Karoline Tyson noted that young children she interviewed rarely mentioned race, at least with adults in school settings. Conversations about race are seldom initiated in elementary school classrooms, and the researchers themselves avoided bringing up race with younger students unless the students they interviewed broached the subject. By and large, these students made no mention of race: one student described his classmates by “nearly every physical characteristic but race.” Until middle school or later, these students avoid discussing race.

I wondered what might result in this silence on the topic. Perhaps they are uncomfortable with the subject in general. Perhaps they view race as inappropriate for discussing with in-school authorities because they never see it discussed in this setting. Perhaps they lack the vocabulary to discuss it. Or perhaps, for some, neighborhoods and schools were so racially segregated that differences were rarely visible among students’ peers – as was the case at my elementary school.

Regardless of the cause, it seems that an unwillingness to even acknowledge racial differences (at least among teachers and school administrators, if they are fearful of starting conversations with young students) have prevented authorities from recognizing the biases inherent in the system and in their own judgments of students. Du Bois’s observations about the importance of recognizing unconscious prejudices are particularly salient here: the tacit perpetuation of racism in schools has serious consequences for students’ academic self-concepts and feelings of belonging or alienation in school, and ultimately contributes to racial achievement gaps.