Article excerpt…
The primary reasons some people flourish and some people flounder are not in those people but in the conditions of their lives—often conditions not of their making.
Wealthy white students flourish in the slack provided them because of their privilege, and poor children of color flounder in the scarcity of living under the weight of racism and classism.
As I have noted often, if we use level of educational attainment as a marker of effort (more education equals greater effort), why do two people with the same education, one black and one white, result in the black person earning less?
The evidence is overwhelming that class and race (as well as gender) trump significantly manufactured silver bullets such as grit, a growth mindset, or rigor.
To claim that academic success dominated by white and wealthy students is mostly from their effort is a nasty lie, and to suggest that struggling and failing among student populations dominated by poor and black/brown students is mostly from their lack of effort, their lack of vision for success, and a failure to demand enough of them is even nastier.
By Dr. P. L. Thomas
Source: Confronting and Rejecting Jargon and Practices Reinforcing Racism/Classism in Education
The Empowerment Network 