Significant steps have been taken to deconstruct explicit forms of racism such as segregation within education through landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, post-Jim Crow era integration efforts, and a variety of others, but there is a hesitation to talk about the roots of where this problem comes from. Why is it easier to advance racial neglect than to address it, perhaps even resolve inequality of privilege? Ideally, our education system provides a free space for cultivating thought. What is racism? Where does it come from? How does it influence us and where is it present? It would be interesting to note the diversity of answers that would be obtained if such questions were asked: what shapes are visible to some of us compared to others? Race should be an integral part of the discussion in education. A possible starting point is to participate in a thought experiment on the outcomes of the abolition of slavery in the modern state through the abolition of prisons. By tracing past historical issues in education and comparing them to current conditions of institutional neglect of race, the pragmatic solution of greater dialogue emerges. Such a solution will attempt to create empathetic free thinkers to reform the structural violence that occurs outside of the education system within the state due to racism. The era following the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing traditional slavery continued to struggle with equality within integration. Rodriguez points out that it ended slavery in the traditional sense for African American workers as it allows for involuntary servitude “…as punishment for a crime for which the party must have been duly convicted…” (Rodriguez 15). Consequently l...... middle of paper ......lve. There are measures to break out of the black and white binary, as in Michigan with measures such as an eighteen-page application that delves into personal information, even questions that challenge students to explain how they would contribute to campus diversity (Whitt, Bland 337). Ignorance is not happiness, it comes at the cost of others. Positivity about the future is a great attitude, but it shouldn't extinguish the desire to fight for equality for all. The current period is an opportunity for all of us to enlighten ourselves within the relatively less restrictive confines of the university that allow us to be creative. As students, as peers, we can learn to guide each other on the path to understanding and reorienting our privileges to contribute to a society that echoes that sense of equality from education to the operations of states..