As I understand it, we have taken black individuals in this country through a terrible series of slavery, Jim Crow, Red-lining, mass incarceration, child removal, and police brutality. When it comes to the link between redlining, incarceration, poverty, and educational opportunity; through predatory loaning, we have trapped people of color in certain low-income areas. These areas most likely have low property taxes, leading to low funding for local education and are also patrolled by the police looking to arrest low income, black men. Lack of educational opportunity paired with countless other ailments like ACEs (which can come from having an incarcerated parent) stack the odds against black children making it through the educational system. Those ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) are traumas that affect health, attention, risky behaviors, etc. With untreated trauma inflicted by the system, children of color in redlined areas will often times be trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty and discrimination.
