I have found that many of the articles we read throughout this course are informative but most of them leave me with a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. I really liked the ending of the Steele article because it gave an answer or an idea on how to prevent stereotype threat. The article said that black students who attended the informal weekly rap sessions between white and black students had reduced feelings of stereotype threat and increased grades because the white students and the black students were voicing similar concerns and it made the concerns less racial which made them feel more comfortable and not feel that they were being judged.
Having weekly rap sessions or some other activity that had inter-racial students interacting and learning about one another seems like an activity that people can easily do. Most of the things we have learned about don’t give many answers on how to solve the problem, they just show that there is a problem. This shows that stereotype threat can at least be reduced, and it shows that these sessions work. It would be easy to implement something like rap sessions into schools or the community and that could lead to reduced stereotype threat which could eventually help alleviate racism.
It’s hard to not feel helpless or hopeless after this because this world is such a big place. We really just have to remember that we are taking the right first steps and doing what we can. It’s important to learn about this and spread our knowledge as best as we can.