Why is it that 500 years after the dehumanizing institution of slavery in America, 50 years after the humanity battle of Brown Vs. Board of Education and 5 years after the abolishment of Affirmative Action at a prestigious predominantly white university in California do " African-American students on the average are the weakest in the United States, at all ages, in all subjects and regardless of class level-(McWhorter 82) [?] Deeply grained social biases against black's ability to achieve academically by the larger society and a personal fear of the phenomenon called the " stereotype threat- has been the primary causes of black student underperformance.
The manifestations of the many biases are not obvious. The evidence of this institutionalized prejudice has such a strong hold in the fabric of America that some might even believe the absurd idea that " all of [black] students belong to a culture infected with an anti-intellectual strain, which subtly but decisively teaches them from birth not to embrace schoolwork too wholeheartedly-(McWhorter 100). However studies reveal that there are significant inequalities in education. The Applied Research Center has done research in over a dozen states and have found striking data about discriminations in public schools. For an example, " In San Francisco, the study found that blacks and Latinos make up 42 percent of the student body, but only 14 percent of those in advanced placement and gifted programs-(Lewin). In addition, in these school districts most of the teachers are white (Lewin). The fact that there is a huge underepresentation of blacks in programs that are used to identify bright and academically talented students points out that many whites have a negative preconceptions about blacks and education that can be explained by the institutionalized racism in America. .
This racism dates back to blacks being denied education for hundreds of years in America because they were believed to be intellectually inferior.