"Ante Up"

Abstract

Perhaps no message is more pervasive (or persuasive) in American schools than the notion that some students are more valuable than others. In spite of their "democratic" rhetoric, schools are in the business of choosing and designating winners and losers for the society-at-large. This designation system is successful because students and school personnel believe that manufactured identity roles are "natural, " true, and immutable. In this article, the author argues that (a) a hegemonic ideology of superiority perpetuates the oppression of African-Americans and (b) African-Americans can overcome this ideology by using their consciousness of social injustice to expose and correct the lies told about them and to construct new institutions that reflect their self-definitions.

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