Either/Or Thinking part 4
In my last post about either/or for the month, I wanted to address an idea that I have seen over and over again. It’s the idea that if people are just educated, ____ will be resolved. It’s as if education alone will solve all the world’s problems. We’ve been hearing it for hundreds of years. People used this notion when trying to say that if we just teach Black people to be civilized they can fit into “society. Of course, those people missed that Black people were not broken in the first place and the whole idea came from white supremacy.
Now, we hear all about how education will solve racism, sexism, homophobia, and more. The notion is poured into DEI practices and rarely spend time expanding beyond this notion that it’s education or all of our problems will persist. However, if we consider that we’ve been trying education for centuries and the problem is still here, maybe the solution is education AND much more.
“Another idea is the myth of what I call educational determinism. It is idea that only education will solve this problem. … And people must be educated to the point that they will change their attitudes, now there’s some truth in this. But to say, this is the only thing is where we developed the myth. It is not either education or legislation. It is both education and legislation.” MLK, American Dream
What if we had educational opportunities and policy changes that outlined anti-oppression concepts that included accountability measures? What if we embraced both/and to address systemic racism? What if those accountability measures included answering the three questions of results-based accountability?
