#educational discrimination

"William: Do you know what people are most afraid of?

Jamal: What?

William: What they don't understand.

Jamal: When we don't understand, we turn to our assumptions.

William: Crawford cannot understand how a black kid from the Bronx can write the way you do. So he assumes you can't."

  One of the themes reflected in Finding Forrester is concerned with how to face off with our fear to step beyond our comfort zone to the others' world of which we have little or no knowledge. We have watched the characters in the movie deal with their fear of the unknown in different ways. One retreats from the fear of the "others" by denying their values while another can just accept the "others" as they are.

For example, the mysterious protagonist William Forrester gives up to his fear of the chaotic outside world by confining himself inside a studio full of books and an always clean window for bird and Bronx watching. The autocratic teacher Crawford, as observed by Forrester in the above conversation, justifies his fear of the talent of Jamal, for which he failed to explain using his presumably large background knowledge associated with his professor status, by assuming that it is a mere miracle. Jamal, our "hero", appears as the only one to just go for it, be it first the much-rumored room of the "window" - dubbed Forrester by Jamal's mates, or not long afterwards the world of private-schoolers in Manhattan. Those ventures later in the movie turn out to be life-changing points for the "black kid from Bronx".

Apart from the fated encounter between the young writing enthusiast with an old writing genius (also the dramatic factor of the movie) that directs Jamal closer to his dreams, Jamal's "extraordinary" score in the national examination and acceptance to the prestigious Mailor serve as a practical turning point for Jamal. This conversion from one group to the other as well as the account of education in Jamal's story has been depicted in the movie through the contrast between the ghetto school in Bronx and the rich prep school in Manhattan. In Mailor we can easily see a number of privileges saved to distinguish it from Jamal's previous school in ways that are not so far from reality about school systems around the world. 

The most immediate example of assigned privilege may be the change from casual street wear to the designer uniforms. The uniform can be a symbol of unity and equality where all dress the same regardless of backgrounds just as well as a means of exclusivity. It fosters in us a sense of belonging but at the same time provides a faster way to detect the others outside of the group. In elementary, secondary and some high schools in Vietnam, those students who refuse to wear the same as their peers in neat uniforms are often thought of as future "rebels". My brother once got furious when my mom could not wash and dry his only piece of uniform (the school only sells one for each) on time for the next school day. Furthermore, uniforms with the school logo printed on very much resemble a brand or a label to be stamped on the students of one school. They can only wear this label if they got accepted by the school, a process that "usually begins by not making school available to everyone", as Carnoy (1974) succinctly put it in his classic Education as Cultural Imperialism. Another example of juxtaposition is the detail of using lockers differently in each school. In Bronx, Jamal locked his belongings at school with a serious combination lock. It was why he was amazed when Claire helped crack open his locker at Mailor with just a bang. It just could not be that easy! The same object, but functions differently with different schools. Knowing how to learn in class in your old village school won't guarantee that you can learn that well in the new town school; and talking about universal education for everyone! As a matter of fact, Bronx is only 11 km "far" from Manhattan.

It's also interesting how the colors and location of the lockers (from the viewer's perspective left hand in Bronx school and right hand in Mailor) are contrasted. 

Jamal has overcome the 11 km of not only physical distance but also of fitting in the unknown methods and the new "identity", hoping to find the answer to his life that his old school cannot help him, as Forrester said. Even after all that, discrimination is retained when Jamal discovers that the school board actually wanted him only for his basketball skills, which were expected to bring victory to ordain the school name in the upcoming national game. The schedule is then designed for the "black kid" that ought to be good at basketball and only basketball with heavy training hence little time left for academic study. When the idea of a poor black kid originated from the uneducated, crime-filled Bronx can actually write, a talent often saved for well-educated children in rich family who have time and resources to concentrate on study, appears unfamiliar with the administrators at Mailor, "basketball" is used to justify the inclusion of Jamal to the school. Such prejudice was actually once deemed to help keep the education quality. In 1976, Reagan, just before his presidency, blamed a decline in education quality since the 1950s on then the new school mission "to create citizens free of prejudice" and implied an emphasis on "literacy as a White property" (Prendergast, 2003, p.102-3). 

Overall, the "privileged" transfer of Jamal from Bronx to Manhattan in Finding Forrester to me is an interesting illustration for the thesis that Carnoy (1974) made about education, while generally thought as a promise to social mobility, historically and still in fact is merely meant to transform one to attain certain "permitted" (by the economic political system) level of awareness that to be deliberately maintained afterwards.

"It's funny though... They always let you get but so far before they take everything away from you."                                                                                  

                                                                                  Reference

Carnoy, M. (1974). Education as cultural imperialism. New York: David McKay Co.

Prendergast, C. (2003). Literacy and racial justice: The politics of learning after Brown v. Board of Education. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press