To Corrupt a Child

So, does it matter what we teach children? Does it matter what we teach white children? Does it matter what we teach black children? And if it matters does it impact their way of viewing and being in the world? And if so can we negatively influence children’s way of viewing and being in the world through what we teach them? If so can we disproportionately negatively impact black children by teaching them pathological ways of living and viewing the world that exacerbate pathological socio-economic conditions?

The answer, to everyone who has every thought seriously about this subject for more than half a minute is, “yes”. What we teach children matters. What we teach minority children matters. And yes, what we teach minority children can hurt them disproportionately, because of statistically significant socio-economic burdens many black (and brown) carry.

Moreover, anyone who actually cares about black and brown (and white!) children should care about the way they’re taught to live in and view the world. And anyone who has worked with poor kids, of whatever color, can tell you that pathological worldviews and patterns of behavior create self-perpetuating cycles of poverty. People who work with poor kids know that breaking poverty cycles NECESSARILY includes breaking pathological worldviews and modes of being.

What do these pathologies look like? Well, they are legion, and deeply ingrained. But I would like to point out just one, because it’s in line with research I’ve been doing recently (so I have a growing familiarity with the scientific literature) and because it coincides with messages that are actively coming from our major media outlets. The most important and perhaps presently pervasive pathological piece of propaganda is the denial or the dwarfing of agency.

What I mean is this: telling black and brown (and white) children that the reason that they are in poverty is because of a vast racist conspiracy that is so subtle, so tentacular, and so fundamental that it no only affects and infects every aspect of society, but it is inseparable from that society, seems like one of the most effective means of robbing already disadvantaged children of their agency and ensuring that they will not take on the responsibilities necessary to escape poverty.

Or, in other words: telling non-white children that white people are to blame for all their problems, and getting them to believe it and live it out seems like a sure-fire way to ensure that those children will never become true adults who take ownership of personal agency and integrate healthily into the broader society.

Telling kids that nothing is their fault and getting them to believe it is a pretty good way of creating sociopaths!

Let’s pause here and make some CYA Announcements…and no, I don’t mean Father Flannigan, interrupting the basketball, telling people that the brown Buick LeSabre license plate OFI 572-niner left its lights on…First, history has consequences. I am not in any way denying that current economic disparities cannot, in part, be explained by historical injustices – and perhaps even present injustices. Second, I am, of course, not suggesting that there is any racial predisposition to failure, or criminality, or sociopathy, or any negative trait. I’m merely stating that when you take large amounts of people in similar circumstances, and introduce similar stimuli, you can predict similar results. We should expect poor whites, being convinced that nothing is their fault and its all an unprovable, nefarious conspiracy to behave largely the same way as poor black and poor brown kids, after controlling for home-life, education, and all the other standard stuff. Third, my stating that convincing children that they have no agency, does not deny the recovery of agency, or moral and social responsibility. I’m sure there’s more C-ing of my A that I could or should engage in, but I hope I’ve demonstrated I have no racial animus and bear no ill will to anyone who is disadvantaged – nor do I want to further disenfranchise them.

My point here is that I want all children to flourish. I don’t care what color they are. I want them to become mature, full integrated personalities who love God and love their neighbor and work hard to make themselves, their communities and their nation a better place. I want peace abroad and prosperity at home…Apple Pie…Mom…Country music lyrical tropes…

So, to get your mind primed to recognize (if you haven’t already) that the “Systemic Racism” argument currently being foisted upon America by the Race-Hustlers is bad for everyone, let’s consider just a few pieces of data.

Katherine Vohs, and her colleagues wrote a great piece which showed that even small influences that make people question “free will” lead to increased cheating, both active and passive. While we cannot, like with any scientific study, make too much out of one piece of research, this fits with what most people already know intuitively – that if you give people an excuse to behave badly, and to their profit, they normally will.

Other studies and publications that you can’t get at without a paywall are described in the above work, as well as many other sources, and they way, largely the same kinds of things: praising children for intelligence and not hard work leads to less hard work when the work gets hard! Shocker!

Of course, this isn’t actually shocking to anyone who’s ever parented a human child. But that’s another story. The point is not to overwhelm with literature, but to show that this phenomenon is not foreign to psychology and to psychologists. Specialists in human behavior predicted and found that denying agency leads to pathological behavior.

In other words: telling someone they can’t can leads to them saying they won’t. Or, telling someone that their success relies on inborn traits and not hard work will cause them to not work hard. And thus, Systemic Racism is pathological for poor black and brown children as well as wealthy white children (as well as yellow, and brown, and black children, too!) It tells the poor black they can’t and convinces the rich white they needn’t. Systemic Racism undermines agency – which is one of if not the most fundamental building blocks of any society.

America doesn’t need blame games and lowered bars. We need to raise the bar. We need to demand integrity, honesty, self-discipline, sacrifice, moral and physical courage, as well as all the other virtues: prudence; industry; fastidiousness; et cetera. We need to teach children that they are responsible moral and social agents living in a society with other responsible moral and social agents.

Maybe, to make it a lot let jargony we need to teach children to love God with all their heart, soul, and strength and love their neighbors as themselves!