Why don't our schools work? Ewing tackles this question from a new angle- what if they're actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America's classrooms were designed to do the opposite- to maintain our inequalities. It's a task at which they excel."When I teach courses on education policy and race, I always begin on the first day of class by asking my students a simple question- What is the purpose of schools?"If all children could just get an education, the logic goes, they would have the same opportunities later in life. But this historical tour-de-force makes it clear that the opposite is true- the educational system has played an instrumental role in creating racial hierarchies, preparing children to expect unequal treatment throughout their lives.In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to "civilize" Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Schools were not an afterthought for the "founding fathers"; they were envisioned by Thomas Jefferson to fortify the country's racial hierarchy. And while those dynamics are less overt now than they were in centuries past, Ewing shows that they persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. Ewing argues that the most insidious aspects of the system are under the radar- standardized testing, tracking, school discipline, and access to resources.By demonstrating that it's in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective, and under-acknowledged, mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that there should be a profound re-evaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place they send their children for eight hours a day.
“[Eve L. Ewing] contends that the American education system has been deeply shaped by systemic prejudice. . . . She challenges readers to confront this uncomfortable truth so they can reimagine what schools could be.”—Chicago magazine
“This stark critique of America’s schools anchors our current educational system in eighteenth-century ideas about race and intelligence. Tracing a line from Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia through Jim Crow to present-day policies on housing, zoning, and standardized testing, Ewing argues that this system was always intended to operate differently for different people.”—The New Yorker
“Original Sins focuses on . . . how schools were designed not to unlock opportunity but to control Black and Native children, [to] enforce inequality, and to build the basic infrastructure of America’s racial and economic hierarchy.”—The Ink
“The idea of self-betterment through education has been a part of America’s alleged meritocracy since forever, but here, Ewing lays out here how it’s also always been a lie. For Black and Native students, it’s been a way to erase culture and ‘civilize.’”—Book Riot
“Ewing makes a convincing argument through her analysis and unparalleled storytelling that unless education in the United States is radically reconsidered, schools will simply continue to maintain the legacy of inequality at the core of the nation.”—Shelf Awareness
“In Original Sins, she makes clear how our country’s schools have intentionally configured the contemporary landscape of inequality.”—Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed
“The clearest most comprehensive answer to ‘How did all this happen?’ I’ve read.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!
“A summons to collective struggle and imagining where dreams, memories, and care are woven together as the building blocks of a new vision of ‘schools for us.’”—Sandy Grande, author of Red Pedagogy
“By reckoning with the violent, dehumanizing history of Black and Indigenous schooling, Ewing finds in the resistance of students and renegade teachers a path toward a life-affirming education.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams
“Original Sins is a commitment to being true about the past in order to truly have a future. Fiercely hopeful, this is a book you will read, and then want everyone in your life to read—a book to be read in community.”—Eve Tuck, co-editor of Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education
“Ewing invites readers to consider the power of education toward liberation—schools as collective sites where we can dream and grow our knowledge to building new worlds based on ethical relationships of care.”—Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of As We Have Always Done
“Eve L. Ewing lays the bare the core project of dispossession and race-making in American education and statecraft.”—Audra Simpson, author of Mohawk Interruptus
“Poet, sociologist, and cultural organizer Ewing again turns her incisive, scholarly eye to education, racism, and American society.”—Booklist, starred review
“A troubling and eye-opening examination of the foundational role educators played in developing America’s racial hierarchy.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
-Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author of four books- the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard- Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories- The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She has written several projects for Marvel Comics, most notably the Ironheart series, and is currently writing Black Panther. Ewing is an associate professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues.
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