“… the school system and the media are closely related and continually transmit their delusional ideas about race back and forth.” (Yosso 53)

It seems to incredibly obvious now, but before this reading I never thought about the relationship between the school systems and media. We always hear of how media affects adolescent behavior, but we never hear about how media can also affect entire school systems, especially in the context of racism. Yosso mentions how social scientists contribute “cultural deficit explanations” for why Chicana/no students don’t perform as well as their white counterparts (53). But as Yosso goes on to say, social scientists rarely take in account the conditions that Chicana/no students are studying in, which is far from adequate and often fail to provide enough resources to help these students succeed. Not only that, these scientists have no reason to take these conditions into account due to the prevailing stereotypes of Chicana/no students in academic settings. These stereotypes include teenage mothers, gang involvement, and under achievement – all of which have been spoon fed to us by the media. So now you have a vicious cycle of Chicana/no students internalizing these racist stereotypes and beliefs about themselves and their community and you also have school systems that won’t try as hard due to these so called “cultural deficit explanations”.

The whole situation felt like a catch 22. You can’t have one without the other, and how do you gain enough influence in one sector – either media or school systems, to have a significant impact the other one? And this question left me feeling a little helpless in the sense that when I become an educator, I can try my best to not subscribe to these stereotypes within the confines of my classroom, but this problem will continue to persist on a nationwide level. Is there something we can do as educators to help resolve this national issue beyond addressing these issues in the classroom?