Bell/Jones Readings -Facilitator-Ryan- 6/30

Hi all, 

I hope everyone had a good evening. Please find my questions for the readings below:

1. Why does the gardener prefer red over pink at the outset? Put another way, why does society shirk accountability by talking more about symptoms than the causes of racism? Do we know - but refuse to consciously acknowledge - both its roots and its perpetuation? (I was prompted by page two of the Jones article: "Let's imagine a gardener has 2 flower boxes, one that she knows to be filled with rich, fertile soil and another that she knows to be filled with poor, rocky soil ..."). How does this tie Bell's ideological oppression to Jones' personally mediated racism? 
2. In what ways have you experienced or witnessed individual devaluations affecting collective devaluation within your own communities? Are there patterns in causes or results, especially relating to education? Feel free to open discussion to all the "-ism's" if necessary. 
3. Let's take this one step further. At what point can/does well-intentioned guidance and mentoring become/get perceived as oppressive? Applied to education, what does it say about the field that we constantly speak of "lifting students up" to the curriculum? What are we lifting them from, and whose assumptions about urban students end up getting challenged more? Is there or is there not an element of oppression in this sociological argument? 

Cheers,

Ryan