LA ist: UC Law dean weighs in on inequality, CA child care workforce

California child care providers’ decision this week whether to join the union Child Care Providers United will mark a significant turning point in decades of trying to organize child care workers across the state, reports LA ist, a site published by Southern California Public Radio. Child care workers there have long worked in an underfunded system, with African American and Latino early educators most likely to be in low-paying jobs.

It’s a vestige, University of Cincinnati College of Law Dean Verna Williams tells La ist, of early century training programs like “The Black Mammy Memorial Institute” – named for the racist stereotype – that were among the few options available to Black women.

"The mission being to prepare black women to serve in roles that were ... [considered] appropriate for their station, but also not threatening to white people," said Williams, who has studied and written about race, class and gender in education and policy.

"Education for many, many years has been about priming people to serve particular roles in society," Williams said. "That's meant for Black women that they serve a domestic role, that they take care of children."

The origin of those domestic roles is rooted in slavery, when African American women took care of their owners' children, she said.

Read the full story here.

Featured image at top: Two children in a pre-school class at Young Horizons play with blocks while wearing facemasks. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)