Jalani Taylor

The Revolutionaries Project

High Tech High
Lisa Griffin , Bernardo Quintero , and Mona Kiani
Semester 1 , 2015

Essential Question:
What social issues are given more priority in a school setting and how does
that differ between students of different grades?

Table of Contents :

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2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)

Personal Narrative
Privilege Interview
Project Proposal
Experiment
Analysis and Implications
Experiment Reflection
Research Process
Interview Highlights
Latin American Paper

Jalani Taylor
Privilege Identity
Oct. 5 , 2015
AM Class
As I get older I can clearly see how my childhood has shaped me into the person I am
today, and how these years will affect rest of my life. Beginning with some of my earliest
memories, from birth to age two I was raised here in San Diego. The earliest memory I
have is playing fetch with my dog Wilson in Balboa park when I was about two and a

half. This is one of the few memories I have from living here in SD as a kid. Most of my
memories are in Arizona where I lived from ages 3 - 11. My most vivid early memory of
being in Arizona was when I was young is being at my friend Corbins 4th birthday
party. It was at the local waterpark ( which would later be where I spent a large portion
of my childhood ) , all I can remember is being in a room designated for parties and that
we were all eating pizza as he opened presents from his friends. Another early memory
of mine, which was also shared with Corbin, is going to watch our Dads play basketball
at the gym every thursday night and Sunday morning. I think one reason my memories
with Corbin are so important to me is because we were not only best friends, but we
were both half black. Our dads were both black and our moms were both white. Our
moms were friends as well making me and Corbin even closer since our families were
always together. We went on trips together, and at one point we even moved across the
street from Corbin's family. Corbin helped me grow as a person because even though we
didn't realize it, we were very similar while living in a place where there weren't many
kids like us. Although I didn't recognize the importance of this relationship at the time I
now see how important it was and I value it because without him I may have felt
outcasted.

One thing I recognized early on was the differences between my mom's side of the
family and my dad's side. Aside from the obvious differences like skin color, I could
easily depict the differences in culture, however i had no idea that's what I was doing.
Every Thanksgiving I would switch off as to which Grandmothers house I would be
spending the day at, the holiday was the same but the days were very different. If we
went to my dinner at my Dads side there would be over fifty people, 15 of them I would
know as family, 10 of them I would know as family I don't really remember, and the rest
would be people Ive never met that my grandma invited from her church most likely. It
was more like a community event then it was a family event. My grandma's intention
was to invite as many people as possible, cook for everyone, and the have a house
chalked full of family and friends. However this was just one side of the family, the other
side felt completely opposite. At my other grandma's house ( my mom's side ) , the day
consisted of everyone cooking and pitching in towards the meal with their own dishes.
There was a max of 15 people there because it was only immediate family members.
Everyone sat down and started eating at the same time, unlike at the other grandmas
house where people literally lined up to get their food and then dispersed all throughout
the house. Even though as a kid i could clearly see the differences in these two
households. I still saw them as equal family, with or without their traditions, white or
black, they were still my family.
Another thing that shaped me into who I am is the time period in which I moved back to
SD. I was around 11 years old which in my mind is a very impressionable age. When I

back here the closest thing to describe what I was feeling is culture shock, I was so used
to a routine, and in comparison to my current life, bland lifestyle. The type of people
were simply far more diverse. Yes, in race, but certainly not just in that aspect. People
here come from different backgrounds , live completely different life styles, dress and
look different , and most importantly pride themselves on being different. One thing I
noticed, even as a naive child, there is no common belief religion wise. In Arizona i was
almost exclusively surrounded only by Christians and Catholics. Since I moved here I
have met Jews , Hindus, Agnostics, Scientologist, Buddhists, etc. Although I consider
San Diego a better environment, I am so thankful that I lived in Arizona because It
allows me to recognize that I am exactly where I want to.

Priviledge interview
During my father's childhood he spent half of his time here in San Diego and Half of the
year in Louisiana. Some would say this created a negative environment to be raised in.
Partially because switching households has negative effects on kids, but perhaps less
obviously, because the specific environment was not positive or productive. He grew up
in a town called Coushatta , this town has a very specific culture. This culture is created
by elements such as ; over 70% African American, most jobs are in the agricultural
category, there is a considerable amount of reverse discrimination , and the fact that the
very first thing that comes up when you google " Coushatta " is the link to the casino, the
biggest attraction in town. There is a small population of 2000 , and high levels of drug
use and poor gun control laws.

Questions :
How does Coushatta compare to SD? Obviously they are very different but what stands
out immediately ?
- " cultural differences, starting with the fact that the town is 85% black. There was also
only agricultural jobs available but no other opportunities. "

Are You glad you grew up where you did? ( based on how it affects you now as an adult )
- "yes, it gave me a different perspective on social norms, people were more friendly and
nice."
- Is that an example of " southern hospitality " ?
- "yes exactly. "

As a kid how did you feel about growing up in Coushatta ?

- " I liked the lifestyle of living in the country"

What was the biggest negative and the biggest positive of growing up there ?
-" The biggest negative was lack of diversity and reverse discrimination. The positive
was sense of community "

Did you enjoy living in SD or Coushatta more? How much of that had to do with the
parent you were with ?
-" I liked Coushatta because it was the country and we were in the forest all day shooting
guns and doing things you can only do in the country, however San Diego was a much
better environment. But still not nearly as good as it is now "

How did moving back and forth from Louisiana to San Diego affect you?
-"The worst part of it was that I couldn't have long term relationships because I was
always leaving"

Project Proposal: Prejudice Visibility

Essential Question: What social issues are given more priority in a school setting and
how does that differ between elementary students, middle school students, and high
school students?
Justification:
Our topic is prejudice visibility, which is related to all types of prejudice and whether or
not people recognizes those problems. It is important to us because we feel as if people
should be aware of the issues around us. Because, if we dont know what type of
problems are happening in the world how can we solve those problems? This addresses
the privilege of having the option of dealing with prejudice and having the ability to
ignore it. Our essential question is what social issues are given more priority in a school
setting and how does that differ between elementary students, middle school students,
and high school students? We wish to hand how a survey to 3 separate age groups and
have an open ended discussion afterwards about the type of problems they discuss in
their classes. A few sub questions would be What type of problems are they most
interested in or What problems do they value over others? Answering these questions

will give us a better understanding of what problems will be addressed in the future.
Each of brings something to the group. Gloriann and Jalani are both outgoing and very
social. They are willing to gather any information whether it being interviewing
someone or doing research online thoroughly. Jordan is very dedicated to the topic and
wishes to find out the answer to each of the questions. Caitlin is very good at organizing
her thoughts and making sense of the information. We feel as if we are a good group to
work together because of how our skills allow us to work with each other. Also each of us
are very open minded to feedback.

rEvolutionaries Project Experiment

Topic: Prejudice Visibility

Essential Question: What social issues are given more priority in a school setting
and how does that differ between students of different grades?
Survey Questions:
Choose the one issue that your teacher speaks the most about in a positive way (to
advocate for the issue)
Choose the one issue that you hear talked about the most in a negative way (jokes, rude
comments)
Choose the one issue that you hear talked about the most in a positive way
Which of these issues do you wish got more recognition or was spoken more about in a
positive way?
Which of these issues do you want to learn more about?
Sample Size: 75
9th & 10th grade: 37 students
11th & 12th grade: 38 students
Sample Population: Students at High Tech High, from all four grades

Question: Choose the issue that you hear talked about the most in a negative way.
(Jokes, rude comments)
Racism

Sexism

Body
Image

9th&10th

18

Relative
Freq.

---> 48% ---> 13% ---> 15% ---> 0% ---> 8%

Racism

11th&12th 21

Social
Class

LGBT
Inequality None

Total

37

6
---> 16%

Sexism

Body
Image

Social
Class

LGBT
Inequality None

Relative
Freq.

---> 55% ---> 8%

---> 11% ---> 7%

---> 12%

---> 7%

Total

39

38

75

Question: Choose the one issue you hear talked about the most in a positive way
Sexism

Body
Image

Social
Class

LGBT
Inequality None

Total

9th&10th 2

12

37

Relative
Freq.

---> 5%

---> 15% ---> 11% ---> 32%

Sexism

Body
Image

Social
Class

LGBT
Inequality None

13

11

---> 34%

---> 29%

Racism

---> 5%
Racism

11th&12th 7
Relative
Freq.

---> 18% ---> 5%

---> 11% ---> 3%

12
---> 32%

38

Total

25

23

75

Privilege Project: Analysis and Implications

Privilege: Privilege Visibility
Essential Question: What social issues are given more priority in a school setting and
how does that differ between students of different grades?
Sample Size: 75
9th & 10th grade: 37 students
11th & 12th grade: 38 students
Sample Population: Students from High Tech High, from all four grades.
1. What is the probability that a HTH student does not hear their teacher talk
about an issue in a positive way?
P(chose none in response to first question AND HTH student) = 33/75 = 44%
2. What is the probability that a HTH student hears racism talked about in
the most negative way?
P(chose racism in response to second question AND HTH student) = 39/75 = 52%
3. What is the probability that LGBT inequality is the issue talked about the
most in a positive way?
P(chose LGBT inequality in response to the third question ) = 25/75 = 33.3%
4. What is the probability that students at High Tech High wish social class
got more recognition?
P(chose social class in response to the fourth question) = 17/75 = 22%
5. What is the probability that students at High Tech High dont want to
learn about any issue?
P(chose none in response to the fifth question AND HTH student) = 20/75 = 26%
6. What is the probability that students at High Tech High want to learn
more about social class?
P(chose social class in response to the fifth question AND HTH student) = 18/75 = 24%
7. What is the probability that an 11th/12th grader heard racism talked about
in a negative way?
P(chose racism in response to the second question| 11th & 12th grade) = 21/38 = 55%

8. What is the probability that an 9th/10th grader heard racism talked about
in a negative way?
P(chose racism in response to the second question| 9th & 10th grade) = 18/37 = 48%

When analyzing this data, we found that students in HTH are exposed to the subject of
racism much more than LGBT Inequality or Social Class. Out of the 75 students that we
gave surveys over 50% of them have heard Racist jokes more than any other type of
derogatory joke. We also learned that certain students arent being exposed to any of the
selected problems. 44% of HTH students do not hear a problem advocated against by
their teachers. 33% of HTH students hear LGBT inequality talked about the most in a
positive way.
When we asked the students what issues they wished got more recognition, the answers
were all across the board and there was no one topic that stood out. Something that
surprised us when we were looking over our data was the number of people who said
they didnt want to learn about any social issues (26% of HTH students) Something else
that surprised us was that zero 9th and 10th graders heard social class being talked
about in a negative way. From conducting this experiment, we can conclude that racism
and LGBT inequality are two issues that get the most recognition, positive and negative
at HTH. While issues such as Social Class get only a fraction of the recognition that
those other two problems get. Not only that but we can also conclude that over 25% of
the students included in this experiment at HTH have no interest on learning about any
of the selected issues.
The reason the data we have collected is important is because the answers that High
Tech High students have given us is not only representative of the student body here at
High Tech. Its a possibility that the data we received from our study speaks for our
generation as a whole. For example, if 48.6% of the students we surveyed told us that
they hear racism joked about or talked about negatively often , It is likely that 40 - 50%
of students from other high schools would also say that they hear racism being talked
about negatively often or perhaps even on a daily basis. If this is the case that means we
can confidently say that our survey results accurately represent our age group as a whole
in San Diego schools. And if we can apply that percentage to teens, then we can most
likely apply the rest of our stats as well. Making our project not just about High Tech
students, but about high school students in general.
In hindsight, when conducting this survey, we could have worded the questions better.
Some questions such as Choose the issue that your teacher speaks about the most in a
positive way (to advocate for the issue) or Choose the one issue that you hear talked
about the most in a negative way (jokes, rude comments) were confusing to the people
we were surveying. We didnt take into account speaking of in a positive way can mean
agreeing with the prejudice. We all assumed that the people we were surveying, were

against all the issues and believed in equality for all the issues. We didnt think about the
people who might think racism or sexism is right/justified and how they might interpret
the questions. In the survey, we also asked a two opened ended questions, hoping we
might get some interesting story responses. Unfortunately, we didnt get many good
responses and didnt record the ones we did get. We also wanted to hold an open ended
discussion after the surveys were filled out, but that didnt pan out either. We decided
not to include that after we tried to hold the discussion with a class that was unwilling to
participate.

Privilege is a special right, advantage, or immunity, granted to only a particular

person or a group of people. Everyone has different privileges being offered to them, and
many people experience privilege on a daily basis without even noticing it. Little things
in life can be accounted for as a privilege. Such as, in America, we have the privilege of
always having access to clean water to whereas some countries cannot do this. Privilege
can come in many forms, and it is a great part of our lives that can affect us in a positive
or negative way. Race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, etc; are some social
structures that affect us in life related to privilege. Privilege is related to probability.
Depending on your chances of something happening, it can be affected by the amount of
privilege someone, or a group of people have.
Probability is the likelihood of an event happening. To find the probability of an event,
we look at the number of favorable outcomes out of the total number outcomes. In
probability, there are two different kind of events, independent and dependent.
Independent events are not affected by previous events but dependent events are. There
are also simple events and compound events. A simple event describes a single outcome
while a compound event describes an event made up of two or more simple events. One
way to find the probability of an event is to test it through an experiment or simulation.
Through running experiments, you can find the experimental probability which is the
number of times the event occurs out of the number of trials. According to the Law of
Large Numbers, the more experiments you run or the larger the sample size, the closer
the experimental probability will be to the theoretical probability. The theoretical
probability is the closest to the truth you can get.

Reflection
After discussing both probability and privilege its about time we compare the two and
see whether they affect each other or not. As shown in a discrimination profiling
experiment, The Angry Eye, probability is used as a way to access privilege and the lack
of privilege. For instance its more probable that a person who is constantly told to be
beneath another to fail than it is for someone being constantly told they are above
another to fail. The privilege that you gain in turn affects the probability of certain
events happening. For instance african americans have a greater chance of getting into
college but they also have less of a chance of meeting the requirements necessary to
apply for college. People who have a better social status have a better chance at getting
into more prominent schools and in turn receiving a higher education. There is also an
issue with morale as those with less privilege are often noticed and given prejudice
based of their lack of privilege. As shown with the Angry Eye experiment where an
elementary school teacher had the students judge one another by their eyesight, the
students that were told they were serperior based off their eyesight not only did better
academically but choose to mock others who did not have the privileges they held. The
privileged are given more opportunities and they in turn have a higher chance of
succeeding because of their upbringing. While the no privileged are constantly being put
down whether its emotionally, mentally, economically or physically. However that
doesnt always mean that the non privileged dont succeed and that doesnt mean that
the ones who are privileged are always cruel to the non privileged. It all depends on the
person and whether or not they can see past the material value of people. If they can see
the greater value from within.

 Beyond Prejudice - Reducing personal prejudices

This article covers how you as an individual can reduce the amount of prejudice that you
put out in the world, either in jokes, comments, or generalizations. The feeling I got
when reading this, is that the author felt with attention to each person's stance on
prejudice you can change the entire world by educating people to change themselves. In
some cases people don't necessarily need to " change themselves ", but there is always
the possibility to be more observant of what you put out in the world. This article lays
out the context in a way that is easily applied to everyone's life. The suggestions are
basically written in steps 1-20. Each step is a different way to notice or remove prejudice
in your life. Some of the steps have to do with educating the reader and some steps have
specific methods the reader can use to get rid of pre existing prejudice.
" Talking is important, if we can't openly talk about prejudice we surely can't change it "
- Bringing up fact that communication is the first step in solving this problem because
sweeping it under the rug isn't an effective form of prejudice reduction.
" It would have been difficult to not learn or hear about this information, you most likely
learned it ( prejudice ) before you were able to think about it critically "
- Instructing people to confront their addition to common prejudices without grief is
important because many people may be ashamed of what they were taught or how they
were raised, and letting people know that as long as they change it does not matter what
views they were brought up with.
" Become aware of your own comments about other groups of people"

- I Feel this is the most important quote of the article because everyone, no matter how
open minded they are, makes comments from time to time that could be considered
offensive. I personally do not believe anyone could completely cut these comments out
of their daily life because there are simply too many people that could be offended by
something you say, however choosing your words carefully is extremely beneficial and
important because if everyone did this before they spoke prejudice wouldn't be the
problem that it is now and people wouldn't need an article laying out step by step
instructions on how to be a good person.

Interview Highlights
My group interviewed a man named Eric Stoner. He is an editor and founder of a
newspaper called Waging Nonviolence. Eric is exactly the type of person we were
looking for. He