Black Futures Project: Education and Advocacy – Toward Equity

By Jacquelyn Ortiz

Jacquelyn Ortiz links education as a fundamental right and key to unlocking full human potential to Black futures in this final paper for Race, Inequality, and Public Policy with Professor Angie Beeman. This paper addresses the history and continuing legacy of racial inequity in education and how to better engage in efforts to create change through social justice advocacy. The paper takes a critical look at the role color-blind and post-racial ideologies play in maintaining structural inequities. Using works by Lindsay Perez Huber, Susana Muñoz, Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Curtis Ivery, Joshua Bassett, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Paolo Freire, this paper explores the disconnect between ideologies of equality and implementation of equity-based policies and practices.