In the video shown to American high schoolers in Virginia, a mix of students prepare for a running track race. The race begins but the non-white students stay down until the clock reaches 1964. Then they are free to run and catch up to the white runners.
It betrays the bias of the video’s producers that 1964 and not 1863 is chosen as the point of freedom in black history. While 1964 provided a host of protections and solidified voting rights, the emancipation proclamation was the de facto turning point is releasing our fellow citizens from bondage.
Adding a hundred years before 1964 does not convey urgency any longer, so the video’s creators just chose to leave out the hard stuff, like actual history.
From The Unequal Opportunity Race:
As the video begins, four athletes take their marks at the start of a race. While two white athletes immediately take off at the sound of the starting gun, two non-white athletes must remain in the starting block while a red light blocks their path. The non-white athletes are bombarded with words such as “slavery,” “broken treaties,” “genocide” and “segregation.” The white athletes continually run around the track, getting older as their batons – marked with a money symbol – grow larger and larger. Eventually they hand the baton off to a younger white athlete running beside them.
More than a minute into the animated video, the non-white athletes finally get to start the race. But as soon as they begin running, the pair is beset by rocks, potholes, sharks and rain clouds symbolizing “standardized tests,” “discrimination” and the “school to prison pipeline.” The white male athlete, holding a water bottle marked “Yale,” eventually wins the race without even having to run – he takes his place on a fast-moving conveyor belt as the word “privilege” follows him. He crosses the finish line just ahead of the white female.
As the four-minute film ends a message flashes across the screen: “Affirmative action helps level the playing field.”
What the films creators failed to acknowledge is that there are millions more white people who have not benefited from so-called white privilege. When middle and lower class Americans are being told that “white privilege” is an inherent right and all whites are born with an advantage over other people, they are wondering how they can get their .
What does this do to further a high school career? It will do nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6gtMrbAFVo
there is a lot of into in the description on youtube
oh hell no
funny stuff priceless really who the$#%&!@* believes this . its so easy being white in America where everytrhing is just handed to you. my life has been a bowl of cherries. yea rite
Nonsense about those that get more money, that 1 percent is not as bad as those 40 something living free off our tax money!
wait i know how about you tell you black or minority children to stay out dam trouble, stop knocking every girl up they find, stay in school and actually study and do some hard work for them selves. Did i miss anything.. You where you are because you didn’t not try harder that simple.
I know right . Like we should all just give them what we have worked hard for while their off playing at the club .