanted only to live off of welfare and who were jealous of Korean industry and success. African Americans interviewed during the same study overwhelmingly attested to the poor, disrespectful and dishonest treatment they had suffered at the hands of most of these shopkeepers. This type of treatment, black customers implied, inspired the hostile, dishonest, disrespectful interaction Korean shopkeepers complained they routinely suffered (159).

Park (1996) explains that although there were clearly cultural disconnects at work, there was also the reality that there were class and power issues that perhaps fostered racist tendencies. She suggests that because Korean Americans during the time leading up to the riots served essentially as “middlemen” between the poor Blacks in the urban core and Whites who existed in society at large, they could never be viewed as in partnership with Blacks in the any sort of struggle for equity. Park states:

Whereas community leaders emphasize culture and the media focus on race, scholars have stressed the importance of structural forces in race relations for instance, the commercial role of minority middlemen. Korean merchants, when they operate outlets that serve as the intermediary between a local population and individuals in economic and political power, play a role similar to that of other ethnic minorities in third-world colonies (492).

Further fueling tensions was the reality that most Korean shop owners did not live in the communities in which their stores were located, and were seen by Blacks as unwilling to give back to the very people who shopped at their businesses (Freer 1994). Alex Norman (1994) said of the problem that Korean Americans and African Americans were “two victims pulled together in a cruel hoax of American-styled racism” (14), and that because of economic oppression, cultural differences “take on a magnification beyond their means” (15). Whatever the cause, one thing became clear—some Blacks felt abused by a system that denied their children opportunities for success, and they believed the death of one young girl was viewed by the judicial system and the Korean community as less tragic than the slaughter of a dog because the killer was not sentenced to a single day in jail.

Freer (1994) concludes that, “were it not for the economic vulnerabilities [of both groups], it is possible that the cultural misunderstanding between them could be replaced by a respectful alliance” (199). She further asserts:

As immigration patterns shift and the demography of those who live and work in South Central Los Angeles changes, it is likely that the conflicts will change as well. Unless there is fundamental economic improvement in the lives of [these] residents, it is all too possible that only the faces of the conflict will change. The fight over the single slice of pie will simply begin anew (2000).

The Black-Latina/o Predicament and the Crisis in Urban Schools

I will say publicly what many people are whispering privately in barbershops, soul food restaurants and church parking lots in South Los Angeles. If relations don't improve between African Americans and Latinos in Southern California, we are headed for a major racial conflict. (Kerman Maddox 2007)

Freer's prediction that the faces of conflict would change has, unfortunately, come true to a certain extent, with current clashes occurring between Blacks and Latinas/os. Much has been written about the surge of violence between these two groups in the local press, but what becomes apparent is that the dramatic shifts in school and community demographics cannot be ignored. Indeed, the changing demographic in LAUSD since the time of the riots is remarkable. In the 15 years period since the LA riots (from 1992 to 2006), African American students in LAUSD have gone from 14.6% to 11.7%; Latinas/os during this same period have increased from 65% to 73.3%.

Maddox (2007), in an editorial for the Los Angeles Times, asserts that there has been a sharp increase in crimes committed by Latinos against Blacks in recent years, citing the specific case of “three Los Angeles members of a Latino gang known as the Avenues [who] were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for hate crime violations, including killing African Americans in an effort to run them out of predominantly Latino neighborhoods” (p. 1). Although he admits that there have been crimes committed by Blacks against Latinas/os, he claims there have been fewer of these incidents, and that they were not motivated by the need to ethnically cleanse their neighborhoods. Instead, they were mostly the result of classic gang turf wars, much like they had been involved in with members of their own racial group for decades. Hernandez (2007), in her Los Angeles Times editorial, echoes Maddox and states:

The acrimonious relationship between Latinos and African Americans in Los Angeles is growing hard to ignore. Although last weekend's black-versus-Latino race riot at Chino state prison is unfortunately not an aberration, the December 15 murder in the Harbor Gateway neighborhood of Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old African American, allegedly by members of a Latino gang, was shocking. Yet there was nothing really new about it. Rather, the murder was a manifestation of an increasingly common trend: Latino ethnic cleansing of African Americans from multiracial neighborhoods. Just last August, federal prosecutors convicted Latino gang members of engaging in a six-year conspiracy to assault and murder African Americans in Highland Park. During the trial, prosecutors demonstrated that African American residents (with no gang ties at all) were being terrorized in an effort to force them out of a neighborhood now perceived as Latino (1).

The killing of Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old African American girl on December 15, 2006 is critical to this discussion not only because it is tragically reminiscent of LaTasha Harlins, but because, like Harlins, she was murdered primarily because of racial discord between two groups adjusting to sharing space and resources. Indeed, as Green and her friends sat talking together with friends on a street corner near her home, she was sprayed with bullets by a local Latino gang known as the Tortilla Flats (Laidman 2007). Brentin Mock (2007) notes:

Since 1990, the African-American population of Los Angeles has dropped by half as blacks relocated to suburbs, and Latinos have moved into historically black neighborhoods. Traversing South Central L.A. today, it's obvious that the urban landscape has changed radically since the Bloods-versus-Crips era depicted in movies like Colors, Boyz N The Hood, and Menace II Society. Not only are there vastly fewer black people walking the streets, there are vastly fewer obvious black gang members. Beige skin and baggy khakis have displaced the red and blue bandannas of the Bloods and the Crips (1).

This kind of acrimony and violence has, at times, spilled over into the school setting. In March of 2007, for example, students and teachers at WPHS dealt with the horrendous “gang related” murder of 17-year-old Alex Contreras, who was stabbed to death by a Black student right in the center of the school's quad, just as classes were dismissed for the day. By March, the school had had 310 citations for fighting (Uribarri and Rubin 2007). In April of 2005, a race riot broke out at Jefferson High School, and other skirmishes in schools across the city followed:

The Jefferson fight was over in less than 20 minutes. But for two months after that April 14 battle, Jefferson's black and Latino students faced off in spontaneous skirmishes, orchestrated beatings and at least two more large-scale melees. Twenty-five students were arrested, three hospitalized and dozens suspended or transferred. Hundreds more stayed away from classes, and those who showed up did so with fear (Banks and Shields 2005).

Although there are, of course, examples of students from various racial and ethnic groups getting along well and learning together throughout the district, and educators who are committed to creating safe environments, these tragic events are awful reminders that there is still much work to do. bell hooks (1995) asserts that some of this discord in society at large is the result of non-White racial groups vying for attention and acceptance in a White supremacist capitalist patriarchy, and, thus, “progressive bonding” among all people of color is not allowed to flourish (201). This progressive bonding includes identifying common concerns to promote coalition building and resisting the urge to compete for resources. Ultimately, she suggests that only through a paradigm of solidarity can members from diverse racial and ethnic groups begin to disrupt the system that rewards people being pitted against one another (202).

Academically, students who attend schools in urban settings often do not perform as well as their counterparts who live in suburban areas (Kozol 2005). Further, racial isolation and outright segregation leads to educational experiences that are far less than ideal (Frankenberg, Lee, and Orfield 2003). In Los Angeles, the demographic shifts have left only a few senior high schools with significant concentrations of African American students. These include Crenshaw, Dorsey, and Washington Preparatory High Schools, and I provide a snapshot of their performance on the district's School Accountability Report Card (LAUSD 2007b) in Table 1 because they are schools that have large numbers of both African American and Latina/o students. The lack of achievement in these buildings is startling.

Table 1 Percentages of Population and Academic Proficiency of African Americans and Latinas/os at Three Los Angeles High Schools, 2005–2006

High School	Crenshaw	Dorsey	Washington Preparatory School
Race/ethnicity:
African Americans	66	57	55
Latinas/os	33	42	45
Proficient in:
English/language arts	13	12	11
Mathematics	3	1	1
Science	9	4	7
History	10	7	4

It is hard to ignore the impact of race with these data in mind and, as stated earlier, it is incumbent upon educators to think about what it means to serve students in high poverty, segregated schools.

Discussion: We Can All Get Along

Can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids? We've got enough smog here in Los Angeles, let alone to deal with the setting of these fires and things. It's just not right. It's not right, and it's not going to change anything. We'll get our justice. They've won the battle, but they haven't won the war. We will have our day in court, and that's all we want … I'm neutral. I love everybody. I love people of color. … It's not like they're … making me out to be. We've got to quit. We've got to quit. … And I mean, please people, we can get along here. We can all get along. We've just got to, just got to. We're all stuck here for a while. … Let's try to work it out. Let's try to work it out (Rodney King 1992).

King's acceptance and acknowledgement of the fact that “we're all stuck here for a while,” is quite central to discussions about how schools and educators can begin to address the painful realities of racism. The task seems monumental and there are many fronts from which to attack it. What seems central to all approaches, however, is that an exploration and ultimate confrontation of beliefs and assumptions must occur. Returning to CRT for a moment, we are reminded that we can explore the reasons for inequities among schools specifically with race in mind. However, even critical race theorists caution that merely exposing racist practices is not enough to bring about change:

It is very tempting to appropriate CRT as a more powerful explanatory narrative for the persistent problems of race, racism, and social injustice. If we are serious about solving these problems in schools and classrooms, we have to be serious about intense study and careful rethinking of race and education. Adopting and adapting CRT as a framework for educational equity means that we will have to expose racism in education and propose radical solutions for addressing it. We will have to take bold and sometimes unpopular positions (Ladson-Billings 1998, 22).

Essentially, the point is, we can talk all we want about race, but if schools are still places where personal identity is dishonored and academic achievement is lacking, we still have much to attain.

Sandra Parks (1999) echoes these ideas and notes:

To confront racism in their own attitudes, individual educators must be willing to examine unconscious, often deeply held assumptions; to acknowledge their own privilege or resentments; and to recognize how their own values, priorities, and attitudes, and those of others of different ethnic or cultural groups, are expressed in community life and in school . To heal personal and institutional racism requires preservice and inservice education characterized by insight and sensitivity that is unprecedented in current professional development practices (14).

Thus, understanding our own biases and attitudes is only the beginning. Although it is vital that education professionals be given opportunities for this kind of deep exploration of beliefs, the ultimate goal is that we use this exploration as a catalyst for shaping what we do for children in classrooms every day. Critical race theorists assert the need for boldness, and when we consider the level of complexity and crisis facing many public schools some 15 years after the Los Angeles riots, there simply is not time for anything less. hooks (2003) believes that education can be the practice of freedom, where individuals can become conscious critical thinkers with the ability to observe and explicate their worlds and name injustice. She states:

Education as the practice of freedom requires a holistic approach to learning. In such a setting every interaction in the classroom matters—not just the information teachers impart. The way they engage with students matters and will determine whether or not a learning community forms. Learning rarely takes place in a hostile environment (14).

The goal, hooks says, is to provide opportunities for students to engage in activities that encourage critical analysis of race and racism and how these affect what goes on in schools and in their lives.

To think that a child was killed just weeks ago on the very quad where I spent many a lunch period supervising students and where noontime pep rallies were held before a big game is incredibly sad for me. My own stepdaughter attended WPHS and was a cheerleader, and I met my future husband there. He taught Chemistry. For us, the school's motto, “We Are Family,” had real meaning. I can picture the quad in my mind now, and students shuffling to class. What should they have a right to expect as they go about their day? How in the world do we assure them that their predicament—that of attending a challenging school—won't mean the end of their dreams? The Los Angeles riots illuminated a level of racial discord that was palpable and volatile, and school was where we all came together to make meaning of our circumstances. CRT challenges us to create school systems that have at their core an understanding of just how pervasive our ideas about race shape everything from curriculum and assessment to funding policies (Ladson-Billings 1998). Inherent in this theory is the belief that schools really can live up to the high standard of providing academic excellence, access to vast opportunities, and safe spaces for young people to formulate and shape their identities. Ultimately, school can be the very place where ideas about power and privilege can be explored and challenged and where students from various racial groups feel valued. This is a hopeful notion that needs only our resolve.

Notes

1. In the opening hours of the unrest on April 29, 1992, Reginald O. Denny was driving his truck through South Los Angeles and was dragged from his cab by an angry mob and beaten nearly to death. His beating was captured on videotape by news helicopters and, like the King beating, it would be shown over and over on television for weeks, shocking the nation and the world.

2. This article does not provide a complete definition or analysis of CRT. For a better understanding of this theory and its implications, see Delgado and Stefancic (2002), Villenas and Deyhle (1999), Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995), and Tate (1997).

3. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, approximately 80,000 Mexicans decided to remain in the United States and receive American citizenship (PBS 2007). Further, the treaty promised that these new citizens would have “the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States according to the principles of the Constitution, and that “they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property” (Tate 1969; Treaties and conventions 1871).