White Reprieves and Black Rage: The Augmentation of Educational Policy and Racial Protests in the Era of COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 imploded the notion of educational equity, as school closures forced educational institutions to grapple with the equity of specific policies, subsequently reigniting a national and international discourse on systemic racism. Due to the uncertainty and debilitating impact of COVID-19 on schools, testing facilities, students, and the American economy, educational institutions temporarily suspended, staunch rules and institutional norms. Entry and exit exams that would otherwise serve as systemic barricades, historically precluding Black Americans from gaining entrance into the bastions of white privilege, became subject to white reprieves.

“America has contributed to the concept of the ghetto the restriction of persons to a special area and the limiting of their freedom of choice on the basis of skin color. The dark ghetto’s invisible walls have been erected by the white society, by those who have power, both to confine those who have no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. The dark ghettos are social, political, educational, and – above all – economic colonies. Their inhabitants are subject people, victims of the greed, cruelty, insensitivity, guilt, and fear of their masters.”

— Kenneth B. Clark

“The objective dimensions of the American urban ghettos are overcrowded and deteriorated housing, high infant mortality, crime and disease. The subjective dimensions are resentment, hostility, despair, apathy, self-depreciation, and its ironic companion, compensatory grandiose behavior.”

— Kenneth B. Clark

Yo, come on we gotta stick together, we all we got/Police taking shots and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout Ciroc/I’m talking ‘bout Emmett Till, I’m talking bout Ezell Ford/I’m talking ‘bout Sean Bell, they never go to jail for/Trayvon over Skittles, Mike Brown Cigarillos/History keeps repeating itself, like a Biggie instrumental/America’s a glass house and my revenge is mental/Rather use my brain than throw a cocktail through a window – The Game “Don’t Shoot”

Introduction

A Conscious and Unconscious Condescension of Benign Prejudices

White Americans, who have long profited from the residuals of systemic racism, quickly shun the declarations of perpetual powerlessness impelled from Black Americans as race-baiting antics. Consequently, diminishing the complexities, contradictions, and historical rage that Black Americans harbor in a world that criminalizes and weaponizes Blackness. Black or Blackness is a sociological and phenomenological construct. Blackness references the experiential vastness of a collective consciousness of diasporic Africans living under the brute of American racism. As a result, Blackness has narrow implications for the United States and what it means to be Black in America. Additionally, there is a myriad of ways and interpretations of what it means to be Black. As a sociological construct, Blackness does not occur in a political, educational, or economic vacuum. Black Americans have continuously faced systemic barriers designed to restrict their mobility from the three-fifths compromise clause, unabated instances of police brutality, and reoccurring instances of voter suppression. As a phenomenological construct, Blackness gives voice to the lived experiences and perpetual forms of powerlessness that confront Black Americans. The inability to grasp this point makes it almost impossible for someone to understand the vitriolic spread of massive protests and demonstrations in cities across America. The murder of George Perry Floyd Jr. exacerbated the racial hostility and indifferences between white power structures and advocates for racial equality, obscured in the pugnacious chant of #AllLivesMatter v. #BlackLivesMatter.

Black Americans historically recognize the expendable role of Black lives in America. To be clear, George Perry Floyd Jr. was not the first, and unless systemic reform occurs unabated, every death reminds Black Americans of the barbarous murder of Emmett Till. To invoke the lyrical imagery of the Game, “history keeps repeating itself, like a Biggie instrumental.” As history annotates, his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on an open casket funeral. The death of Emmett Till became the catalyst for non-violent demonstrations, freedom rides, boycotts, and sit-ins throughout the South. Black Americans had enough and seized the savagery of this moment to champion for racial equality in America. Unfortunately, the acquittal of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam reverberates in the minds of Black Americans with each acquittal in this modern era. On the one hand, COVID-19 imploded the notion of educational equity and exposed the instructional shortcomings and technological limitations of educational institutions, thereby (re)illuminating the confluence between race, schooling, and class.2 The waiver of admission and exit requirements validated what Black Americans knew from the beginning: Standardized tests are rooted in racial biases and private prejudices, subsequently giving birth to systemic racism in educational institutions. Standardized tests are one form or residual of systemic racism and the singular focus of this article.

On the other hand, such reprieves reaffirmed the distrust that Black Americans harbor towards institutions. A reprieve offers a delay, postponement, or escape from some intended consequence or outcome. White reprieves are the temporary postponement or waiver of admission and exit requirements, often systematized in the language of standardization, which has historically precluded Black Americans from accessing political, educational, and economic privileges based on test scores. White reprieves occurred when educational institutions, specifically those institutions apart of the University System of Georgia, waived the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), American College Testing (ACT), and General Record Exam (GRE).3 Likewise, the Georgia Department of Education waived state-mandated testing, teacher and leader evaluation, and attendance requirements.4 Such reprieves would have never occurred in the absence of COVID-19 and cannot be divorced from the acquittal or failure to indict police officers for the murder of Black Americans.

Historically, white reprieves only happen when the powerless utilize their collective efforts to push against the oppression and injustices of white power structures. Alternatively, the benevolence of white Americans within those power structures enables them to see the injustices and inequalities elongated to those deemed “Black.” White power structures are government agencies, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, and economic or social institutions that help produce and maintain race-based inequalities and disparities, whether consciously or unconsciously. Racism was systemically woven into democratic ideals and the foundation of this nation. For sweeping reform to occur in American democracy, white power structures must systemically recognize the conscious and unconscious condescension of their benign prejudices. And, morally reconstruct the systems that white supremacy has buttressed.

Methodology

This article elucidates the historical origins of standardization and offers a concise explanation on the intersectionality of systemic racism and educational policy. Narrative Inquiry allows the author, as both subject and object of this discussion,5 to give voice to one stream of Black consciousness.6 Pulling from the seminal insights of Michael C. Dawson, the amelioration of standardized testing offers a Radical Egalitarian voice in Black thought.7 Theoretically, Intersectionality8 converges with Critical Race Theory9 to explore how the augmentation of educational policy becomes tantamount to a white reprieve and how specific policies have created and sustained educational inequalities. Equally, Critical Race Theory provides the theoretical space for the author to illuminate the impact of educational policy on Blackness. Ultimately, reinforcing the notion that standardized tests are a form of social control, designed by white power structures to perpetuate the feeling of Black inferiority and underachievement. As a theoretical prism, Intersectionality allows the author to focus on the complexity of educational inequalities, as inequalities do not impact Black Americans the same. Again, there is no monolithic view or explanation of what it means to Black. What may potentially ameliorate the concerns of some Black Americans can exacerbate the conditions of other Black Americans.

More so than ever, mainly in the era of social media, we have witnessed the incongruous malfeasance of Blackness, both within and outside of school practices. Accordingly, Black Americans do not receive the same treatment as White Americans. Within overzealous disciplinary policies and practices, Black men may not receive the same treatment as Black women or vice versa. Furthermore, religion, sexual orientation and preferences, familial background, and immigration status, just to name a few, play a decisive role in school practices and the criminalization of Blackness. Invoking the lyrical expressions of hip-hop artists, as a preface to each section, provides a cultural window for readers to understand the modality and manifestation of Blackness in different spaces. Hip-hop becomes a tool that enables readers to grapple with the complexity of racial identity and provides the ideological space to invoke the concept of storytelling as a collective way of remembering the historical grievances inflicted upon Black Americans. According to Marc Lamont Hill (2009), hip-hop provides an avenue for Black Americans to renegotiate their identities and refashion their experiences. Furthermore, hip-hop provides a culturally responsive way to explore the systemic problems of educational institutions, as told through the lens and lived experiences of Black Americans.

Sendin’ white cops in the black neighborhoods/Who ain’t acclimated to ‘em, like that’s the way to do it/Who seen some fuckin’ videos of rappers waving guns/And know nobody black so they act afraid of us/And that’s racism, the fear that a black face gives ‘em/A subconscious racist/Wait, why are there black neighborhoods?/‘Cause America segregated us, designated us to an area Separated us, Section-Eight’d us/When we tear it up’s the only time attention’s paid to us/And education sucks, and every day’s another/Freddie Gray for us, a levy breaks or fuzz

– Eminem “Untouchable”

Systemic Barricades: Segregation by Test Scores

Dark Ghetto, according to William J. Wilson (1989), illuminated “the severe macrostructural constraints that have compelled many ghetto residents to live and to act in ways that do not conform to mainstream social norms and expectations” (p. ix). Dark Ghetto explores the confluence between structural inequalities and social policies that helped to create Black ghettos in America. Thus, giving way to a pantheon of ghetto pathologies and deteriorating conditions that project Black Americans as derelicts and lazy. Fortunately, Dark Ghetto disrupts the white normative beliefs on poverty and welfare within this country, essentially offering detailed analysis and systemic outlook into the behavioral adaptations that characterize life in the ghetto. Even though Clark (1989) unveils the behavioral adaptations or ghetto pathologies that occurred during a specific period of ethnographic observations, the latter 1960s, much can be said about Black Americans’ overall housing experiences. Albeit, a historical regurgitation of housing policies does not fall within the purview of this article. However, since educational institutions have become shrouded, entrenched, and reflective of the beliefs and behaviors that white Americans have normalized and deemed acceptable, they adjure some attention to the connection between housing and schooling.

The same pathologies that exist in the ghetto, also occur in white communities. Mainstream media plays the corybantic role of inciting the contemptuous and derisory outlook that those on the outside of the ghetto, tend to harbor towards those living in the ghetto, subsequently “strengthening [their] sense of worthlessness and giving testimony to [Black] impotence” (p. 12) and inferiority. To be clear, this is not always a battle between races, inasmuch as it often becomes an ideological struggle between social classes, thereby pitting Black Americans against one another. According to Clark (1989),

The mass media – radio, television, moving pictures, magazines, and the press – penetrate, indeed, invade the ghetto in continuous and inevitable communication largely one-way, and project the values and aspirations, the manners and the style of the larger white-dominated society. Those who are required to live in congested and rat-infested homes are aware that other young people have been taught to read, that they have been prepared for college, and can compete successfully for white-collar, managerial, and executive jobs. Whatever accommodations they themselves must take to the negative realities which dominate their own lives, they know consciously and unconsciously that their fate is not the common fate of mankind. They tend to regard their predicament as a consequence of personal disability or as an inherent and imposed powerlessness which all [Black Americans] share. (p. 12).

Consider the role that mainstream media played in the death of Trayvon Martin, Eric Brown, Freddie Gray, and Breonna Taylor. It is not anomalous, upon the death of a Black American, for the media the plaster distorted images and negative stereotypes of the individual in question on news outlets, in their attempt to sway public opinion. Conversely, mainstream media has also played a role in awakening public awareness to instances of police brutality and the inequitable treatment of Black lives.10 Promulgated with a certain intensity and intentionality, eventually influences the vacillating opinions about life in the ghetto. Richard Rothstein (2014) explains how white flight, racial housing policies, private prejudices, government subsidies, municipal services, redevelopment, and zoning, created the conditions that we find in Black neighborhoods across America.11 Eminem also regurgitates and illuminates the role of policy in the making of segregated housing and not the moral failures or shortcomings of individuals. Externally, housing policies played a crucial role in the formation of segregated schools, and educational policies unleashed a series of internal ramifications that reinforced segregation, specifically in the occurrences of admission and exit requirements.

Though, as Clark (1989) states, “the ghetto is ferment, paradox, conflict and dilemma. Yet within its pervasive pathology exists a surprising human resilience” (p. 11). The resilience of Black Americans is undeniable and indisputable. From their insatiable desire for literacy and emancipation, the sagaciousness of controlling their institutions, attaining the financial and material resources to run those institutions, shadowed by their ability to rise above inequitable school funding, racially-biased curriculums, overzealous disciplinary practices, and standardized tests.12 Sometimes to no avail. Yet, Black Americans have found a way to resist the brute of racial injustices and educational inequalities, historically utilizing their collective efforts to enforce racial equality. Brown v. Board of Education serves as a premier example.

John Rosales (2018) explores the emergence of standardized tests at the beginning of the 19th century, as a mechanism to wane the influx of migrants and immigrants of color in white schools. Grounded in the racial biases and private prejudices of those who developed such tests, from early childhood education to higher education, standardized testing helped to “perpetuate [and sustain] racial inequality” (Rosales, 2018, para. 21) in educational institutions. Frankly, standardized testing segregated students by test scores and reinforced the notion of Black inferiority and the overzealousness of testing in educational institutions. Standardized tests spoiled Black Americans’ opportunity to receive admission into specific institutions, established the scientific connectedness between intelligence and ethnicity, ruined any chances Black Americans had to receive scholarships and financial assistance, and increased their chances of retention and remediation. Rosales (2018) declares, “since the beginning of standardized testing, [Black Americans], particularly those from low-income families, have suffered the most from high-stakes testing in U.S. public [and private] schools” (para. 14).

Matthew Knoester and Wayne Au (2015) emphasize the rippling effect that Brown v. Board of Education played in desegregating educational institutions, but also recognizes that while “Brown v. Board of Education may have ended state-sanctioned school segregation, it did not end white supremacy, the effects of which continue to be felt” (p. 3). Standardized testing helped to introduce segregation by another name, and has become a way to “racially code schools and to place enormous pressure on schools with low test scores (generally those with a large number of children of color and living in poverty) to teach to the test” (Knoester and Au, 2015, p. 3–4). On the surface, “standardized testing are just assessments that have become standardized: The same set of questions administered in [the] same way and under relatively similar conditions (ideally), with the intent of creating comparable results” (Knoester and Au, 2015, p. 5). Supposedly, “the use of standardized tests to measure, sort, and rank students is based on the assumption that these tests are measuring students objectively and accurately” (Knoester and Au, 2015, p. 7). Therein raising the rhetorical question, why would anyone be objective to instructional tools that level the playing field for all students? In the end, Knoester and Au (2015) encases standardized testing as a “mechanism of white supremacy and racial segregation” (p. 5), designed to “support the scientific claim of white superiority” (p. 6). Just as racialized housing policies exposed the fallacy of white normative beliefs, educational policies have continually imploded the notion of educational equity, as standardized tests have worked to safeguard the conservation of educational segregation.

Be, be-fore we came to this country/We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys/There was empires in Africa called Kush/Timbuktu, where every race came to get books/To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans/Asian, Arabs and gave them gold, when/Gold was converted to money it all changed/Money then became empowerment for Europeans/The Persian military invaded/They heard about the gold, the teachings, and everything sacred/Africa was almost robbed naked/Slavery was money, so they began making slave ships/Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went/He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces/Shot up they nose to impose what basically/Still goes on today, you see?/If the truth is told, the youth can grow/They’ll learn to survive until they gain control/Nobody says you have to be gangstas, hoes/Read more, learn more, change the globe – Nas “I Can”

Educational Hostages

A barricade is a rigid object that impedes the mobility of something or someone. This article postulates standardized tests as systemic barricades that educational institutions have utilized to restrict the political, educational, and economic mobility of Black Americans. Subsequently precluding Black Americans from gaining entrance into the bastions of white privilege. Pointedly, “early standardized tests were used to justify racism and classism” (Knoester and Au, 2015, p. 7). Ultimately strengthening the racial biases and private prejudices of those outside of schools, often disguised in the language of accountability or school choice. For Knoester and Au (2015),

Within the high-stakes testing environment, low income and children of color are effectively experiencing a type of segregated, test-based curriculum with more rote memorization, more teacher-centered instruction, less recess, less art, less music, less science, and less social studies than the type of curriculum that whiter, more affluent students receive in their high performing schools. As such, both test performance and school curriculum become effectively marked in highly racialized terms. Using test scores as a guide, a ‘good’ school is thus equivocated with whiteness, affluences, and a rich curriculum, while a ‘bad’ school is equivocated with black and brownness, poverty, and an un-enriching curriculum. (p. 8).

As a result, the quality of schools come into question, which enables “white and middle-class parents to situate their children with other white and middle-class children, without the burden of appearing to be racist or classist in their choices” (Knoester and Au, 2015, p. 9). This is where the contentious debate between Predominately White Institutions (PWI’s) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) becomes the sharpest. Especially when it comes to assessing the quality of PWI’s v. HBCU’s. Standardized tests became the instructional mechanism, designed by educational institutions in their attempts to maintain supremacy and perpetuate the feeling of Black inferiority. In doing so, standardized tests coagulate racial hierarchies in America and shift the burden of accountability on administrators, teachers, parents, and students to increase test scores and the school’s attractiveness. The geographical location of schools, severely prejudiced by test scores and zip codes, has become a decisive factor in trying to determine the quality of schools. Test scores become the sole measure of academic success and decide which students receive an offer of admission. As Antonia Darder (2011) states,

A closer examination of schooling practices reveals a culture of domination at work – a “structure of an empire” that systematically reproduces, reinforces and sustains the hegemonic forces of social control and regulation linked to class oppression, gender inequalities and the racialization of populations. (p. 162).

Accordingly, “to ensure compliance, school funding, principal tenure, and teacher incentive pay are being determined more and more by performance contracts linked to performance as measured on a single indicator – the aggregation of student standardized test scores” (Darder, 2011, p. 165). Furthermore, “other reasons associated with student failure are directly tied to questions of cultural relevancy and class biases hidden in the conceptual construction and language use of standardized tests” (Darder, 2011, p. 166). Administrators, teachers, and students “are held captive to the accountability protocols set forth by the state, [which] virtually leave[s] little room to generate or execute more effective criteria for assessing the academic progress of their students” (Darder, 2011, p. 167). As states and local districts work to enhance school quality, through the utilization of standardized tests, “predefined skills and knowledge receive priority at the expense of the cultural knowledge and experience of students from economically disenfranchised communities” (Darder, 2011, p. 170). The same goes for institutions of higher learning. As a result,

The evaluation and assessment of students (as well as teachers) then are predicated on the results of standardized tests, which are used to sort, regulate and control students. Thus, the testing of students more and more drives the curriculum and prescribes both teaching and the role of students in their learning. This prescriptive teaching hardens and intensifies the discrimination already at work in schools, as teaching of the fragmented and narrow information on the test comes to substitute for substantive curriculum in the schools of poor and minority students. This intensified discrimination and widespread pattern of substituting test-prep materials, devoid of substantive content and respect for the ways children learn, are most at work in schools where the majority of economically oppressed children attend. Hence, standardized testing has historically functioned to systematically reproduce, overtly and covertly, the conditions within schools that perpetuate a culture of elitism, privilege and exploitation. (p. 170–171).

It subsequently creates a culture and climate within educational institutions that “formalizes instructional practices” (Davis and Martin, 2018, p. 45) to assuage the racial biases and private prejudices that standardized tests supposedly nullify.13 Test-driven instructional practices or “teaching to the test” becomes tantamount to remedial instruction or teaching the minimum content that students should know to pass standardized tests. The instructional focus becomes the mastery of minimum standards, which enables school administrators to produce “well-intentioned goals but simultaneously contribute to the oppression of [Black] students” (Davis and Martin, 2018, p. 48). Davis and Martin (2018) unequivocally stress that “increased test scores do not mitigate oppression” (p. 48) or race-based inequalities and disparities. Since test scores revolve around “numbers and statistics” (p. 51), according to Davis and Martin (2018), “the analysis of all types of data, including statistics, however, involves interpretation that cannot be divorced from social and political contexts. How data is chosen and used depends on who is doing the choosing and their purpose for conducting the analysis” (p. 51). Systemic barricades, couched in the language of entry and exit exams have served as impediments to Black mobility, educational achievement, and economic advancement. Unfortunately, “oppression has consequences for the oppressor and the oppressed” (Grier and Cobbs, 1992, p. ix).

Pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, where the fuck are the boots?/And streets act as a narrator, don’t gotta read comics/Or be that into characters, just to see that, just to be black/You better be strapped with a Derringer/Or be “capped in America” like Steve Rogers/‘Cause no one oversees these cops and/All we see is ‘em beat charges/We done seen ‘em beat Rodney King unconscious, and got off/So we don’t need all you crooked police officers’ peace offerings/Just keep marchin’, ‘til we reach Congress/But they’re gonna say you’re tryin’ to take an irrational stance/If you try to slander the flag but/Somebody has to be the sacrificial lamb/So they call it a Kaepernick tantrum/If you don’t stand for the national anthem – Eminem “Untouchable”

Black Rage: A Kaepernick Tantrum

Racial protests are deeply embedded in Blackness and what it means to be Black in America. From the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, enslaved Africans to thwart white resistance to black education, and finally to the boldness of young student activist in Birmingham, Alabama.14 Black Americans have protested their dissatisfaction with Black lives inequitable treatment of Black lives, hence the phrase, #BlackLivesMatter. You have those who swiftly retort, #AllLivesMatter, but unfortunately, history shows the unbearable images of horrors inflicted upon Black bodies. The racialized trauma inflicted upon our enslaved ancestors permeates the all American bodies, consciously or unconsciously, and influences the decisions that we make.15 That trauma has spilled over into the streets of American cities. With dissatisfaction comes resentment or a righteous indignation, as some would say, that compels Black Americans to resist the wiles of American racism.

According to Grier and Cobbs (1992), “aggression leaps from wounds inflicted and ambitions spiked. It grows out of oppression and capricious cruelty. It is logical and predictable if we know the soil from which it comes” (p. 3). As psychotherapists, Grier and Cobbs (1992) conclude that Black Rage comes from the burdensome toil of what it means to be Black and the generational injustices that confront Black Americans. For Grier and Cobbs (1992), this is rage or righteous indignation that all Black Americans possess, even if some never openly express their hostility against white power structures. Readers must understand that Black Americans do not think uniformly, but all Black Americans share some level of discontentment and dissatisfaction for racial relations in America. Some view young, Black Americans standing on a street corner, as a synchronized, conservative, and symbolic representation of their enslaved ancestors standing on an auction block. Although circumstances differ, the despair remains the same. In contrast, others view the discontentment and dissatisfaction of Black Americans as a Kaepernick tantrum. In this regard, Black Americans should let go of the past and stop racializing their mistreatment. Some would say, Trayvon Martin should not have been wearing a hoodie. Sandra Bland should have kept her emotions in check. Eric Garner had no business selling cigarettes without a business license. And so on.

In the aftermath of officer-involved shootings, Black Americans took to the streets to publicly express their historical grievances with white power structures. Grier and Cobbs (1992) states, “a city erupts in [a] fury. Its residents are appalled and outraged. Biracial committees are appointed and scapegoats appear from everywhere. Instead of wretched housing and stifling unemployment, outside agitators and wily Communists are said to be the most important causes” (p. 25). Many questioned the rationale of racial protests in cities outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Why would Black Americans join forces in cities that had nothing to do with the death of unarmed Black Americans? To such individuals, it makes sense to protest in Ferguson, Atlanta, Cleveland, Hempstead, Fort Worth, and North Charleston, to name a few. Nevertheless, why bring trouble to a city, where trouble does not exist? To this we say, racism is an American problem and deeply rooted in cities across America. The global spread of COVID-19, coupled with the health care disparities and social inequalities that persisted, contributed to a disproportionate rate of Black deaths. Black Americans had enough and refused to sit idly by while history repeated itself. The ghetto replaced the plantation. The savagery of segregation became embedded in American laws and institutions, and educational institutions have played an indispensable role in (re)segregating America.

American enslavement took root in the degradation, dehumanization, and deprivation of Black life. The continuance of which lingers in educational policy. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 exacerbated the problem that already plagued American schools. According to Clark (1989), “segregation and inferior education reinforce each other” (p. 111). To further situate this claim, Clark (1989) declares,

If children go to school where they live and if most neighborhoods are racially segregated, then the schools are necessarily segregated, too. If [Black Americans] move into a previously white community and whites then move away or send their children to private or parochial schools, the public schools will continue to be segregated. If the quality of education in [Black] schools is inferior to that in white schools, whites feel justified in the fear that the presence of [Blacks] in their own school would lower its standards. If they move their own children away and the schools becomes predominantly [Black], and therefore receives an inferior quality of education, the pattern begins all over again. (p. 111–112).

Simply put, “the quality of education [should] not vary according to income or the social status of the neighborhood. The goals of integration and quality education must be sought together; they are interdependent” (p. 117). However, this has not been the case. Standardized tests have reinforced the notion of Black inferiority and incompetence, and has contributed to the despair and trauma that Black Americans experience in school practices. Waiving entry and exist exams provided a historical moment where Black Americans could exhale their fears and shame. COVID-19 exposed the hypocrisy of standardized testing and illuminated what Black Americans already knew: no test can fully and accurately measure intelligence. Waiving standardized testing was a grand gesture. However, the amelioration of standardized testing would be a step in the right direction. Just as educational institutions play a role in (re)segregating America and coagulating racial inequalities, they can also play a role in dismantling the systemic barricades that restrict and devalue Black life. We can start by rethinking the role of standardized testing.