This is the first in a 4- series movie screening.
My elders always told me: “Education is one thing no one can take away from you.”
Unfortunately, this was one of the things that the black residents at Drew were robbed of.
The first thing I think of when I hear integration is how it was integral for my first 2 semesters at Bucknell. In writing this blog, parallel to my train of thought, I see f(x), dy, dx, and numbers and letter representations of numbers. Quite frankly, the only way I could define integration is mathematically.
But let me not lose you with the math concepts; they’re related, I promise.
In math, differentiation co-exists with integration. When differentiating a function using the power rule (the most common way), you must take away its power. For example, I have a function f(x) = x^2, and I want to differentiate it. I must do x^(2-1) and add 2 as its coefficient, which will now be dy/dx = 2x. Just as I have demonstrated this mathematically, that is exactly what happened to Drew, Mississippi. In American English, differentiation is segregation.
Who said you don’t need calculus outside engineering?😅
Outside mathematical definitions, May Bertha Carter understood this concept and decided to take her seven children to Drew High School, an all-white school in the 60s in Mississippi.
Mathematically, to integrate something(the most common way to do it), you add the power to the x, divide the new power by that entity, and then add a constant.
Let’s say I have a differentiated function dy/dx = 3x to integrate it will be f(x) = (3x^(1+1))/2 = 1.5x^2 + c, meaning I will give more power to the student than what they had originally had, a constant way to help which is the c.
<<Let that sink in>>
It was a bold move to take your children to an all-white school, and they battled with court proceedings, newspapers, and school boards. Pulling her children from the all-black school, May Bertha Carter sought an education that promised better resources. That’s the best the parents want for their children. However, this came at a cost. Isolation and bullying, not only from the students but also the teachers, but the students know at the back of their minds that what their mother did was revolutionary, so they toughed it out. It finally put in perspective why there’s this weird aura around being the only black student in the class. It puts in perspective why black students are rarely by themselves and why we walk in together. Why do we see each other and drift into one corner of a room? They don’t even have to say anything but will gravitate towards each other.
With Affirmative action as way to re-integrate black and minority students into schools and colleges, we tend to forget that we are entering a Eurocentric imperialist education system that looks amazing from the outside looking in, but it was never designed for you.
Stay tuned for the next 3.