A guest post by Jefe:
Segregation academies (1955 – ) were set up by whites after Brown v. Board (1954) to circumvent desegregation. They proliferated in the 1960s-1970s in response to court desegregation orders. By the 1990s, following white flight and residential resegregation, many either shut down or were compelled to admit non-white students. Today, they remain a bastion of the “Black Belt”, particularly the Mississippi delta.
White officials in districts with segregation academies severely restrict funding to the public schools, which become overwhelmingly black.
Few jurisdictions voluntarily desegregated schools after Brown v. Board. Housing segregation created by restrictive covenants, kept in place by blockbusting and racial steering, led to racially gerrymandered school districts. That was easier in places which had more than one school each for blacks and whites, but difficult in sparsely populated rural districts which did not lend easily to white flight.
Prince Edward County, Virginia, a rural county between Richmond and Charlottesville, took extreme measures. In 1959, it halted funding for public education, effectively shutting down all its public schools. White parents opened the Prince Edward Academy, leaving blacks with no school to attend. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the county to reopen their public schools in 1963, which they appealed. In 1964, the order was upheld, but the Academy persisted with minimal funding for public schools. In 1978, the Academy lost its tax status, but did not admit non-white students until 1986.
Prince George’s County, Maryland grew rapidly in the 1950s-1970s after white flight from Washington, DC. In 1973, its school system was 80% white, but black students attended schools over 90% black. In 1974, it became the largest school system in the USA ever subject to mandatory desegregation by bussing. Middle class blacks kept moving to the county, becoming the majority by the 1990s. Academies had to accept non-whites just to stay in business. They are now more racially diverse than the public schools, which are 80% black. Bussing ended in 2001 since students were merely being bussed from one black-majority school to another.
Boston, Massachusetts witnessed some of the most violent protests against mandatory school desegregation in the mid 1970s, but avoided segregation academies via white flight. The disappearance of whites was made up partially by Latinos and Asians.
Anniston, Alabama had separate “black” and “white” high schools until the 1960s. They avoided segregation academies by having whites move to the adjacent city of Oxford. Anniston High school became majority black, and Oxford High remained mostly white. Oxford’s population has now surpassed Anniston’s.
Nowhere have segregation academies persisted more than in the Mississippi delta. Indianola Academy opened in 1965 and still operates today. Its student population is 96% white (1% black). Nearby Carroll Academy did not have a single black student in 2010. The public schools are over 95%
black. County officials severely restrict funding to public schools. However, due to population decline, enrolment in the segregation academies dropped to levels difficult to sustain. Standardized tests are not required in the segregation academies, and academic performance there may have declined to levels not much better than the public schools. Nevertheless, the Mississippi delta stubbornly refuses to integrate.
See also:
- White History Month 2015
- American school resegregation
- Boston school busing riots
- blockbusting
- Chinese Americans in Mississippi under Jim Crow
- Mother’s Day in Anniston
- racial steering
- restrictive covenants
- some numbers on Black Americans
- white flight
I’m beginning to see that Racism/White Supremacy – WHITENESS – is also an (evil humans created) **ART** form. There is a super amount of complex creativity that goes into it.
It’s always in a constant state of flux, always refining itself to maintain White Superiority – by any means necessary!
This particular ART never stops, or ends. Neither does it adherents!
I don’t believe Black people should seek social integration with Whites as a solution to the race problem. The real solution lies elsewhere – within ourselves – if we are willing to go deeper – and sacrifice – to get there.
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@ Just Me
I agree. Racism/White Supremacy is a SYSTEM designed to perpetuate itself and to perpetuate the “appearance” of black inferiority and it’s a system that the VAST MAJORITY of whites participate in either by COMMISSION (openly practicing racism) or by OMISSION (denying that it exists and that they benefit from it).
Without the VAST majority of whites either covertly or overtly supporting this system it would not be able to function on a national or a GLOBAL basis. If this were not true, there would be whites openly fighting the inferiorization of black schools, meaning there would be black schools in the U.S. that were EQUAL to white schools — and I don’t know of a SINGLE CITY OR TOWN in the U.S where black schools are NOT inferior to white schools.
How can that be true unless the VAST majority of whites practice and support the system of racism? I’ll go even further.
Go anywhere in the world where whites are in power and you will see inferior non-white schools and communities. Now, how can that be possible unless there’s a SYSTEM in place to GUARANTEE that blacks and other non-whites stay educationally inferior?
and even more importantly WHY do white people need to manufacture “inferior” education for blacks (and non-whites) if they REALLY believed they were “superior?”
And this is what is so frustrating when discussing the system of racism/white supremacy with other black people. That we can’t see — or refuse to see –what is right in front of our noses and that we keep buying into LIES that we are not as smart as white people.
When in reality, if I KNOW I’m a superior person, I don’t NEED a system, I don’t NEED to cheat all the time. In fact, I can give an inferior person an ADVANTAGE because I know they can’t beat me. But the white system exists as a CRUTCH for white people because they FEAR that unless that have a BIG head start they will probably lose a lot of “races.”
That’s why so many whites were in an uproar about “affirmative action” and called it “reverse racism” because they know (secretly) that the key to maintaining their white system of privilege and power is to NEVER let black or non-white people have an equal start in life — EDUCATION.
that I have to DEBATE with black and non-white people that this system even exists is a major source of frustration and irritation because OUR COMPLICITY and DENIAL is one of the main reasons white supremacy continues to dominate us.
Instead of resisting our oppression, far too many blacks and non-whites put whites on pedestals, chasing behind them (or being caught) for sexual and romantic “encounters” and at the same time BLAMING other black people (and non-white) people for being victims of racism/white supremacy when we, ourselves, are still being oppressed (?)
(a totally illogical and self-disrespecting position in the face of oppression (!)
We have become huge CO-CONSPIRATORS in our own oppression and that our children and our children’s children, and it’s time we WAKE UP, OPEN OUR EYES, FACE OUR REALITY and gather the COURAGE to at least tell ourselves the Truth about what we’re dealing with AND what we are NOT doing about it. .That’s the least we can do
(sorry about the long post )
Abagond — excellent topic!
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Reblogged this on Racism Is White Supremacy and commented:
A post all blacks need to read!
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If I may add one more thing, even in “integrated” schools, blacks are often victimized by “tracking” — meaning black students are “tracked” into a vocational path away from college while whites are “tracked” into college prep courses.
And if that is not present, the overall atmosphere of the majority white schools for black students is that ever pervasive feeling that they are just not as smart as white students and are often disciplined and expelled for minor offenses while whites are given a free pass for the same offenses
And the lessons that are taught emphasize what whites have done (everything) and that blacks have done (literally nothing) and this form of brainwashing deliberately permeates everything within that educational system.
At the end of that “experience” many black students report feelings of inadequacy because that is the overall PREMISE of a white supremacy education: white is always superior/black is always inferior.
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“… the overall atmosphere of the majority white schools for black students is that ever pervasive feeling that they are just not as smart as white students and are often disciplined and expelled for minor offenses while whites are given a free pass for the same offenses.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
@T-Pam
Thank you for explaining in clear DETAIL why sitting in classrooms with white students is fraught with so many toxic psychological and physical pitfalls.
Integration with white people is not the solution to the racism/white-supremacy problem.
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@Trojan Pam
Don’t apologize. It had to be said and you did a very good job saying it.
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i recently discovered that the town where I’m from didn’t desegregate the schools until 1970.
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Check this out or extra LULZ:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104×5407440
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@ Just Me
I agree. The sad thing is MOST black parents know the pitfalls because they experienced the same inferior and/or racist white majority schools YET we avoid talking about racism and warning our children in advance so they won’t run behind these white students trying to be validated. Shame on us for that.
Also, we KNOW black schools are largely inferior and do NOT prepare our children to compete with whites and Asians YET we have MORE black “churches” than black schools or businesses.
Again, we are COMPLICIT in the intellectual destruction of our children and have NO BUSINESS blaming and demonizing our LOW SELF-ESTEEMED children for not having a defense against racism and their inferiorization.
There is NO excuse in this day and age for us to be silent in the face of what is happening YET if you talk against the HYPNOTIC effect of black churches (that make us submissive to white supremacy AND the pimp/preacher) we will get spitting madder about that than about our inferior black schools.
Our denial is killing our future!
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More of the same LULZ here.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2005/12/the_new_separate_but_equal.html
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@ satanforce
Wow, thanks for the eye-opening links.
To share a quote from one of the articles: “Many white parents say they’re leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extra-curriculars like sports and other personal interests.”
It sure sounds like “liberal whites” are fleeing the school system because the Asians students are making their children feel inferior
because Asians students are better prepared than the glued-to-the-cellphone, making-endless-selfies, taking naked-pics-on-cellphones, playing video games and pouring-vodka-in-the-eyeball-to-get-high well-to-do white kids. .
I can also imagine it doesn’t feel good when something or someone make your children feel inferior…. especially when your kids don’t the excuse of being poor and oppressed..
It appears that “liberal” whites embraced “diversity ONLY when they are in the superior position. (which is why I never buy into the labels people give themselves) — and they obviously shun anything that attacks THEIR system of white privilege, white superiority and white power and exposes it as a FRAUDULENT SYSTEM.
I also hope this is a WAKE-UP call to so many “Asians” who often don’t acknowledge their non-white status (another group that is deeply in denial despite all their numerous wake-up calls) although I doubt it will.
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Never quite understood why integration is the preferred policy in education. Does sitting next to white children make black students smarter? If the assumed problem is a lack of funds why not lobby for policies that equalize school funding?
Also, is there any proof that more money improves education? Correlation doesn’t always mean causation. The superior educational outcomes of students in upper income districts could be attributed to something else besides more funds. The US Spends more per pupil than any other country in the world, yet international test scores consistently show that the U.S. is lagging compared to other developed nations. How do you account for this?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/oecd-education-report_n_3496875.html
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@ The Pragmatist
from what I understand it wasn’t black activists who wanted integrated schools, they wanted EQUAL schools, it was the white supremacists who mandated integrated schools, probably (I believe) to maintain control over the education of black students the same way they controlled every aspect of black life.
Of course, money improves education just like money improves the quality of a child’s home life. Why are private schools so expensive? Why are boarding schools so expensive? Why does organic food cost more than non-organic food? Because anything of higher quality costs more money.
I did a series of posts on the Chicago school system but I’ll leave the link to a relevant one.
http://racismws.com/2013/06/02/chicago-school-closings-racial-dislocation-part-3/
in the middle of my post check out the — Avenues: The World School (Manhattan, NYC)
Here’s a quote from their website:
—-
“Imagine that the chair of Avenues’ Spanish language studies is located at the Avenues campus in Madrid. She helps to recruit Spanish teachers for Avenues schools all over the world; selects the best Spanish courseware; conducts professional development/training programs for Spanish teachers; and runs the immersion programs in Madrid in which many Avenues students from around the world will participate.”
—-
Does anyone think a elite education where GRAMMAR SCHOOL students participate in “the immersion programs in Madrid?” costs money?
Black people should NEVER buy into the fraudulent argument that quality schools don’t cost money while whites spend three to five or more times more money on white schools
.
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[…] segregation academies […]
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[…] Source: abagond.wordpress.com […]
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[…] Source: abagond.wordpress.com […]
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@Trojan Pam
anything of higher quality cost more money
All of those examples you listed before this statement are correlations. We shouldn’t make assumptions nor limit our thinking because of our race. As I stated before, students in other developed countries do better although the U.S. spends more (39% more than the oecd average).
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/01/28/us-education-still-separate-and-unequal
Honestly, I don’t believe it takes more than a textbook and a good teacher to learn. The racial disparities in educational outcomes seem to be deeper than money. I think the lower expectations families, peers, teachers, and wider (ie white) society places upon black students accounts for much of the inequities within the school system.
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@ The Pragmatist
I wholeheartedly disagree. Race doesn’t “limit” my thinking. Race/racism is a FACT.
Check out my link and it’s obvious that RACE/RACISM is the determining factor when it comes to HOW money is spent on education.
Of course, it’s deeper than money. but to minimize the effect that money has on the QUALITY of education and to say otherwise is illogical.
I do agree that the lower expectations the society has regarding black people accounts plays a role but to say that is most of it is illogical and smacks of blaming the victim when in reality it is the SYSTEM OF WHITE SUPREMACY that CREATED those “low expectations.”
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@satanforce
That article was really interesting but it turned out in the end that the author is advocating for vouchers and charter schools==>he’s a Republican who wants to take money away from public schools which harms the poor and people of color.
I went to an elite public university after California had already banned affirmative action and several white students informed me that there were still affirmative action “quotas”. Even a Middle Eastern girl agreed on this and expressed fear that she had only got in through a quota. I had thought that if affirmative action was banned then at least white people would acknowledge that I had gotten in through my qualifications, but no.
“Stuff White People Like: #98 The Ivy League”
“If you actually went to an Ivy League school, you will been seen as a threat so prepare for a lot of questions from white people…They desperately need a source of comparison so that they need to figure out if you are actually smarter than them. In fact, the only way to stop this line of questioning is to imply that you only got in because of your minority status. Once you say that, white people will stop feeling threatened since they can now believe they too would have been accepted to an Ivy League school if they were a minority. It also gives them a personal story about the effectiveness of Affirmative Action.”
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Asian Americans do make up about 40% of students in every UC. They have a lot of college graduates and strong college/professional networks, which is something that no other ethnic group of color have, although people of color have the majority of the population in California as well. If they put those gifts to work for racial and social justice, as many are doing, then the “model minority” joke will be on white people.
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@ Solesearch
I grew up in Chicago and black schools are STILL segregated, just like most black neighborhoods– only NOW they are closing dozens of black schools and are pushing blacks out of “prime” areas because whites are tired of those long commutes to their jobs and entertainment in the central city.
That’s the MAIN reason Chicago will probably be selected for the “Obama Presidential Library” — to facilitate and justify a BLACK LAND GRAB via imminent domain — all in the name of a “first black” president
who frankly doesn’t have enough accomplishments to fill one building, let alone 40 ACRES of land (that’s what will be taken) unless you count all the dead bodies from drone attacks.
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@ Speak Out
I agree that the goal is to demolish the public school systems and turn them into corporate training camps (charter and voucher schools) where they can push a mind-numbing ciricculum designed to educate poor and working class students into meat for the corporate/military/prison complexes.
One other group of immigrants that excel educationally are the African immigrants that nobody talks about. Nigerians, in particular, have a higher percentage- population wise — of college degrees than the average american, percentage-wise.
In fact, in Britain two Nigerian siblings were dubbed the “smartest kids in Britain” after they demonstrated a genius level of mathematical ability
Unfortunately, thanks to the white supremacist media, whenever someone hears the word “Nigerian” they automatically associate it with overseas scams and corruption.
White supremacy is a 24-7, well-oiled propaganda machine and they know they better keep their feet on the necks of blacks and African students or all hell might break loose.
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My grandmother said as long as we follow after white people they will continue to do what they do! Its past time for us to self segregate.
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@Trojan pam
Race/racism is a FACT.
race/racism is the determining factor when it comes to HOW money is spent on education.
It most certainly is. I made no arguments countering this fact; however, I am quite skeptical about the relationship between racial disparities in school fund allocation and racial disparities in educational outcomes.
I already looked at your link btw. I couldn’t find any information that proved causation. Do you mind pointing it out to me?
Also, simple claiming my statements are “illogical” is not a sufficient counter argument. Tell me WHY they don’t follow sound logic. Find some information (study, data, article) that directly addresses and disproves what I said.
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@ The Pragmatist
Regarding my link
http://racismws.com/2013/06/02/chicago-school-closings-racial-dislocation-part-3/
The amount of money spent on an upper-middle-class school in (white) Naperville and the money spent on a school in a black lower income high school (Dunbar) that has a graduation rate of about half that of the white school allows me to make a pretty obvious conclusion: that MONEY has a lot to do with the educational outcome.
When I attended Chicago public schools, we get OUTDATED books discarded by white schools, we have an underfunded chemistry and biological labs, and some teachers that were ill equipped to teach (some had mental problems and one was an alcoholic) who have been EJECTED from other schools.
And when those of us who went to college got there, we found that we were largely ill-prepared to compete with students from schools that were better funded.
It wasn’t my family. Both my parents went to college and stressed education. It wasn’t my lack of ability. I could read at age 3. It was the FACT that I went to an UNDERFUNDED BLACK SCHOOL that was designed to limit my academic confidence and opportunity.
I don’t need (study, data, articles) to tell me that MONEY had something to do with the quality of my education AS well as MONEY having something to do with the quality of my life outside that school — all I need is the common sense and the ability to follow a logical conclusion.
For the record, I’m not saying you don’t have either, I’m saying I find it highly suspicious when people (usually white) say that money doesn’t have a lot to do with the quality of education when it comes to black schools.
Yet if anyone EVER told the upper middle class white parents who send their children to the Naperville high school that looks like a college campus OR the Avenue School that looks like an entirely different educational UNIVERSE
that “money isn’t needed for a quality education” and all their kids needed was “a “textbook” — that school official or politician would have to find a new job.
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@ Trojan Pam
I totally agree with you.
This is why I support the endless work of Brother Umar Johnson. It’s time for us, Black people, to stop the talking and do the working. Like other ethnic groups, we, Blacks, need to study and learn self/race-empowerment, group economics, and aggregation.
Trojan Pam, you mentioned the White supremacist. The White supremacist is ahead of the game. The White supremacist has redefined his racism against Black people. In many cases, a White supremacist will do more for Black people than the average Black person in the community. What do I mean? A White supremacist would build, finance or help finance so-called inner city schools (seen in charter schools) for Black children. Why? A White supremacist does NOT want Black children attending schools with White children. The same tactic can apply to residency. A White supremacist would build, finance, or help finance inner-city housing complexes for Black people. A person might ask, why? A White supremacist does NOT want Black people residing in White-segregated neighborhoods. The White suburbs are still 99 percent non-Black. The White supremacist’s tactic works in sports too. The White supremacist would create, finance, or help finance inner-city basketball and football leagues/teams for Black children. Why? A White supremacist does NOT want Black children joining country club sports like tennis, golf, swimming, canoeing or kayaking. He knows that creating or financing “inner-city sports” will keep his country club sports lily white. A famous saying of the White supremacist: “If you want to keep Blacks away from you, your neighborhood and sport then help finance theirs.”
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@ Trojan Pam
Your extensive knowledge on racism/White supremacy is remarkable. Awesome, keep up the tremendous work!!!!!
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@ Michael Cooper
I hear what you’re saying. I always ask black people — when it comes to black schools — why in the WORLD would white people educate black children to be able to compete equally with their children?
Of course, they wouldn’t and some of us just don’t grasp that simple concept. That’s like thinking your enemy in a war is going to make sure you have as many guns and bullets as he does. Does that make sense?
(and I’m not saying all white people are my personal enemy) but it’s a FACT that we are under a system of white supremacy that CREATES inferior conditions for black people to MAINTAIN our inferior position. Of course, we’re not inferior — far from it — because NO ONE would have to go to all the trouble to keep us down if they weren’t afraid we could GET UP on our feet given the opportunity
There is so much I don’t know. I’m just passing along my understanding that came from the works of wiser people in the hopes that they will use their own experiences to adds to that body of knowledge and pass that along to others. We must find ways to share knowledge so we can replace an unjust system with one that is just for everyone. An idealistic concept but certainly one worth fighting for.
The funny thing is, I’m simply saying what I think a lot of black people already know — if we just scrape off some of the layers of programming that has deceived us for far too long.
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@trojan Pam
I dont need (study, data, articles)
This statement makes you sound incredibly anti-intellectual and it weakens your credibility. If humans continued to rely on “common sense” alone we’d still believe the Earth is flat.
You also seem to lack the ability to understand that correlation does not causation. It’s a very simple concept….
I no longer have the tolerance to debate you. Continue to be perpetually blinded by your bias. Just remember that in order to solve problems we must first be willing to put our politics aside, so that we may find the TRUTH.
Have a good night.
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@ The Pragmatist
Labels mean NOTHING to me, and anyone who thinks using common sense is “anti-intellectual” is not representing an intellectual role model that I care to follow
YOUR opinion is your opinion (not fact, sorry) and at that point we can agree to disagree
You also have a good night.
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@ Trojan Pam
Ashe (so it is)!!! Your comments are very informative. Obviously, The Pragmatist had a totally different life experience than you and I. My pops taught me and my siblings that good and evil coexist in our world like day and night.
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@ Michael Cooper
Perhaps he did.
Funny that the only time I hear money isn’t important for a quality education is when it involves black schools. I’ve never ONCE heard anyone say that about white schools. NEVER. And that makes my antennae shoot up
In addition, look at all the “studies” and “data” that tell bold faced lies, like, for example, “blacks are less intelligent than whites,” or “the economy recovery is on track,” etc.
I’ve seen studies where they poll 200 people then use those results to interpret what 200 million people are thinking or doing. I’ve seen data skewed to fit the needs of the ones paying for the data
And I’ve met a ton of educated fools in my life who lack common sense, so there is NOTHING more valuable to me than my COMMON SENSE (which, sadly, isn’t so common) and i trust what I see and hear and think more than some nameless faceless “study” that might or might not be good-intentioned (and often times is not).
The problem as I see it is far too many people are letting other people do the THINKING for them instead of using their own eyes and ears and brain. As much as I’ve been lied to ALL MY LIFE, it’s time to do MY OWN THINKING and that’s what I will keep right on doing.
My intention isn’t to impugn or insult anyone by saying this, but that’s the reason I said I don’t need studies or data to draw a conclusion about what I’ve PERSONALLY experienced in a white supremacist educational system.
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I wonder how the geniuses of the past were able to learn without fancy new iPads for every student. The Internet didn’t exist when the subject of calculus was created.
Poor kids in America have more educational tools at their disposal than their rich counterparts a century ago.
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“Poor kids in America have more educational tools at their disposal than their rich counterparts a century ago.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Here’s a simple basic illustration regarding the idea of money in education.
Let’s say there are two High School kids from different parts of the same town. They are intellectually equal. Same grades, same 4.0 GPA, etc..
One kid grows up with ONLY a *slide ruler* and a set of Encyclopedia books at his disposal.
The other kid has access to his own laptop and an available 24/7 Internet account.
Pragmatist, which of the two kids has the best advantageous tool (equipment) that will help propel her/him further in college and life?
Money does matter.
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I would say that money matters to a degree but, of course it has diminishing returns after a certain point. There is a point at which the lack of money becomes a real impediment to learning, and there is a point at which piling more money on makes very little difference.
Classic examples of too little money are
– old and outdated textbooks
– not enough books or supplies to go around
– terribly overcrowded classrooms
– not able to afford good teachers
– on a broad scale a lack of political power to change things
Of course The Pragmatist is right that fancy equipment is not necessary to achievement (although it can be helpful and time saving). But the problem with generational poverty is that the parents themselves will not have had a very good education and they will not be able to afford tutors. Transportation, and access may also be a problem.
And then you have the issue of academic atmosphere. Because the rich are invested in remaining rich, there is an expectation and an atmosphere of mandatory academic achievement. But conversely, in poorer neighborhoods, survival is the main goal, and becoming wealthy is a very distant, seemingly unattainable goal to most. So a student will grow up with far less social pressure to achieve academically.
All of these factors are related to money and how it influences learning.
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@King
I agree with you completely. There can be problems in education that are related to money, that don’t necessarily translate into pumping more $ into the system as a solution. I was not saying money is not a factor at all (those textbooks and good teachers COST $). I just believe the problem is a lot deeper and that the marginal effect it has on outcomes lowers the more you spend.
My personal experience has also led me to believe that lower expectations is a HUGE problem that often goes unnoticed and unaddressed. I have been in AP/advanced classes, as well as, general classes w/in an overwhelming black poor/lower & middle middle class school district. They don’t expect shxt from children in general classes. They give them lousy teachers who have given up hope. They routinely leave the classroom for long periods of time and dish out “busy work”(ie crossword puzzles with textbook terms) that don’t teach anything. They lash out at children who don’t understand, discouraging them from asking questions and progressing through their educational careers with large holes in their knowledge. This phenomena is especially damaging in mathematics, a cumulative subject.
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@Trojan Pam
You’re right, Nigerian and other African immigrants are getting lots of college degrees and professional jobs. I see a lot of African immigrants in my area in helping professions like social worker, nutritionist, nurse, even my new doctor and they come off as quite compassionate to poor people of color. There’s a book by Amy Chua (“Tiger Mom”) and her Jewish husband about why certain ethnic groups (Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Mormons, Nigerian Americans) succeed academically and professionally and others don’t, which they want to argue is because of values and personality traits. However, they also acknowledge that the reason other ethnic groups don’t succeed is because of institutionalized racism.
Thinking about it, I think the reason I went to the junior high and high school that I did could have been for integration purposes. Those schools were in a nearby town that was majority white, and it seemed that all the students of color were people from my same area of the city. At the time the other high school we could have gone to was the one in the ghetto that was almost completely people of color. I went to summer school there once and it was so old and there wasn’t ever toilet paper in the bathrooms.
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I agree with you completely. There can be problems in education that are related to money, that don’t necessarily translate into pumping more $ into the system as a solution. I was not saying money is not a factor at all (those textbooks and good teachers COST $). I just believe the problem is a lot deeper and that the marginal effect it has on outcomes lowers the more you spend.
My personal experience has also led me to believe that lower expectations is a HUGE problem that often goes unnoticed and unaddressed. I have been in AP/advanced classes, as well as, general classes w/in an overwhelming black poor/lower & middle middle class school district. They don’t expect …. from children in general classes. They give them lousy teachers who have given up hope. They routinely leave the classroom for long periods of time and dish out “busy work”(ie crossword puzzles with textbook terms) that don’t teach anything. They lash out at children who don’t understand, discouraging them from asking questions and progressing through their educational careers with large holes in their knowledge. This phenomena is especially damaging in mathematics, a cumulative subject.
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@Just Me
Internet access in America is widely accessible among Black and poor people. The direct difference money makes is exaggerated.
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@ The Pragmatist
Agreed. I used to think that the problem was that simply that public education had inadvertently fallen into a rather industrial model of operation. Teaching had been relegated to moderately paid female employees who were then unionized like factory workers. It seemed to me a strange model for a job that is so important to the economy of a country.
But later I came to believe that educational disparity is actually quite intentional, and that it provides the illusion of equality while delivering the outcome of an academic caste system that correlates fairly closely with the monetary caste system. It’s not that no one can advance and change their caste, but it’s quite difficult to do so if you are on the bottom. Many factors beyond your control (beginning with education) will present themselves as obstacles. So the most determined will reach the top, but few other will. What it comes down to is there can only be so much royalty… the rest must serve. The system as it is ensures the status quo.
In other words, I don’t think they want the system improved.
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As commenter King stated in his comment in this country it is an “academic caste system” that would explain the disparity of a black child in a low income community not having access to a quality education. It is all intentional. That is why it is incumbent for black Americans to demand a quality education on par with white counterparts so they will be on the same level as whites in the workforce. Quality education is key to success in this country. And in response to the “segregation academies” this to me is a typical example of “whiteness” not skin color but the mindset and ideology of white supremacy.
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“So the most determined will reach the top, but few other will. What it comes down to is there can only be so much royalty… the rest must serve. The system as it is ensures the status quo.”
This is made really obvious once you get into a competitive university, by both students from elite backgrounds and professors/grad students. They act like courtiers who love palace intrigue. I couldn’t handle that environment, and no my parents and other family members had no experience or even understanding of what it was like. People who refuse to kiss ass and play dirty politics get weeded out once you get that high up.
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“They give them lousy teachers who have given up hope. They routinely leave the classroom for long periods of time and dish out “busy work”(ie crossword puzzles with textbook terms) that don’t teach anything. ”
I HATED doing crap like that in school. So much of the time I was bored out of my mind, bringing in books to read when I finished my work early or even reading unassigned stuff in my textbooks. From time to time my dad would ask if I wanted help with my homework, and I’d wonder how dumb he thought I was that I would need help with the BS worksheets we had for homework.
My brother had a teacher in junior high who would sleep in class and that went on for a month before anyone noticed and removed her.
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The secrets almost have to be handed down in order to be understood. They are not intuitive, and would not make immediate sense to outsiders.
1) To the average parent ACT and SAT scores are tests to show how their students are doing, and where they may need help improving. To the “insider” those test are keys that unlock certain invisible doors. Thousands must be spent preparing in methods to score highly on these tests (it has nothing to do with assessing where you are, you just need “beat the test” and get a cesarian score!) Your expensive tutor knows (more or less) what is on the test and is an expert in how to formulate test answers that will be highly scored. You need a good foundation, but a special tutor can add quite a few points to your test score.
2) The average University freshman would not know that in class is not where the grades are really made. They are made in elite study groups of the top students, and during professor’s office hours. The study groups allow smart kids to divide up the studying and tackle it in much smaller sections. They can cover their own study sections and then compile all of their collective notes in study group. Cuts down on the work load exponentially. The professor’s office hours is were the “smart kids” gather to kiss the butt of the professor, ask them for their wisdom, show that they are truly interested, earnest, and trying… Not like the unwashed masses of students who never come to her office. Again, you need a good foundation, but professors often give a lot away during office hours that was never mentioned in class. It can mean the difference between a full letter grade.
But if your own parents were not top students themselves, this would not be obvious. So you are left to struggle through on your own or with the help of a minimum wage student tutor with minimal training. A lot of it comes down to access and information.
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^^”certain score… not “cesarian score!” (I hate auto-correct)
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@ Speak Out
Yes, Nigerians are among the most educated immigrants in America but that doesn’t fit with the stereotype of the “savage, illiterate African” and that is why Nigerians are relentlessly portrayed as “scammers” and criminals by the white supremacist media.
Of course, money is not the ONLY determinant of a quality education, I never ONCE said it was, but I am convinced it is a MAJOR reason because it costs money to have state of the art labs and facilities and topnotch teachers.
I also agree that OTHER factors–socialization and societal expectations –also play a large role but I do NOT agree that money or the lack of money is an incidental or minor factor because it is most definitely NOT.
For example: “…tuition at Avenues will cost…almost $40,000 annually…”
which came from the article: The Best School $75 Million Can Buy.
Maybe some of you can answer this question (and I’m not being sarcastic).
If money is not a MAJOR factor when it comes to a quality education, why do upper income white people spend so much money on their schools? Why not buy another yacht or car or vacation with it?”
Keep in mind, I NEVER said it was the only factor but I would like a serious explanation if anyone can provide one
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..Having spent a significant amount of my youth in Bay Area schools, I must say that having an alcoholic, mental illness-infected etc. teacher is one topic that I can certainly relate to experiencing as well-not to mention hearing the many,many tired excuses for why Asian students are causing lots of white citizens to withdraw their kids from schools like this (and into more exclusively whiter ones). As I’ve often said before to many folks who mistakenly think that California is this mecca of kumbaya, surfin’ and color-blind liberalism, please turn off your t.v. and “Go and smell the roses” as the Travelocity gnome would say!
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I’m white and went to public schools in Columbia, South Carolina. That was the late 80s and early 90s. The public schools were very much desegregated, about half black and half white with a smattering of other races/ethnicities. There were also plenty of private schools. The segregation that persisted was largely class, which of course correlates with race but not entirely. The public schools were filled with poor working class and lower middle class white kids. However, most white kids with parents of significant wealth didn’t go to public schools. The white kids who lived across the street from me went to private schools, and their parents definitely aspired to the upper class. The Deep South is the most class conscious region of the US.
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@ The Pragmatist
who said: “Internet access in America is widely accessible among Black and poor people. The direct difference money makes is exaggerated.”
—
What in the world do you know about poor black people? How many poor black homes have you been in lately if ever? I would really like to know how you conducted your study — and I’m not being sarcastic, I’m serious as a heart attack — that allowed you to draw such a hasty conclusion .
Because you made a point earlier about the importance of data and studies when it came to ME forming my opinions based on something other than my common sense so I would really like to know how you formed yours.
I have personally been in many poor black homes. I know people who are struggling just with the basics– food and shelter, heat and lights. I personally know a poor family who had their gas turned off in the middle of winter — and this family has no internet connection.
In addition, there are thousands of poor black children who go to school hungry every day, and many of who are living are on the edge of homelessness and some are actually living in shelters — again, no internet connection.
What’s the common denominator in all the above: A LACK OF MONEY
Many black inner-city schools don’t even have an internet connection in ONE classroom while white schools just 20 miles away have COMPUTER LABS. Why? Because someone SPENT MORE MONEY at that white school.
Where I live, everyday there are poor black children AND adults who wait in line for a turn to use the computers in the library. Why? Because they don’t have internet access at home.
To make such a UNINFORMED and CALLOUS statement says a lot about this entire debate AND the lack of compassion for poor black children in general.
One can’t help but come to the obvious conclusion that there are those “people” out here who like black schools staying just the way they are
separate AND unequal.
But rather than rely on my own personal experiences (and common sense), here’s some links you can check out at your convenience:
—
What Happens When Kids Don’t Have Internet at Home?
Roughly half of low-income families nationwide lack access to the web in their houses.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/what-happens-when-kids-dont-have-internet-at-home/383680/
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Poor Kids Suffer in Digital Divide
There are lots of families living in poverty throughout North America and further afield. In the US, 19.9% of children live in poverty, according to the US Census. One in three US citizens living in poverty is a child.
The US Census says that the Federal poverty level is $16,057 for a household of two, one of whom is a child. For households with two adults and a child, it goes up to $18,769. Not much room for food and heating there, let alone PCs and Internet connections.
—
Connection failed: internet still a luxury for many Americans
A further look into poverty reveals more and more unconnected Americans. According to Pew Research, one-third of those making less than $20,000 a year do not go online at all. Another third go online, but do not have internet access at home. Of those making $30,000 or less, 45% of mobile internet users go online mostly with their cellphones.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jan/26/internet-luxury-low-income-americans ‘
—
And I hope you or someone will answer my question about why upper class whites spend $40,000 a YEAR to send their children to a middle school instead of spending that $40,000 elsewhere?
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Correction, here’s the link to this article:
Poor Kids Suffer in Digital Divide
There are lots of families living in poverty throughout North America and further afield. In the US, 19.9% of children live in poverty, according to the US Census. One in three US citizens living in poverty is a child.
The US Census says that the Federal poverty level is $16,057 for a household of two, one of whom is a child. For households with two adults and a child, it goes up to $18,769. Not much room for food and heating there, let alone PCs and Internet connections.
http://www.kidstechnews.com/poor-kids-suffer-digital-divide/
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Interesting information about private schools in Prince George’s County, MD. Interestingly, when I went to school there in the 1970s, they were never referred to as “segregation academies” (unlike the Deep South).
A Prince George’s private school closes
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-prince-georges-private-school-closes/2011/05/19/AFXWtS9G_story.html)
Independent Baptist Academy (Clinton, MD) is another example of another private academy set up in PG County at the same time of the court desegregation orders. I remember this one vividly as it was set up by a church I attended in my childhood. After desegregation, many of the students that attended this school were actually my former schoolmates that parents yanked out so that they would not have to be bussed to a majority black school 15 miles away. I knew some of the teachers, and knew they were not qualified.
Yet they have managed to survive, despite it all. They did open their doors to blacks and Latinos in the 1990s. Non-hispanic whites make up less than half of the student body now.
The recent reviews of it are generally poor, and seeing its decreasing enrolment, I would not be surprised if it shuts down soon.
(http://www.greatschools.org/maryland/clinton/1629-Independent-Baptist-Academy/reviews/)
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@Kiwi,
But, in those communities, did whites set up separate schools so that they did not have to go to schools with Asians?
or do they simply move to another school district where the real estate agents limit the number of Asians that are allowed to move in?
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@Kiwi,
So whites specifically opened up private schools so that they would not have to go to school with Asians? If so, we could also term them as “segregation academies”. Do they admit blacks, Hispanics and / or Asians? or are they 99% white? Do you see white segregation academies opening more and more in school districts that become majority Asian?
Are the parents of these students in the city government? Do they have the power to restrict funding to the local schools to steer more benefits towards the white schools? If not, then the white parents must be very wealthy to afford to pay both high local taxes as well as private school tuition and fees.
I seriously doubt that they outperform the majority Asian schools, whether academically, or even athletically or in community service. Do they have a selling point besides offering a culturally and socially white environment for their students?
I also doubt that is has anything to do with the curriculum either. You previously indicated that despite having majority Asian student populations, the area schools still teach white Anglo-American history and culture, omitting Asian American history and culture.
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@Benjamin David Steele
Do you mind if I ask a couple of follow-up questions?
Are they still that way? In PG county Maryland, the schools were approx
1974: 25% black. 70-72% white
1985: 45-50% black, 45-50% white
2013: 80%black, 11-12% Latino, 4.5% white
Teachers & principals % are similar in each period.
From 1974 – 1985. students in PG county schools would say they went to desegregated schools. They would not say that in 2010s.
So where did the upper middle class blacks go to school? If what you say is true, then we should find 50% black in the public schools and 10% black in the majority white private schools. Was that the case? What is the case today?
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@jefe
I no longer live in the South. I haven’t been back there in about a decade. I couldn’t say anything about the public schools down there these days. I also don’t know how representative were the public schools I went to.
My experience was limited. I never went to public schools anywhere else in the South, although I did go to public schools in the Midwest that were majority white. There is less of a class issue in the Midwestern towns I’ve lived in, and also fewer private schools, but then again fewer minorities as well.
I honestly couldn’t say much about upper middle class blacks. I assume they’d be more likely to go to private schools. Legally, a private school couldn’t refuse a student based on race. It’s just that in the South and in the US in general there is a correlation between class and race, because of inherited wealth and all that.
The question is would an upper middle class black kid feel welcomed and accepted in a mostly white private school in the Deep South? I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some subtle racism that kid would experience, but it probably wouldn’t be overt. Upper class Deep Southern society is quite polite, even if only outwardly.
I was never in any of the private schools. I don’t know what they were like. I just know the type of white kids that went there. I only remember one time visiting a private school in Columbia, SC and that was for a sports event. I didn’t even see the inside of the school.
Those private schools were a different world than mine, even though I happened to live in a neighborhood where some kids went to them. It was a once wealthier neighborhood that was slowly declining, but was still entirely white when I lived there.
Another neighbor was a genuine Southern Belle from old wealth who had married down into upper middle class and, as holdover from her wealthier childhood, she had a black personal servant who worked for her. There probably used to be (and maybe still is) a whole separate kind of elite private school for the old wealth, but I’m even less familiar with that world.
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@jefe
I just looked up some info on the high school I went to, which is A.C. Flora.
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/0336000952/school.aspx
My freshman year was in 1991. The demographic breakdown for that year was 53.5% black and 43.6% white. The rest were Asian, Hispanic, and American Indian. When I graduated high school in 1994, the ratio had reversed for some reason. There were 44.3% black and 51.2% white.
The percentage of whites had been increasing even in the years before I started school there. In 1988, there were 58.8% blacks and 38.7% whites. That source doesn’t show any data for years before that. The percentage of whites, since increasing, has remained high.
Similar ratios are found in the middle school I went to, Crayton (located about a mile from A.C. Flora).
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/0336001298/school.aspx
There was nothing special about those schools. They were decent, but not great. I suppose they are above average by South Carolina standards. According to School Digger: A.C. Flora is ranked 39th among 213 SC public high schools, And Crayton is ranked 86th among 256 South Carolina middle schools. Then again, South Carolina isn’t known for having the best public schools in the country, and so I don’t know how those schools would rank by national standards.
As for private schools, the neighbor kids went to Heathwood Hall.
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/9999915749/school.aspx
The earliest data that is available for that school is from 2004. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of students are white. Still, there are a significant number of minorities. From 2004 to 2010, blacks increased from 8.4% to 13%. That was during a time when economic troubles hit, but of course that would have impacted wealthier people less, including wealthier blacks. It is interesting that the total number of blacks increased from 64 in 2004 to 103 in 2010, nearly doubling.
I lived in Richland I school district. There were quite a few projects in that school district. Many kids from the projects went to Crayton and A.C. Flora, but I’m not sure what the percentage was.
Around a decade or so ago, some of the projects were closed down. This led to the people living in those projects to seek housing elsewhere. Some of them moved to the Richland II school district, which is where my mother was a speech pathologist in several public schools. In her first job, she worked students at Bethel-Hanberry elementary school and Blythewood middle school. At her second job, she traveled between Round Top Elementary school, Summit Parkway middle school, and Spring Valley high school.
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/0339000966/school.aspx
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/0339000203/school.aspx
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/0339000814/school.aspx
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/0339001443/school.aspx
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/SC/schools/0339000975/school.aspx
Richland II used to be a combination of rural and suburbs.
Bethel-Hanberry was an all-black school before desegregation. It probably was the black school for the entire county. It used to be in a more rural area, but that has changed as the county has become more developed. Also, Bethel-Hanberry has been majority white at least as far back as 1988.
I’m not so sure about the history of some of the other schools. Blythewood has been more or less evenly divided between blacks and whites. Round Top is siilar. From the 1990s to the present, Summit Parkway went from majority white to majority black. None of those schools are that old, though, and the demographics of the area is changing, specifically a growing population and so regularly new schools are being built.
Spring Valley is most interesting. That high school served the Spring Valley gated community, one of early elite segregated neighborhoods that was built following desegregation. The high school has also gone from majority white to majority black, but the gated community still remains a wealthier area. This is one of the areas where some of the wealthier blacks would have moved. So, there might be a disproportionate number of more economically well-off black kids at Spring Valley high school, of those who aren’t in private schools.
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@BD Steele
So has resegregation occurred, like it has just about everywhere else in the country? It is possible to find a school that appears integrated, but it is often because the area is in transition, either white flight or gentrification.
It seems that the Mississippi delta (and possibly some of the “Black Belt” counties in Alabama) is the only place which has NEVER been integrated, despite court orders to do so. There we find only 99% white schools in towns that are majority black with 98% black public schools. They maintain the social order today that they had 100 years ago. Anything else seems odd to them, but they cannot explain why.
This explains to me the second reason why one of my Aunt’s families left Mississippi before the other one in the 1970s – one of them still had kids in school. They only were able to attend the white public schools in the 1950s-1960s. The ones who were still attending school in 1970 were going to poorly funded all black schools again.
I have read that the strict segregation of the southern black belt explains why some businesses do not relocate there (despite the cheap land and labour). They do not feel comfortable bringing people to areas which are so blatantly segregationalist. For example, say that a manager (whether black, white, Latino or even Asian) were to be relocated there, where would he send his kids to school?
It is also inefficient to maintain 2 separate school arrangements. Standards in both systems erode when there is not enough funding to support either.
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@King
Actually the things you mentioned were not my problems. I did fine in terms of grades because I have really good reading and writing skills. My parents excelled at school (high school) because they also have excellent reading and writing skills. For them my getting into and graduating from an elite public university was validation of what they had believed all their lives, that they were very smart and could have graduated from a top university too if they hadn’t grown up before the Civil Rights Movement when most Mexican Americans didn’t go to college: “50 years ago you wouldn’t have gotten into this college…50 years ago you wouldn’t even have gone to college.”
But they had never attended an elite university and knew nothing about the kind of people you find there: students who have been socialized all their lives to step on anyone they have to in order to get ahead (vs. being socialized to help others and feel guilty about having more than others) who are constantly assessing your value to them and rejecting and negging you for revealing the smallest detail about yourself that is “wrong” so that you have to learn to be very very careful about everything you say and do, constant manipulative games, jealousy and others trying to tear me down for anything I excelled at, professors sexually harassing, even Ethnic Studies professors; professors acting abusive, even Ethnic Studies professors (even a Mexican American female professor, who you’d think would go out of her way to support the few Mexican American women who get into an elite uni); these professors being shitty people exuding a lack of integrity and acting psycho so that it was impossible for me to respect them and having them constantly bullying and harassing me to try to force me to kiss ass.
About office hours, I actually came to the conclusion that it was better not to go and better to interact with professors as little as possible since they are so psycho. As long as you excel in something that is a marketable skill, they will still give you letters of recommendation because they know you may get a powerful position and they want you in their network…they try to make students think that we need to court them for our networks but the reality is that professors are anxious to get students in their networks and fulfill their curiosity about students/make students fulfill their needs in office hours. Professors are champs at blowing smoke up their own asses to appear interesting and successful, but in reality they’re cowardly and socially isolated. Then I had professors acting psycho because they couldn’t get anything out of me and making up excuses to force me to go to their offices since I wouldn’t go out of my free will and they were dying of curiosity about me.
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I had this one professor who hated me because he wanted me to accept him as Mexican and I didn’t want to have anything to do with his weird psychological baggage. He looked white, didn’t have a Mexican last name, acted psycho manipulative, but would talk in class about “We Mexicans do this and that.” I would just ignore it. If you’re really Mexican American, why do you need one person’s validation so bad (mine)? Maybe because I’m the only Mexican American you have social access to? Maybe because I’m the only Mexican American you have social access to AND power over/the ability to punish if I don’t do what you want? What he did to me was the same as professors sexually harassing me but about ethnicity: abusing his power to try to get me to fulfill his needs instead of being responsible and dealing with his psychological baggage himself. I recognized that if I did do what he wanted, be all “yes I accept you you’re Mexican as all get out” it would be a really easy way to manipulate him into helping me succeed, but I’d rather have self-respect. Years later I had a white dance teacher who had married a Mexican American do the same sh*t to me. Both times I just wanted to focus in class on learning the subject I came for.
It was also disillusioning for me to find that a lot of students in the Ethnic Studies department were there not because they cared about people of color besides themselves but because they knew that was the department that they had the best chance of succeeding in. They were willing to step on whoever they had to to get to the top. Like I said there were Ethnic Studies professors whose first thought when it came to me was to try to get me into bed instead of, there’s another young person of color to help so that the effects will roll out into her community and promote the greater good. When professors who sexually harassed me realized I wasn’t interested they acted hatefully as is typical of rejected men but through their unique position of power: heckling me during my class presentations and trying to make me feel stupid.
I’ve also seen these same kinds of sh*tty behaviors at non-elite state unis and community colleges, but at an elite uni it’s times ten.
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@jefe
“So has resegregation occurred, like it has just about everywhere else in the country?”
I would be interested to see more detailed information about different areas and different states. A couple thoughts come to mind.
The North always had a tradition of segregation. That was true even between different groups of ethnic whites. That was even true in the rural Midwest. There would be a community of mostly Germans in one town or neighborhood and Czechs in another. Sometimes it would be a combination of ethnicity and religion, such as Irish Catholics all living in the same area.
The Deep South is far different. Populations tended to live closer together, both during and after slavery. Blacks would live in the same neighborhoods as whites because of the regional history, even though they went to different schools, churches, and stores. But that has begun to change. Suburbanization and gentrification has made the segregation even more complete than it was in the past.
On the other hand, that has been reversing a bit. A recent book explored the changing demographics. It is “Diversity Explosion” by William H. Frey. I started reading it and I think the author might be correct about certain shifts. Certainly, mixed race marriages are increasing along with people who identify as mixed race. That is a major shift.
When my parents got married, it was still illegal according to Jim Crow laws for people of two races to get married. Yet, already in the 1990s when I was in high school, there was some mixed race dating in my high school.
Many blacks left the South because of problems in the region, especially during Jim Crow. Now blacks are returning to the South. They are going transform the region, as they become the new majority in particular places. It will force our society to deal with those issues of racial segregation, both in residence and economics.
It is going to be interesting. It is going to lead some massive conflicts in the South. There will be a struggle for power and for political reform.
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@Benjamin David Steele
Really? I think both the North and the South have had a long history of segregation and still do today. Your statement about the South is nothing like the South I know. I admit that my experience is more on Maryland and Virginia (where I grew up), as well as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi (where my family was). I also experienced Chattanooga, TN in the 1970s. I am a bit less familiar with the Carolinas, but I really doubt it is that much different from the surrounding states.
The North had European ethnic neighborhoods because that was the destination of European immigrants. They also had Chinatowns. Only Augusta, GA in the South had a small Chinese community. The Mississippi delta had more Chinese, but they were spread out over a much larger area and did not form Asian neighborhoods – they usually lived in black neighborhoods. 19th century European immigrants also settled in rural communities in the North and Midwest as such was open to European immigrants (and not to blacks or Asians).
And admittedly, the North is still very hypersegregated with blacks. Milwaukee, WI has the highest segregation index in the country.
And Sundown towns were primarily a feature of the North. The South did not have to set up Sundown towns as they already had a different segregation system.
When blacks worked and lived on plantations, of course they will be in fairly close proximity with whites. After sharecropping started to decline in the 1930s and more blacks moved to towns, you could find them in close proximity to whites (eg, working as domestic labour in white houses and businesses). But the South has always had a strict segregation code separating the races. In the South, we also find hundreds of all black towns. One reason they were formed to keep blacks with the vote from affecting the white vote.
I vehemently disagree with “Blacks would live in the same neighborhoods as whites ” –> in what part of the South was that? The only exception I saw was where black domestic workers lived in white houses, but you found that in the North also.
Neighborhoods in the South were very very much segregated. During Jim Crow in the South, police routinely patrolled white neighborhoods and removed any black person found wandering about. Unless they were under the direction of a white employer, they had NO BUSINESS being there. Actually, it is still happening today – white people routinely call the police when they find non-whites in their neighborhoods.
So blacks lived in different neighborhoods as whites, and “went to different schools, churches, and stores.” They also were prevented from registering to vote (which was NOT a tradition in the North). How does that not constitute a tradition of segregation? I admit that the South did not have large swaths of hypersegregation as you see in larger towns in the North, but they were still very much segregated.
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What a coincidence one of my good friends is from Jackson, Mississippi and she mentioned that when she and her son went to visit her sister who’s daughter attended an all white private school where her brother in law is the head master how she and he son were surprised there were no black kids in the school. So i am truly getting the geist of this thread post. Both my friend’s sibling’s children attend these type of schools.
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^^her son^^
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@ Speak Out
I an tell you that I have known some professors like you describe. One in particular. The first time you took a class from him, he sounded like a genius! He was constantly quoting Jung, Freud, Kant, and Nietzsche. He was full of fascinating stories of self-discovery and tales of personal enlightenment. He transfixed us with concepts like Solipsism, Alief, and Morphology. But in the end, it proved to be all an act to facilitate his penchant for sleeping with adoring and wide-eyed coeds.
He used to lecture with his door open, and if you happened to find yourself on the same floor in the same building, out in the corridor, some years later, you could hear him repeating the same lectures year after year. He would use the exact same words crack the exact same jokes, have the exact same epiphanies in mid-sentence… he was nothing but a good actor playing the role of Professor year after year. He was a disgusting fraud who cared no more about his students except for the admiration he got from males, or sex he could get from the females.
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@ The Pragmatist
Just in case you think my conspiratorial notions regarding our national educational systems are without merit.
“The current American school system took root around the turn of the century. In 1903, John D. Rockefeller founded the General Education Board, which provided major funding for schools across the country and was especially active in promoting the State-controlled public school movement.”
A quote outlining the goals and dreams of the Rockefeller Education Board
– Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Business Advisor to John D. Rockefeller Sr.,
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@jefe
“And admittedly, the North is still very hypersegregated with blacks. Milwaukee, WI has the highest segregation index in the country.
“And Sundown towns were primarily a feature of the North. The South did not have to set up Sundown towns as they already had a different segregation system.”
That is my main point right there. Many Northern metropolises are similar.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/05/15/the-most-segregated-schools-may-not-be-in-the-states-youd-expect-2/
“The Northeast was the only region where, on average, the share of black students in almost completely minority schools has risen since 1968, according to the report titled “Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and an Uncertain Future.” More than half — 51.4 percent — of black students in those states in 2011 were in schools whose student populations were 90 percent to 100 percent minorities. In every other region of the country — the Midwest, West, South and “border” states — black students today are less likely to be in heavily minority schools.”
The reason why the North has high segregation rates is because of reasons such as what you mentioned. Sundown towns were the main force behind concentration of blacks into inner cities. The only form of segregation that has been more extreme than Northern minority ghettoes are Native American reservations.
By saying this, I’m not dismissing segregation in the South. I’m just making the point that it can be less geographically extreme. There is no Southern equivalent to states like Oregon where it wasn’t just an issue of a sundown town but an entire sundown state. Large minority populations were expelled from particular Northern towns and states, such as the Chinese from Idaho (the Chinese in 1870 were 1/3 of the population in that state).
Some Midwestern towns I know of are so segregated that all blacks disappeared from them a century ago and no one even remembers blacks ever lived there. It’s not just segregation of populations but of remembered history. The very memory of those blacks was segregated from public knowledge.
Segregation in the South often can be more intimate, in my experience. There is less of the mass suburbanization as found in the North, that led to mass ghettoization of inner cities… and then later to mass gentrification.
The servant of my Southern Belle neighbor lived only a few blocks from our neighborhood. There has always been nearby populations of blacks that work as servants and yardworkers in white neighborhoods. In my white SC neighborhood, nearly everyone had hired work do their yardwork and it was almost entirely black workers. It was the strangest thing to my Midwestern mentality.
Also, instead of sundown towns, the Deep South had many sundown neighborhoods. Poor black neighborhoods, however, in many cases quite close to wealthier white neighborhoods.
Of course, I lived in a highly urban area. White and black populations might be more distant from one another in the rural Deep South.
The following is an interesting analysis of what distinguishes various patterns of segregation in different regions. In particular, look at the explanation given in the second myth.
http://www.salon.com/2011/04/03/myth_10_segregated_cities/
One comment made a good point that should be kept in mind.
http://www.salon.com/2011/04/03/myth_10_segregated_cities/#postID=2043903&page=0&comment=2061234
“If you look at the data, in the vast majority of cities, the index has gone down 10-20% in the last 20 years. 20 years ago, there were almost 60 metro areas with an index over 60, and that has gone down to about 40 metro areas. We have a long ways to go, bet perhaps we are genuinely headed in the right direction (at least for the time being).”
Segregation, both in residences and in schools, still remains far less than it used to. There has been some lost ground, but I doubt the old forms of segregation are going to return. The emerging minority-majority along with increasing mixed race Americans is pushing the country toward greater integration, no matter how much the present old generation fights it. The backlash is just a temporary phenomenon.
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“Hipsters for Charter Schools: The Big Lie HBO’s New Show Tells About Race and Education: HBO’s “Togetherness” hops aboard the post-racial bandwagon gutting public schools.”
http://www.alternet.org/education/hipsters-charter-schools-big-lie-hbos-new-show-tells-about-race-and-education
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@TrojanPam
“How can that be true unless the VAST majority of whites practice and support the system of racism? I’ll go even further. and even more importantly WHY do white people need to manufacture “inferior” education for blacks (and non-whites) if they REALLY believed they were “superior?” ”
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True but what is also true is that many blacks do not value education and are not putting out the effort they should in school. Let's be candid about this. Even upper class blacks post lower SAT scores, and lower scores on other similar tests, that some whites of lower socio-economic status (See the research of Thernstrom- No Excuses, or Ogbu et al). Too often (see exceptions), many are not putting in the effort needed. Oh sure we TALK a good game, but outside of TALK, what are the actual RESULTS on the floor? You keep blaming everything on the white man, conveniently excusing or skipping over lack of black effort- certain Caribbean, African and old school families (particularly the females) exempted.
"that I have to DEBATE with black and non-white people that this system even exists is a major source of frustration and irritation because OUR COMPLICITY and DENIAL is one of the main reasons white supremacy continues to dominate us. "
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Dubious. Since when don't black folk know about or "deny" white supremacy? Your statement does not make sense. Most Black people know what the deal is, and they know what white racism is. But they also know there are certain deficiencies that need to be corrected INTERNALLY rather than simply blame the white man. It is not "denial" or "complicity" to recognize the harsh realities in today's classrooms,- we have plenty of "hip hop" wanabees, but far fewer people willing to buckle down and get education done. As a former schoolteacher I can't tell you the amount if times I have had to shake my head at our own people- Asians kids are moving ahead, so are the whites, and thankfully- black females to a significant extent- but then I come to the knuckleheads and dummies – too often blacks- particularly the males. Stop blaming the quite man and address the main problem. the main problem is not white racists.
"Instead of resisting our oppression, far too many blacks and non-whites put whites on pedestals, chasing behind them (or being caught) for sexual and romantic “encounters” and at the same time BLAMING other black people (and non-white) people for being victims of racism/white supremacy when we, ourselves, are still being oppressed (?) "
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'
Who says black people are not resisting their oppression? Your statement seems to bear little relation to the real world. As for chasing white people, actually SOME black people do this but I don't know many. And some of those doing that are the same fire-breathing "fighters for the people" who talk black but sleep white. Huey P. Newton is a prime example, as is documented by his former compadre, Davig Hilliard, former Chief of Staff of the Black Panther Party, in his book "This Side Of Glory." In any event "romantic encounters" are the LEAST of our problems. Black white interracial marriages for example are LESS THAN 1 % of all marriages, laughable chump change. We have a lot more things to worry about. And when you say "blaming" black people- there is a lot to blame. Who is responsible for the mayhem in black communities but the black thugs that terrorize our neighborhoods? Why are so-called "gangstas" turning black schools into virtual war zones- hindering black people from getting ahead? Why do so many studies show that black kids spend less time on homework, and more time watching TV? It is sad that so many black fire-breathers choose to blame the white man, and skip over this crucial internal side.
"We have become huge CO-CONSPIRATORS in our own oppression and that our children and our children’s children, and it’s time we WAKE UP, OPEN OUR EYES, FACE OUR REALITY and gather the COURAGE to at least tell ourselves the Truth about what we’re dealing with AND what we are NOT doing about it. .That’s the least we can do"
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You seem to have this idea that black people are childlike creatures that can't think for themselves, and are just laying about letting white racists do whatever, or that they can't even tell racism when they see it. Sorry. But you are wrong. You say "wake up?" Sure. But you conveniently play down the other side of the "waking up" that has to be done- namely the hard INTERNAL cleanup and work that needs to be done. It is of course, much easier to blame the white man. But until this INTERNAL cleanup is done, we will still be looked down on. PRIORITY ONE is INTERNAL to the black community, not white people.
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Kiwi, I am not at all discounting white racism. I am strongly anti-racist. I just think that too often the focus is on “blame the white man” while downplaying the hard internal work that needs to be done. I have taught in the classroom and see the nonsense going on in some mostly black schools. I attended mostly black schools in south central LA and it was a battle every day with knuckleheads and thugs, talking ’bout “what set you from cuz” while creating mayhem and negativity across the board, not to mention the constant fighting. It was BS. It is BS. How will people respect us if this is the BS we offer? White racists have a very low workload these days. They don’t have to work hard at pump up any stereotypes- of the brutish, incompetent, i’gnant negro. Black folk gonna do most of the work for them, then film the results and put it on Youtube, for their convenience.
As for internalizing racism- yes that is so to some extent, and there is the aspect of lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. The flip side of that though is that some people use this to present mostly the picture of a hopeless, hapless black victim, unable to do anything because of white racism. Racism is so internalized that black folk are like childlike simpletons- unable to do better, unable to no much else than be incompetent, i’gnant, and thuggish. Thank goodness for black girls, who to a much greater extent than the males, and despite facing many problems, are forging ahead in school. Without them black credibility would be much less.
Re the Caribbean folk, I agree in part with what you say. That gave them a head start on certain things, although I would not attribute ALL Caribbean poverty to white imperialism, Many of those islands are small to begin with- with limited economic prospects, regardless of race. People do what others have done- including white people- migrate to places with better prospects. On the other hand some Caribbean islands are holding their own- places like Barbados, which has had long governmental stability, relatively conservative mores that hold won various negatives etc. Jamaica is another,though to a lesser extent, and with its own set if unique problems. I have gone to Jamaica. Compare the disciplined groups of schoolkids, dressed neatly in their uniforms to the thuggish nonsense in some black schools in the United States. Some old-timers lament that Jamaica is slipping, because of American influence.
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As far as the segregation academies it is all true what Agabond writes, and those academies call into question 2 staples of popular white propaganda:
a) That white folk are hapless victims, “unable to speak out” or do anything in the face of evil gubment bureaucrats determined to favor “the culluds”. In fact these allegedly “helpless people they have done quite a lot for their own privilege and profit
(b) That there is this tidal wave of so-called “giveaways” to the culluds, when in fact not only did such segregation academies flourish, but the end of OPEN legalized segregation caused white regimes in the south to shut down and destroy numerous thriving black schools. On top of that, over 30,000 black teachers, coaches and administrators were fired south of the Mason-Dixon line during that period. And the new shovelfuls of federal money sent down to help local education were diverted by whites, in part, in building new suburban schools elsewhere. Since these were not officially segregated, the cash could be pocketed without too much problem, or with token integration. So-called state of the art “magnet” schools, many built new, often kept black kids on a long waiting lists, until they built up enough white enrollment to be “integrated.” In short, white people have done pretty well out of both “integration” and segregation.
I say let them keep their academies. What is distressing is that black folk are not using the facilities we have now for disciplined, hard-nosed educational effort, as much as we should be. Compare to some of the hard-nosed black schools of old. Many suffered from lack of resources, but there was substantial respect for teachers, rules and learning. Compare to the nonsense that passes for “education” in too many black schools today.
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@mossrichjals
The issue in what you are saying is you basing it solely on what you have seen. Of course the show offs are going to be on display, but what exactly does that say about the actual majority? Not much. In fact I graduated from a class full of blacks (both male and female) who are successful. Very few fell short, but mind you some did very much fall short.
Also my cousin in a school teacher in a state near me. Many of her students are gifted and the majority so happen to be black.
“How will people respect us if this is the BS we offer? “—They did not respect blacks when they were dancing to the tune they wanted, so I highly doubt it will change anytime soon if at all. You seem to believe that if blacks do something favorable for whites then they will treat us better or see us better. At this point blacks need to worry less about how whites view them and focus on themselves. Trying to tailor to whites is part of why the situation is as it is. I wager they need to take cues from non-Americanized ideals. Mainly because when the American ideas goes wrong, then blacks and other minorities are the first to be blames or looked at badly. Even though it is a common american practice.
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@Kiwi
I agree, but I believe it is also the issue of not all techniques work for every kid. I have found the system they use to teach kids today seem to make them dumber. Many of my homeschooling parent pals have kids that IQ’s seem to exceed kids in public school.
I have read cases of black homeschooled kids graduating and attending college at early ages. So I believe a part of the issue is in the teaching material or the teaching agenda. My daughter was given a test each week for the entire school year with material they had not even gone over in class. To avoid her missing the questions I had to teach her how to do it and add supplement to her homework. Then the second half of the year they magically have homework on it and are learning it in class.
Though on a psychological front I think having teachers who see no potential in them to motivate them plays a big role too, especially when they have a lack of motivation at home for whatever reason. Kids with motivation do much better in school. Also most school do not recognize or bother to recognize learning disabilities. I have read cases of students being dyslexic and parents not recognizing it or too embarrassed to deal with it and school faculty not caring.
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““How will people respect us if this is the BS we offer? “—They did not respect blacks when they were dancing to the tune they wanted, so I highly doubt it will change anytime soon if at all. You seem to believe that if blacks do something favorable for whites then they will treat us better or see us better. At this point blacks need to worry less about how whites view them and focus on themselves. Trying to tailor to whites is part of why the situation is as it is.”
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Sharina
You got this right!
And I’ll add, people (….) will tend to respect us as we respect ourselves.
Those who offer BS will receive BS respect. They deserve/want that.
And those who have a higher standard will receive greater respect. It won’t fix everything (racism) but it will minimize the BS THEY come at you with!
BEING ACCEPTABLE NEGROES WILL NEVER END RACISM – especially oppressive mistreatment.
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I call this the Michelle Obama Effect.
Michelle Obama:
– Attended a prestigious magnet school (3 hours drive round trip from home)
– Was on the honor roll there for 4 years
– Took Advanced Placement classes
– Was a member of the National Honor Society
– Graduated as the Salutatorian of her class.
– Attended and graduated from Princeton University
– Went on to earn her law degree at Harvard
– Is only the third First Lady with a postgraduate degree in U.S. history
– She became an lawyer at the Chicago office of the Sidley Austin
– She married a future President
– She wears designer clothes
– She speaks well
– She’s well groomed
Yet… how many White conservatives regularly refer to her as an ape and a Wookie? How many times has she been called “ghetto” or a “moocher” or far worse? ow often has she been disrespected or ridiculed. NOTHING that she has achieved matters one bit. Because it’s not really about her or her accomplishments.
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Excerpts:
“The real teaching crisis …. is “the failure to keep experienced and highly capable teachers and allow them to do their jobs.” The exodus of veteran teachers is by design. So-called “reformers” want to “transform teaching into a deskilled, low-wage job performed mostly by middle-class whites for a few years after college before moving on to other work.”
(If a preponderance of young white (just graduated from college) white kids are going to teach Black kids, we’re going to REMAIN in a world of hurt!)
“For Angela — a … teacher of more than 10 years who did not wish to be identified by her real name because she feared retaliation — work became hellish when her school’s inexperienced young principal took to berating both students and teachers in the school’s hallways for their allegedly poor performances.
She would tell teachers they didn’t know what they were doing, and then turn to students letting them know they were going to get someone ‘better,’” Angela said. The constant abuse, she added, drove many of the school’s teachers to psychological collapse and even suicidal thoughts. She later transferred to another school.”
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http://blackagendareport.com/testing_education_2_death
This is how THEY roll in NYC, aka New York City.
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@Moss
What’s the Social Studies, arts, and reading material? If it’s all about White authors, poets, painters, musicians, and historical figures, that’s your problem. A White curriculum creates a sense that education has nothing to do with Black people. Give us an African centered education that presents history, art, and science as our heritage and the keys to our liberation and you’ll energize students.
Right now, the only purpose education serves Black people is to get paid and participate in American consumerism; they can get paid selling drugs on the corner right now without having to worry about grades or tuition. (The whole Gangster subculture is American history writ small: inflict grievous harm on others to accumulate territory and wealth for oneself. Libertarianism in its purest form)
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@King and Kiwi
Ah ha!! So there is a name for it.
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@ Just Me
I believe it fully. After talking to some teachers, they all said the concern is about performance and less about getting the kids to learn it or motivated past passing a test. If a kid fails they get into trouble for it, which makes them want to take a route that will simply get the numbers and less of one where teaching is enjoyed. It puts a lot of them in the mindset of “who cares”.
Walking into the school you can visibly see that the teachers are all young. Many seem fresh out of school with no real clue.
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@Taleoflions
What you said is the truth. When I was in school I was not excited to learn until black history month or when we learned about Indians. I was so sick of constantly having to hear about what whites had done. Back then it was just a subconscious response of being tired of hearing it. Bored.
“Right now, the only purpose education serves Black people is to get paid and participate in American consumerism; they can get paid selling drugs on the corner right now without having to worry about grades or tuition.”—Agreed.
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@mossrichjals
“Let’s be candid about this. Even upper class blacks post lower SAT scores, and lower scores on other similar tests, that some whites of lower socio-economic status (See the research of Thernstrom- No Excuses, or Ogbu et al).”
It depends on the population. Different populations live in different social environments, are influenced by different local histories, and experience different conditions. For example, there are blacks in certain Northern states that test higher on average than whites in certain Southern states.
Earlier last century, black military recruits tested higher than white military recruits. Blacks today have a far higher average IQ than whites did several generations ago. The IQ differnces in the white populations are immensely divergent. Poor whites rate low on IQ tests. Poverty explains many of the differences, although not all.
Plus, there is the stereotype threat that has been researched quite a bit. How people are tested determines the test results. Most standardized testing isn’t controlling for these confounding factors.
The opposite of the stereotype threat was shown when Obama became president:
“Most Black people know what the deal is, and they know what white racism is. But they also know there are certain deficiencies that need to be corrected INTERNALLY rather than simply blame the white man.”
I have my doubts that most Americans fully know and understand what the deal is.
“As a former schoolteacher I can’t tell you the amount if times I have had to shake my head at our own people- Asians kids are moving ahead, so are the whites, and thankfully- black females to a significant extent- but then I come to the knuckleheads and dummies – too often blacks- particularly the males.”
“Stop blaming the quite man and address the main problem. the main problem is not white racists.”
“As for chasing white people, actually SOME black people do this but I don’t know many. And some of those doing that are the same fire-breathing “fighters for the people” who talk black but sleep white. […] In any event “romantic encounters” are the LEAST of our problems. Black white interracial marriages for example are LESS THAN 1 % of all marriages, laughable chump change.”
Interracial marriages and mixed race people are actually at high rates. Also, this has much more to do with identity than with objective reality, since race itself is a social construct. In America, most of the population is mixed race. Even a large percentage of the Deep South white population has African genetics. Even people who know they have mixed genetics will usually choose to identify as a single race, not unlike people of mixed ethnicity.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#Census_Bureau_statistics
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/02/16/the-rise-of-intermarriage/2/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/number-of-biracial-babies-soars-over-past-decade/2012/04/25/gIQAWRiAiT_story.html
“Who is responsible for the mayhem in black communities but the black thugs that terrorize our neighborhoods? Why are so-called “gangstas” turning black schools into virtual war zones- hindering black people from getting ahead? Why do so many studies show that black kids spend less time on homework, and more time watching TV?”
Our entire society is responsible, obviously. Nearly all populations, racial and ethnic, in America have played a part in creating the social conditions found in every aspect of our society. That is just common sense.
Why did white police, skinheads, and Klansmen turn black communities into war zones? And why do they continue? Why are all poor communities (black, white, etc) turned into war zones? Why is our entire country turning into a war zone ruled over by a police state?
Why do so many studies show that poor people, both black and white, have endless social problems, including in terms of education? Why does the American education system rate so much lower than other highly developed countries?
“It is of course, much easier to blame the white man. But until this INTERNAL cleanup is done, we will still be looked down on. PRIORITY ONE is INTERNAL to the black community, not white people.”
The internal side involves every person in this country. It is of course, much easier to blame the poor and disadvantaged person, whatever race. But until we as a society take shared responsibility for collectively created problems, we will never get anywhere and we will still be looked down upon by the citizens of more well functioning societies. PRIORITY ONE is INTERNAL to the entire American community, not just black people and poor people.
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Shaming people is not the answer, especially when those people are constantly being shamed. When people are down, you shouldn’t kick them further in hope of motivating them. You might motivate them, but the motivation they’ll likely feel is either hatred or fear, neither of which will lead to positive results.
We are beginning to understand human nature far better than in the past. We’ve based our personal beliefs and public policies often on misunderstandings. The War on Drugs is a great example of this. We seek to shame the drug addict, not realizing that exacerbates the problem.
We have to come to the realization that we are dealing with systemic issues, not individual issues. Or rather the individual issues are inseparable from the systemic issues. Community and social capital aren’t easily rebuilt.
It isn’t just about racists. Most of the racial bias is systemic and institutional, not personal or even necessarily conscious. The same goes for class and other biases. It’s built into the entire society. This will require immense soul-searching and public debate. We need compassion and courage, not scapegoating and shame.
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@Benjamin David Steel
Well said and thank you for the links.
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@sharinair
I understand what it means to struggle, suffer, and feel shame. These are universal human experiences.
They should connect us, when we allow ourselves to feel compassion. I don’t have to know a person’s life to understand and appreciate their humanity. I genuinely believe that our fate is shared.
That is what has been potentially good about public schools. It’s sad to see the impact segregation can have on people. It isolates people and creates fear or worse.
I know cynicism, but I try not to let it consume me. There is so much potential in our society, both at the individual and collective level.
People talk about personal responsibility all the time. The personal is important, no doubt, but everything is personal, as everything is political. Life can’t be separated into pieces. We are social animals on a shared planet.
The value of education is so central. Schools are where personal responsibility meets social responsibility. How can we develop a sense of social responsibility to others if we don’t create an education system that genuinely bridges historical divides?
Education isn’t just about learning stuff. It is also about how to become a member of a community and a society. How kids are taught is as important as what they are taught.
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I had to come back to this thread post and i think about my friend from Mississippi and her siblings and their children attending those fancy private schools. It is all about “white flight.”
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I have to wonder if all kids learn differently and different methods work to produce successful students.
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@Benjamin David Steele
I will agree that the style of segregation in the North is different from the South. I do not think that makes the segregation in one area more or less insidious or pervasive.
Yes, I am aware that the Western States, e.g., Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and much of Washington and California spent many decades purging itself of its non-white population. California alone had over 250 towns purged of their Chinese populations. Idaho went from 30% Chinese to 0.1% in a few decades. My very own great-grandfather was one of the victims of these white mobs in Oregon in the 1890s.
They also purged themselves of Native Americans and Mexicans in the 19th & early 20th centuries, and set up sundown towns to keep out blacks.
Metro areas in the Midwest and East Coast are highly segregated. yes.
In the South, it is also residentially segregated, but they do not occupy the large geographical swaths of the North. Black neighborhoods are often walking distance from white neighborhoods. Whites have blacks living in their homes, or in housing on their property. So, it might appear statistically that they are not as segregated as in the North. Indeed, whites and blacks do have some more regular interaction with each other than those in the North.
Southern segregation is more social. There developed a social code of conduct between the races which governed how people should react with each other. Sometimes it doesn’t make logical sense. For example, it is acceptable for blacks to cook for whites, but not as acceptable for whites to buy meat from a black butcher. One would think that in the prior instance the black person would have more direct contact with the food the white people were eating, but that is a legacy from the slavery days – what slaves did and what they did not.
Northern segregation is based more purely on geography, and shows up more statistically as such.
This doesn’t stop Southerners from setting up separate institutions, or from separating races in public life. Segregation Academies make perfect sense to those in the South (esp. in counties or towns where blacks outnumber whites, ie, the “Black Belt”). Whites only proms make sense in the South. They do not make sense in the North. Sundown towns and blockbusting made perfect sense in the North. The South never needed to do that. They don’t even have to do Racial Steering in southern communities where whites and blacks have come to an “understanding”. That does not mean it is less segregated. It is more “socially segregated”. E.g., you will find more interracial dating and marriage in the North.
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@jefe
You explained it well. Segregation operates differently, but it is still segregation. I like the way you described Southern segregation. It’s social segregation.
That fits my experience.
I went to a desegregated school that was evenly split between the races. I went to classes with black kids. I would talk with them, play cards with them, etc. Everything was friendly and overt racism was almost non-existent.
Yet, outside of school, the everyday lives of black kids and white kids were separate. Most blacks lived in neighborhoods with other blacks, and most whites with whites. The same with churches. Major businesses like grocery stores or big box stores were the exception for the races mixing, but it was purely formal economic interactions.
I rarely spent time with black kids outside of school. It wasn’t intentional. It was just the way things were in the Deep South, an unstated social custom. It was also because I simply didn’t live near any black kids.
One of the rare times I hung out with a black kid was when I went with a friend of mine to pick up a kid fromt the projects. That was something that was extremely outside the norm. As we waited for the kid to come outside, a black lady walked over to the truck we were in and said that she knew we were undercover cops. Two white kids in a poor black neighborhood, the projects at that, was simply not to be expected.
My experience in the Midwest was different. Here in Iowa, I went to elementary school with minority kids and I often spent time with them outside of school. There was nothing strange about it. I never understood minorities as being different from me, until I moved to the Deep South when I was in 8th grade. I can’t begin to explain to you the culture shock I felt when I was forced to adjust to the Southern social order.
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Sharinalr says:
The issue in what you are saying is you basing it solely on what you have seen.
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Not at all. Who says anything about doing something “favorable” for whites? To the contrary the main thrust of what I say above is doing MUCH MORE favorably FOR OURSELVES. Up above I say damn their academies. That ain’t a primary priority. As for tailoring to whites -the INTERNAL JOB ONE I repeatedly stress above is about TAILORING FOR OURSELVES first of all, not to white people. Since when is dressing neatly and showing up in the classroom prepared to work “tailoring” to white people for example?
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Just me says:
And those who have a higher standard will receive greater respect. It won’t fix everything (racism) but it will minimize the BS THEY come at you with!
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You talk of higher standards? Sure- that is what I say above, higher standards for ourselves, higher demands for ourselves, higher levels of effort for ourselves, rather than focusing n blaming the white man. You say those who do this will receive greater respect. I agree, but your idea seems to be in conflict with Sharinalr, who says black people should not “tailor” to white people. Isn’t your notion of higher standards part of “tailoring” for white people? Have black kids show up clean and prepared to work in school- isnt this “pandering” to white people?
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Benjamin David Steel says:
Shaming people is not the answer, especially when those people are constantly being shamed. When people are down, you shouldn’t kick them further in hope of motivating them. You might motivate them, but the motivation they’ll likely feel is either hatred or fear, neither of which will lead to positive results.
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You are wrong and history shows you are wrong. Actually shaming people IS part of the answer. Shame has worked wonders in improving black prospects, and in producing positive results. This is History 101. Every black institution that has ever helped accomplish substantial gains for black people has uses “shame” quite effectively. Let me lay out a few examples:
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1–During the great urban black migrations circa WW1 and WW2 black organizations like the NAACP, the Urban League etc used shame profusely to get unacculturated, uneducated rural migrants to prepare themselves for the hard realities of the urban scene- everything from education classes, to speech to dress. These were not mere “stylistic” considerations. The Urban League for example spent a great deal of time trying to persuade employers to hire more blacks. It would have been suicidal to the League’s credibility to send out unkempt, “ratchet” people to pursue these jobs. So it kept up a steady drumbeat of shame, combined with practical methods to overcome the obstacles. And the League saw some success.
2–During the civil rights era black organizations were acutely aware of the importance of shame. Again, it would have been suicidal to go to court before hostile white judges and juries, or even neutral ones, with “ratchet” negroes in tow. hence plaintiffs were carefully selected for their respectability in the eyes of the black community. This did not mean middle class plaintiffs- for numerous poor people, like the hard-bitten sharecroppers trying to cast votes- had their day in court- the key issue was the RESPECT they commanded in the black community. Why do you think Rosa Parks was selected as a test case to push? There was another black female who was similarly discriminated against on the bus, but King and the Montgomery Improvement Assoc, and other allies refused to take on her case to push in court parallel with the boycott. Why? Because she had somewhat of a “reputation in town that was shaky, and that would give the enemies of blacks ample scope to discredit her and the movements. So Rosa was the choice to push in court- a disciplined, responsible working black woman, with a stalwart reputation. No sleazy white segregationist lawyer could shake that, an the black community mobilized behind her. She had credibility. Who the hell got the job done? Rosa did, was who.
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These are not mere “stylistic” matters. It DOES matter if you “ratchet” or not, whether on the street or in court. In several cases for example, Black plaintiffs who sought to exercise their legal rights on interstate transport vehicles repeatedly got their convictions “disturbing the peace” thrown out, because white judges observed the careful, disciplined demeanor and behavior of the black plaintiffs that flatly contradicted the trumped up charges brought against them by Jim Crow regimes (Klarman 1994). Conducting yourself with honor DOES matter, a concept that seems alien to those who celebrate the alleged “black authenticity” of negative “ratchet” behaviors – aka supposedly, “keeping it real.”
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3–Then there are the fire-breathing Black Muslims, who like their spokesman Malcolm X took pains to appear in neat, conservative dress, behaving in a disciplined manner. It made an impression far beyond their numbers. In fact both Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X used shame extensively, with lashing, stinging criticisms not merely of white racism, but internal black stupidity and ignorance. Malcolm can be seen even today in Youtube saying “stand up, wake up, clean up.” Elijah Muhammad likewise railed against drunkenness, senseless violence over idiotic trifles, lack of discipline in education etc etc. He even urged his followers – as far as the hard-nosed outlook needed for business- to “Observe the operations of the white man. He makes few excuses for his failures. You do the same.”
4– Then there was Marcus Mosiah Garvey- and then there was.. and then.. You get the picture.
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So the notion that “shaming people” should not be done is rather naive, and unhistorical. The happy talk, kum-ba-yah approach does black people no service. Blunt truths must be told, and blunt criticisms levied. And in black history, those blunt critiques have always been accompanied by practical action programs from Garvey, to Malcolm, to King, to Dubois. Some seem to think this is “unfair” to black people- as if black people are childlike creatures, who might “get their feelings hurt”, so don’t “shame” them.
But the same use of “shame” has helped white people as well. The white Irish, one of the most violent and corrupt ethnic groups, had the screws of “ratcheted” in on them by the Catholic Church for over a century, condemning their high levels of violence, drunkenness, out of wedlock births, disease, etc etc. The Church did not roll over, wring its hands and talk bout “let us not hurt dey feelings.” The activities of Archbishop John Hughes, a towering figure in Irish American history are part and parcel of this use of shame, which, like the black organizations above, always came wit a practical program of internal change. Over time, this “tough love” worked. It can likewise work for blacks and has worked. So is “shame” a bad thing? Not at all. if anything we need MORE shame, MORE criticism, of the “ratchet” nonsense and waste going in, MORE tough live, not less, and without apology.
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“The White Admissions Advantage at Harvard: Unfair, But Different from Discrimination Against Asian Americans”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-j-park/the-white-admissions-adva_b_6932670.html
“Affirmative action gets blamed instead of legacy admissions for why Asian American enrollments aren’t higher in the Ivies. This is a disservice because we need to understand the source of the problem to diagnose a solution. In this case, the lawsuit’s proposed solution–eliminating all consideration of race from the admissions process–goes way too far.”
“The lawsuit argues that class should replace race in the admissions process. Greater attention to class is definitely needed, but we still need the ability and flexibility to consider both factors, and many others. Student excellence comes in many forms, and there is no one-size-fits-all way to assess an applicant. For example, Condoleezza Rice was a star high school student; she also had less than stellar PSAT scores. In her memoir she recounts, “my own experience has led me to be rather suspicious of the predictive power of standardized tests.” Elsewhere she has commented: “And so I’ve been a supporter of affirmative action that is not quota based and that does not seek to make race the only factor, but that considers race as one of many factors.” This is the policy we need to preserve, the one that opens the doors of opportunity.”
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This doesn’t stop Southerners from setting up separate institutions, or from separating races in public life. Segregation Academies make perfect sense to those in the South (esp. in counties or towns where blacks outnumber whites, ie, the “Black Belt”). Whites only proms make sense in the South. They do not make sense in the North. Sundown towns and blockbusting made perfect sense in the North. The South never needed to do that. They don’t even have to do Racial Steering in southern communities where whites and blacks have come to an “understanding”. That does not mean it is less segregated. It is more “socially segregated”. E.g., you will find more interracial dating and marriage in the North.
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True for the most part, but also to be considered is that “segregation academies” also have a history in the north. The main difference is that the North is not so OPEN about it, as the south, and use more seemingly “race neutral” measures to cover what is going on. Hence in many northern cities, seemingly neutral zoning controls are put in place to hinder the supply of multifamily housing (apartment buildings etc) or lower cost housing. These measures are enacted with much flowery talk like “preserving green space” and “preserving natural vistas for future generations etc etc. Rent control in many areas serves the same purpose- it makes people more reluctant to move, and gives landlords less incentives to invest in new housing since these will eventually be slapped with controls. They also decrease maintenance, since there is less that can be recouped because of the controls.
But anyway, the PRACTICAL bottom-line result of such policies is that restricting the supply of affordable housing means LESS blacks, who on average, are not as able to get higher end housing. LESS blacks in the suburban hood, also happily means LESS blacks in the suburban school. And all this accomplished while appearing noble and progressive. As Malcolm X once noted- the white North could at times be just as bad as the white South, only more hypocritical. He preferred to deal with the open racist, because at least, then he knew where he stood.
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Benjamin Steel says:
For example, there are blacks in certain Northern states that test higher on average than whites in certain Southern states.
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I wish this were so. Unfortunately the data you present on the linked page does not show this. You rather note that northern blacks post higher scores than southern blacks and the same pattern holds for whites. The pattern today is actually a regression from what blacks enjoyed in some years of the past. On WW1 Army tests for example black soldiers from some northern states posted higher scores than white soldiers from certain southern states. See below:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~bramblet/ant301/five.html
And sure, no one denies that environmental factors influence those scores, as indeed, numerous credible studies. Ashley Montagu is the scholar (among others)that noted the superior performance of the black soldiers back in the day. I am skeptical of the stats presented by these “heriditarian” or “HND” sites. They are known for distortion, indeed outright deception and misrepresentation of data. Notice they had little to say about Montagu’s data, and Montagu is a recognized, mainstream white scholar.
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Earlier last century, black military recruits tested higher than white military recruits. Blacks today have a far higher average IQ than whites did several generations ago. The IQ differences in the white populations are immensely divergent. Poor whites rate low on IQ tests. Poverty explains many of the differences, although not all. Plus, there is the stereotype threat that has been researched quite a bit. How people are tested determines the test results. Most standardized testing isn’t controlling for these confounding factors.
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Agreed, hence I on the WW1 soldiers I gave that link showing the hard data. You are correct that poverty etc does have a bearing. Let me add another link to the pool- it shows that contrary to the notion of "stagnant" black IQ, progress has been made, both relatively and absolutely.
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Interracial marriages and mixed race people are actually at high rates. Also, this has much more to do with identity than with objective reality, since race itself is a social construct. In America, most of the population is mixed race. Even a large percentage of the Deep South white population has African genetics. Even people who know they have mixed genetics will usually choose to identify as a single race, not unlike people of mixed ethnicity.
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Actually the rates are not that high compared to the total number of marriages. The rates look impressive because of the initially low starting point. No one doubts that they are increasing, but overall, they remain a drop in the bucket.
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Our entire society is responsible, obviously. Nearly all populations, racial and ethnic, in America have played a part in creating the social conditions found in every aspect of our society. That is just common sense.
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The notion that the entire society is responsible for the mayhem in black communities is ludicrous. How is the society "responsible" when one black thug shoots some child in a drive by shooting? The PRIMARY responsibility to NOT do things like this likes with the BLACK community, and parents, and others most heavily the thug shooting, not white people. Here is where I think the "blame the white man" mentality among some people is too prevalent. The PRIMARY responsibility for stopping such nonsense likes with black people. It is black thugs gunning down other blacks at ridiculous rates. Young Black men make up less than 5% of the population but commit over 50% of the murders. Unfortunately, the mentality in too many places is to cover for the black thugs, and "blame the white man."
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Why did white police, skinheads, and Klansmen turn black communities into war zones? And why do they continue? Why are all poor communities (black, white, etc) turned into war zones? Why is our entire country turning into a war zone ruled over by a police state?
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Actually the internal side STARTS with the community that is having most of the problem. How does the internal side start with every person in America when over half the murders in the United States are being committed by black men? Who is pulling the actual triggers, white people from Alaska? If a problem is happening in your house, you don’t expect the entire city to solve it- you are the first person in line that needs to do the job. Its time we stop making excuses bout “shared responsibility”.
Readers look at Table 1 in the link below. Blacks made up over 50 percent of all the murderers. We are barely 12% of the population yet are producing half the murders. If the sub-population doing the most killing is narrowed down the data is even more chilling. Young black men are less than 5% of the population yet they are producing half the murders. Other crimes show the same ugly pattern. Isn’t it time we stop making excuses and trying to shift blame elsewhere? Who is assaulting all those black women- “shared responsibility” -or the actual rapists terrorizing black victims, and indeed a substantial proportion of victims of other races? I totally disagree with your notion. PRIORITY ONE is not to shift the blame elsewhere. PRIORITY ONE is where the most problem is happening, internal TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY.
Click to access htus8008.pdf
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“You talk of higher standards? Sure- that is what I say above, higher standards for ourselves, higher demands for ourselves, higher levels of effort for ourselves, rather than focusing n blaming the white man. You say those who do this will receive greater respect.”
But that isn’t initially what you said, is it?
Unless I’m especially confused, wasn’t it YOU who WROTE this?
““How will people respect us if this is the BS we offer?“
mossrichjals, are you talking out of both sides of your mouth?
It’s not my normal forte to have major (ongoing) arguments with Black people on this public blog, but the “how will people …. ” doesn’t sound like you’re talking about Black people, here.
Anyway, I know from anecdotal experience that (all) people tend to treat (other) people according to the way people treat themselves. In other words, we teach people how to treat us by the way we carry/handle ourselves. Not always, but sufficiently a lot of time.
If people (any people) see that you don’t respect yourself (and tolerate all/any bullsh*t), they’ll be less inclined to respect you too.
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No its one point I am stressing. The BS I condemn above, is in CONTRADICTION of the higher standards, both you and I agree on. This is precisely why I highlight the nonsense going on and call for an INTERNAL focus on meeting those standards or seriously improving towards them. Higher standards, not excuses, should be the primary focus. And sure the people would be the larger society- which we are all aware -has a lack of respect on many counts for black people. Let’s be realistic- we know they do, and its been lamented many times here.
Others would also include other blacks too. One of the reasons that there is tension between black Caribbean and African immigrant background people and Black Americans, for example is that many disciplined immigrants, people serious about education, attend schools with their black American counterparts, and find, too often, that many of said Americans, are not as hard working, not as serious, not as prepared and doing all sorts of negative BS. Not surprisingly, blacks of Caribbean and African immigrant background are overrepresented among blacks in higher education at the higher end colleges.
Indeed the tension between the native and foreign background communities has been long noted on the academic literature. One researcher says that even Haitians, hungrily looking to move up the ladder, seek to “distance” themselves from Black Americans. In fact many Haitians not only see Black Americans as having little to offer them, but identification with black Americans was perceived as a DISADVANTAGE. Naturally this does not cover EVERY immigrant background person- there is variation- and quite the opposite too- but thep oint is that many other black people who have had little contact with white people before coming to US shores also perceive a high level of negativity, disorder and “downsliding” movement when they have to deal with US Blacks. See the book The Other African Americans: Contemporary African and Caribbean Immigrants, 2007. Yoku Shaw-Taylor, Steven A. Tuch- page )
Does this mean these attitudes are “justified”? Not necesarily but again, peceptions of negativity, based in part on the BS occurring in schools were many blacks are, is well entrenched even among other blacks. This is the reality out there. It is not only white people, Asians or Hispanics looking down on blacks. There is substantial scholarship on this per the reference given.
You say:
“If people (any people) see that you don’t respect yourself (and tolerate all/any bullsh*t), they’ll be less inclined to respect you too.”
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^^Indeed, I agree with this, which is why the notion that everybody is to blame, or that everybody should take responsibility for why I don’t respect myself is so flawed. And it is why I say the PRIMARY focus should be INTERNAL to build that respect. The entire society is not responsible for that- we are. In fact if we rely on the rest of society to do the job we should be doing they will despise us more.
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@ Mary
“I have to wonder if all kids learn differently and different methods work to produce successful students.”—About a year ago I read somewhere the different ways that kids learn. One way I took note of was those that learn better through hands on.
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@mossrichjals
“Not at all.”–Do I really need to go through and quote you? Most of what you claim to know is based on what you stated is your view of the educational system in your area. This is what you have seen is it not?
“Who says anything about doing something “favorable” for whites?”—You did or are you backpeddling now. Your whole rant is about how whites are going to respect us with the bs we offer. I could quote more, but I am not interested in games.
“To the contrary the main thrust of what I say above is doing MUCH MORE favorably FOR OURSELVES.”—I have no issue with focusing on ourselves, but when speaking on that you focused on comparing us to what white people see as an acceptable concept of OURSELVES.
“Since when is dressing neatly and showing up in the classroom prepared to work “tailoring” to white people for example?”—-I never said it was, but I guess this is the point where I readdress what you said as well as my response to it.
You stated “How will people respect us if this is the BS we offer?” This is an indication that you feel blacks should change so they will see us differently. Whether you mean white people or non-white people it still stands the same. As such I stated clearly “They did not respect blacks when they were dancing to the tune they wanted, so I highly doubt it will change anytime soon if at all. You seem to believe that if blacks do something favorable for whites then they will treat us better or see us better. At this point blacks need to worry less about how whites view them and focus on themselves. Trying to tailor to whites is part of why the situation is as it is.”
All in all you are comparing black to white in a sense that blacks should be more like whites. Whether you realize it or not.
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“In fact if we rely on the rest of society to do the job we should be doing they will despise us more.”—Another statement indicating that the focus is on what they think and less of the black people focus. Change has to be something wanted for oneself and not for the benefit and well being of others.
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” And it is why I say the PRIMARY focus should be INTERNAL to build that respect. The entire society is not responsible for that- we are. ”
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I agree with this – with some reservation.
Each individual person is responsible for building their own respect.
Black people are not a monolith, we (as individuals) shouldn’t be held accountable for the errant actions of other black people, tho we often are.
Even we have internalized this nonsense to varying degrees, hence the embarrassment and shame we often feel when other Blacks *misbehave.*
We have been conditioned to embrace this untenable practice (collective BLACK shame) since we were kidnapped and brought here in chains.
A series of posts can/should be written on this (B.S.) phenomenon.
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@Just me
I completely agree.
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White culture has this bogus feature built into it. Non-whites must share the burden/shame of what some other members of their particular ethnicity may do, while whites generally get off scot-free from feeling collective embarrassment/shame – because THEY ARE {{cough}} *individuals.*
Black people are judged by what the worst of us do. I see this theme played out again and again in white Amerika’s justification for the development of sundown towns… not to mention other forms of racism.
Yet on the other hand even the most compliant and acceptable behavior from Black folks won’t save us from the hardships/ravage of racism/white supremacy, or garner full acceptance from the broader society. We are considered the most “less than” of all the people who are perceived as less than white.
It’s like we’re between a rock and a hard place no matter what we do. We’re damned either way… which is not to say that we should just give up and stop trying. It’s just that for many of us it’s a tough and tiring walk coping with systemic, unconscious and internalized racism.
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@ Just me
I wish to elaborate, but I need to get my butt in the bed.
“It’s just that for many of us it’s a tough and tiring walk coping with systemic, unconscious and internalized racism.”—This is true, but I have also noticed some suffer from mental issues that make it harder. Issues that, due to shaming, has resulted in an inability to attempt to get help as to appear to be like everyone else.
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@ Sharina
And then there’s another sickness. I see it as a sad state of mental confusion (self-hate) that’s different from typical mental illness. This seems to be a social disease (meme) that has been passed from one generation to the next amongst SOME individuals that causes things like – this – to continue to this day:
http://racismws.com/2015/03/25/antebellum/
Hat tip to Trojan Pam
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@mossrichjals
“I wish this were so.”—It actually is so based on a study I ran accross, but that study is older. Regardless what is it that IQ test prove? It is not meant to measure what a person knows, but rather to identify learning disabilities or behavior concerns. “ Binet himself did not believe that his psychometric instruments could be used to measure a single, permanent and inborn level of intelligence (Kamin, 1995). http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologicaltesting/a/int-history.htm
So raving about IQ test does what? Often times when kids do poorly on these the teachers or educators do not reach out to the parents to find ways to deal with possible learning disabilities.
“If a problem is happening in your house, you don’t expect the entire city to solve it- you are the first person in line that needs to do the job. Its time we stop making excuses bout “shared responsibility”.”—That is not the excuse you seem to loom it as. The common practice of talk among some blacks and whites is that we are all American. If that is the idea then as Americans the problem needs to be fixed with America’s culture. If one is going to ask blacks to fix their own problems then the argument needs to be drop “WE are all Americans” because if we are separating ourselves then that is not true. Many of the behaviors of blacks is part of American culture. The difference is that blacks doing it is unacceptable and seen as a problem. Others not so much if at all. Even more so you seem to expect blacks to fix problems in other blacks house, so it is not too far stretch for some to want whites to do the same.
“We are barely 12% of the population yet are producing half the murders.”—Not to be a buzzkill but blacks actually make up a little over 14% of the population. Not to mention your table 1 shows 1980 to 2008 stats with incomplete 2009 and 2010 data. I won’t dispute this, but if we are going to put things into context properly then 2013 data is in order and available.
In regards to your stance on shaming, it does not work regardless of you putting it in a historical concept. I suspect it was less shaming and more people willing to do what is needed to get rights. At any rate it is only surface results and seems to cause more harm. http://www.modvive.com/2014/09/18/shame-shaming-trend-actually-work/
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@ Just me
“And then there’s another sickness. I see it as a sad state of mental confusion (self-hate) that’s different from typical mental illness.”—I was thinking more along the of depression, anxiety, etc., but I agree. These are psychological issues within the black community that are at time pushed off as white people issues that many blacks do not seek help for. Of the women I have known to have depression none of them are capable of raising kids, but many of them have them. One that I know of very well also has developmental delays that her mother often tries to pass off because of fear of shaming.
When we talk of black learning, I have found that many seem to deal with dyslexia. Another issue that does not get the attention or address in minority communities. I know in school that some black boys would clown to avoid getting teased for not knowing things. Fear of the shaming that others would do or say to them leads to not getting help that is often needed. Whites have been using this same tactic for a long time and it saddens me to realize that blacks are using the very same tactics that have broken our people down as a means to “make them do right”. Though much of this all goes back to internalized issues with black people, but I wonder how some black people make sense of that. Use white tactics to fix our people? Has those white tactics worked so far?
In that post Trojan Pam actually pointed out an issue that is really hard to fix. We had a black female on this blog once who thought it hilarious for her husband to call her the n-word (husband was white). She honestly believed that what whites did in the past was not being done now and certain things were in all good fun. You can see this exchange on alligator bait thread. In the end I realize that it may be best to not even argue with them. They may wake up, they may not, but regardless we have to make sure we are awake and mentally prepared to pull ourselves from the chains of white people.
Education is key, but too often those that get education usually get it for big money and less for anything else. A thought process that just furthers making us slaves to American consumerism. A lot of chains need to be broken.
I was thinking of buying up property for the purpose of rebuilding poor communities. Decent house, feeling of safety and security, affordability, ….see where it all goes.
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“I was thinking of buying up property for the purpose of rebuilding poor communities. Decent house, feeling of safety and security, affordability, ….see where it all goes.”
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I wish I could buy a piece of property – for myself as well, as a bulwark against what’s coming shortly! Time will tell..
Nonetheless, I would if I could ally myself with you, and others of the same mindset, in some way to do what you just espoused. (Please don’t tell me about any government programs, unless it’s about paying reparations. I don’t trust them – for a billion reasons!)
“….see where it all goes.”
If these things (decent housing, safety, etc..) do not begin to jump-start the unshackling of the mind, it’s not bound to go very far.
I do remember lurking and reading some of that thread (alligator bait) about good old name calling fun. Thanks very much for reminding me… 🙂
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@ Just Me
You should seriously look into an FHA backed mortgage. With EXTREMELY low down payments and interest rates at truly historic lows (still from the 2008 collapse) I doubt if it will ever get any better to buy a house/property than right now. Seriously, you should at least check it out. I know of 2 people who ended up paying less than they used to pay for rent.
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March #Educolor Chat – Grit and Rigor
On March 26th, the #EduColor crew set aside some time and space to talk “Grit” and “Rigor.” What follows is a small snapshot of some enlightening and challenging conversation.
https://storify.com/christinatorres/march
For more: educolor.org and bit.ly/EduColorTwitter
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@Just me
I actually seek out run down houses that need a bit of work. I enjoy the process of remodeling.Putting my creativity to the test so to speak. Those house are cheaper, but require a lot of time and money. Though I have learned how to find cheap yet quality products due to my networking. 😉
Just make out a plan on what you want to do and don’t limit it based on thoughts of what you can’t do. I would have been well into my work had I not allowed the negative thoughts and ideas cloud my judgement.
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@Speak out
I hate that I missed that and even more so not being aware of it. Thanks for the link.
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@sharinalr
Happy to help! Also I found a ton of great info about these issues on #cal4justice.
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“Calif. Black Lawmakers Stand Up for Black Studies”
http://diverseeducation.com/article/70597/
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“Education without Representation”
http://educationnext.org/education-without-representation/
“Minority teachers, however, are noticeably underrepresented in American schools. Though minority students now make up a majority of public school enrollment, nearly 82% of public school teachers are white. As a result, Black and Hispanic students are two to three times more common than Black and Hispanic teachers. Moreover, this “diversity-gap” between students and teachers tends to be wider in areas where percentages of minority students are higher. In California, for example, only 29 percent of teachers identify as ethnic minorities, while 73 percent of students are from a minority group.”
“We find that Black, white, and Asian students benefit from being assigned to a teacher that looks like them. Elementary-aged Black students and lower-performing students seem to particularly benefit from having a demographically-similar teacher.”
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@Pam,
Regarding your statements “When I attended Chicago public schools, we get OUTDATED books discarded by white schools….
And when those of us who went to college got there, we found that we were largely ill-prepared to compete with students from schools that were better funded.”
I understand what you are saying here. The same thing happened to us in a small town in Alabama. We received outdated books discarded from the white schools with missing pages sometimes and when we entered the white school, only 2 of us were on the same level as the white students. The teachers just started passing the students to get them out of their classes.. One other thing I noticed when I entered the white school is they had Special Education classes for the EMR and slow learners. I had never even heard of Special Education and in retrospect there were several students that should have been in those classes early in life and they just dumped them in the classes with the rest of us. Some of the students had behavioral problems and one girl was always fighting with someone and even jumped on the teacher and they had to take her out of the school after that.
I am like you, I don’t need study, data, articles to tell me that money had something to do with this. The way I see experience is the best teacher.
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It should be pointed out here that it is possible to get good information out of outdated text books. The problem is that the preponderance of disadvantages has a cumulative effect. It’s hard to get a good result when you add up ALL of the problems.
1. Outdated text books
2. Lack of money for ongoing teacher training
3. Lower level teachers with less years of formal education & experience
4. Lack of resources for national tests preparation
5. Higher turnover of staff due to not having resources and training
Not to mention the community-based problems that may be occurring outside of the classroom.
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@mossrichjals
“You are wrong and history shows you are wrong.”
Claiming is not the same thing as proving.
“Actually shaming people IS part of the answer.”
I’m interested in what actual helps people. If you know of social science research that clearly demonstrates that shaming is part of the answer, then let’s see the evidence.
“Shame has worked wonders in improving black prospects, and in producing positive results.”
Feeling temporarily ashamed can lead to a positive result, if it is a response to something that the person did wrong. Being constantly shamed with a history of centuries of being shamed by dominant society, however, can never lead to positive results.
I’d make a distinction between feeling ashamed (i.e., feeling guilty) based on one’s conscience and being shamed by another person who is seeking to emotionally manipulate your behavior. I’d also make a distinction between feeling ashamed about a specific act one is responsible for and being born into a condition of collective shame.
“This is History 101. Every black institution that has ever helped accomplish substantial gains for black people has uses “shame” quite effectively. Let me lay out a few examples…”
You showed no evidence for your claim here.
It sounds more like these organizations and individuals were seeking to help blacks feel pride, not shame. There is a big difference between emphasizing pride or shame. That you apparently don’t understand this difference is part of the problem. If your goal is to encourage people to take pride in their behavior and appearance but all you accomplish is making them feel shame, then you have failed.
“So the notion that “shaming people” should not be done is rather naive, and unhistorical. The happy talk, kum-ba-yah approach does black people no service.”
You are still making unproven claims. You take some history and spin it a certain way, but that history could be interpreted many ways. Give me some hard evidence where shame has directly been studied in its effects. All the research I’ve seen points away from your claims, but I’m open to new evidence, if you have any.
“Blunt truths must be told, and blunt criticisms levied.”
I’m all about blunt truths. That is why I’m pushing you so hard to offer to back your claims with evidence. If you want to take pride, then take pride in truth itself. Sure, speak strongly and even bluntly, but also speak honestly and humbly. Don’t just say what fits your worldview. Challenge yourself and be open to new evidence and perspectives. The most blunt truth isn’t the one that confirms what we already believe.
“And in black history, those blunt critiques have always been accompanied by practical action programs from Garvey, to Malcolm, to King, to Dubois.”
Have you considered that maybe the most important part was the practical action programs? It doesn’t matter the truth or the motivation, if there is no useful application. And if there is useful application, then a variety of truths and motivations might lead people down that path. Arrogant righteousness combined with shaming of people isn’t likely to encourage most people to accept your claims of practical action programs. I don’t know enough details about most individual black leaders, but I am familiar with MLK and I know he promoted the complete opposite of shaming blacks.
“Some seem to think this is “unfair” to black people- as if black people are childlike creatures, who might “get their feelings hurt”, so don’t “shame” them.”
It may be unfair, but that isn’t the central point. I’d argue that it simply isn’t effective or rather that you’ve shown no evidence that it is effective. I’m for useful means. Shame by itself is not a bad emotion. It simply is an emotion. However, trying to control another’s behavior through systematically shaming them is a whole other matter.
“But the same use of “shame” has helped white people as well.”
I’m still waiting for some hard evidence that shame has ever helped any group of any race or ethnicity.
“The white Irish, one of the most violent and corrupt ethnic groups, had the screws of “ratcheted” in on them by the Catholic Church for over a century, condemning their high levels of violence, drunkenness, out of wedlock births, disease, etc etc.”
The Catholics have been in Ireland since the 5th century. By the time colonialism began and the Irish were being shipped as indentured servants to America, the Irish already had more than a millenia of experience of Catholic shame. That didn’t stop them from being poor and drinking a lot.
It wasn’t just the Catholic Church that used shame. The English Protestants also were constantly trying to shame the Irish, when they weren’t killing and oppressing them. It’s a similar history to blacks in America. Part of the shame of the Irish in America was their questionable whiteness. In the early centuries of colonialism and of American nationalism, the Irish and other Celtic groups were treated as racially other or somehow of less worth.
It was part of a plan for social control. I do admit that it is highly effective for social control in terms of keeping people down and in their place. It’s foolish, though, to think that blacks can use the methods of bigots and oppressors to uplift themselves. Throw that ring of power into Mount Doom, is my advice.
“The Church did not roll over, wring its hands and talk bout “let us not hurt dey feelings.” The activities of Archbishop John Hughes, a towering figure in Irish American history are part and parcel of this use of shame, which, like the black organizations above, always came wit a practical program of internal change.”
The Catholic Church also used centuries of violence and oppression. The Church sought to destroy local cultures and local independent social orders. Yes, they were effective in this. Yes, shaming was one of the tools in their toolbox. But it’s because I know this history in detail that I’d advise against following that example, even in part.
“Over time, this “tough love” worked. It can likewise work for blacks and has worked. So is “shame” a bad thing? Not at all. if anything we need MORE shame, MORE criticism, of the “ratchet” nonsense and waste going in, MORE tough live, not less, and without apology.”
I often change my mind about issues, but I only change my mind when the evidence supports a new perspective and new conclusions. I’m a big fan of social science research. Issues like that of shame do get studied, although maybe more often indirectly.
For example, there has been many studies of cultures of trust and honor cultures. You are recommending an honor culture steeped in shame, which is at the basis of Southern culture and blacks did inherit this to some extent from white Southerners.
A culture of honor and shame is why the South is such a violent place. When a Southerner (of any race) or an inner city black in the North feels shamed, they will seek to lessen that shame by proving and reasserting their manhood. The problem of black culture isn’t a lack of shame, but an excess.
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@mossrichjals
“The notion that the entire society is responsible for the mayhem in black communities is ludicrous. How is the society “responsible” when one black thug shoots some child in a drive by shooting? The PRIMARY responsibility to NOT do things like this likes with the BLACK community, and parents, and others most heavily the thug shooting, not white people. Here is where I think the “blame the white man” mentality among some people is too prevalent. The PRIMARY responsibility for stopping such nonsense likes with black people. It is black thugs gunning down other blacks at ridiculous rates. Young Black men make up less than 5% of the population but commit over 50% of the murders. Unfortunately, the mentality in too many places is to cover for the black thugs, and “blame the white man.””
I’m not blaming the white man. I am a white man. I’m not even feeling white guilt. I’m just acknowledging the the actual sources of problems in a larger context that is historical, systemic, and institutional. Blame is meaningless when discussing cross-generational problems. The people who created the social order and the original conditions of the problems are long dead.
“Actually the internal side STARTS with the community that is having most of the problem. How does the internal side start with every person in America when over half the murders in the United States are being committed by black men? Who is pulling the actual triggers, white people from Alaska? If a problem is happening in your house, you don’t expect the entire city to solve it- you are the first person in line that needs to do the job. Its time we stop making excuses bout “shared responsibility”.”
Why do you assume that all blacks live in complete isolation? Communities aren’t hermetically-sealed boxes. Communities overlap and mix. Communities are part of larger social systems and social capital. Thinking about problems in isolation is simply to disconnect one’s mind from concrete reality and to get lost in abstractions.
“Blacks made up over 50 percent of all the murderers. We are barely 12% of the population yet are producing half the murders. If the sub-population doing the most killing is narrowed down the data is even more chilling. Young black men are less than 5% of the population yet they are producing half the murders. Other crimes show the same ugly pattern. Isn’t it time we stop making excuses and trying to shift blame elsewhere? Who is assaulting all those black women- “shared responsibility” -or the actual rapists terrorizing black victims, and indeed a substantial proportion of victims of other races? I totally disagree with your notion. PRIORITY ONE is not to shift the blame elsewhere. PRIORITY ONE is where the most problem is happening, internal TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY.”
You’re ignoring fundamental realities. Most poor people are white. Most poor communities are white. Poor whites are as violent as poor blacks. When poverty is controlled for, the differences between whites and blacks disappear. This is what you don’t understand any more than racists understand. It is strange to hear you make the same arguments made by racists.
Why do you think that your shaming, blaming, and scapegoating blacks is any better than when whites do it? Maybe you should hold yourself up to a higher standard and feel a bit of shame for the rhetoric you are using.
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@satanforce
Thanks for the link.
We definitely need a post on “The New White Flight”. The author predicts that the phenomenon will not just be limited to California; it will start showing up soon in East Coast suburbs in New York, New Jersey and Maryland. (I agree).
But the author contradicted himself.
So do white liberals embrace school choice or shun it in the face of falling numbers amongst other racial groups who are outperforming them?
A post on this would be good so that we can put a firm finger on what is happening and what to do about it.
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@Jefe,
“So do white liberals embrace school choice or shun it in the face of falling numbers amongst other racial groups who are outperforming them?”
In my opinion this is about trust. Would you send your child to an institution that is not representative of your culture and ethnicity, perhaps the most important institution they will ever be involved with if you did not have to do it? And remember these are white parents in some of the most affluent areas in California and the United States. For the most part these parents are already successful and little Jimmy and Johnny will be too regardless of whether they attend Monta Vista High or lower performing Boondocks Prep. Because as we all know, it is not schools that create successful students, but good parents. Monta Vista High did not create all those high performing Asian kids, their parents and culture created them.
Would you trust people who have a different culture and ethnicity from you and whom you suspect also have a different value system to nurture and care for your child? Would you worry your child wouldn’t make friends or social connections among children that aren’t like them? You could take a chance, or maybe taking chances isn’t what a good parent does, maybe a good parent does what they know is best for their child which in the case of many Bay Area white parents appears to be sending their kids into a social/cultural milieu that is more representative of their children’s ethnicity and value system than what the public school offers.
You ask Abagond to write a post about this topic, you say “we can put a firm finger on what is happening and what to do about it.” Well, of course nothing can be done about it. Within reason parents can choose where to educate their children and it’s none of our business. It would be interesting to know though, what the white parents who pulled their kids out of the Bay Area public schools think “should” be done about it. After all, they’re the ones who think there is a problem. The American Thinker believes school vouchers are the solution which would basically destroy American public education.
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The problem, as always, with comments like yours is that the data doesn’t support your opinion. Read The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. There is a ton of other data beyond just that book, but that is a great place to start. Many people are utterly clueless about the research on environmental influences. It’s sad because without that knowledge an intelligent public debate isn’t possible.
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@biggiefriez,
Sounds like you support segregation academies.
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@Kiwi,
“Every Asian family that moves into Cupertino and sends their kids to Monta Vista chose that neighborhood primarily because of the quality of the schools.”
I wonder how many Asians have immigrated to the United States because of the perceived quality of the public school system?
In my opinion, economic opportunity is the primary motivator behind migration followed quickly by fear of persecution.
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@jefe
Are you baiting me? Is that how you are?
You post a link to a fairly right wing websites article in support of school vouchers and I read it and respond to what I think might be causing white flight from Bay Area public schools and this is what you got:
“Sounds like you support segregation academies.”
For what it’s worth I support people educating their children however they see fit within reason and making sure they receive the minimum education required by state and federal law. I know many people who send their children to private schools and a few that home school and others that have moved to get into the “right” school and others who have fought to get their kids into the school within the school (i.e. magnet programs). But no, I wouldn’t support setting up a segregation academy. However, I’m fine with others doing so as long as it doesn’t receive any public funding.
And no, I don’t find it surprising that people wouldn’t want to send their kids to a school where they would be minorities if they didn’t have to do it. And Like I said, I believe a primary reason for that is a lack of trust.
And if you believe that Americans are a one big happy melting pot family you’ve swallowed the imperial rhetoric. There is no kumbaya here, no brotherhood of man in the USA. We are just disparate groups of people who have arrived on these shores for primarily economic reasons. The Chinese immigrants in the Bay Area didn’t come to the US dreaming that their children would get to go to school with white kids or longing for the chance to live in the black parts of Oakland. They came here for money and in some cases to escape persecution.
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@Benjamin David Steele
“It’s sad because without that knowledge an intelligent public debate isn’t possible.”
What are we debating? I was giving my opinion about the article Jefe linked. It’s a silly opinion perhaps, but based on knowing many white parents across multiple states who are making choices about their children’s education.
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I said public debate. I think you are smart enough to know what that means. It simply refers to publicly discussing something about which there is disagreement.
As for your opinion, I never said you didn’t have a right to one. Everyone has an opinion. I’m just suggesting that you might want to inform yourself first. But I realize not everyone equally values knowledge.
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@Kiwi,
“So the question becomes why America enjoys far greater riches and success than China and India. Is that due to culture and parenting… or racism and colonialism?”
I think it’s both. If you think of American riches and success as mostly residing in the white community then you have to ask how that is so. Well the white community that established the nation came to America with a culture that defines America to this day, hard working, individualistic, and valuing education (have to be able to read if you want to read the Bible) with a smidgen of the enlightenment thrown in, the part that values inquiry and cause and effect. The idea that we can improve ourselves. Then you take those traits and add millions of colonists, give them free land, untouched natural resources and in many cases free labor (slaves) and bam your country zoom’s past everybody in production and entrepreneurship. And remember during America’s ascent India and China were being held down and scoured by European empires.
Then just when you think things couldn’t go any better those big European empires commence 50 years of violent warfare that enriches your bankers and industrialists and leaves America as the undisputed center of …everything – the entire world layed waste, but America untouched. But underneath all the glory and riches is a mountain of blood. But that’s how all empires are built, through exploitation.
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@Benjamin David Steele
“I’m just suggesting that you might want to inform yourself first.”
Thanks
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@Biggiefriez,
I only copied a link from someone else’s comment (by satanforce) to note that the writer appears to have made a self-contradiction in his statement, that’s all. I am not advocating anything else by copying the link (except for agreeing that we should expect to see similar issues in NY, NJ and MD soon if not already).
Of course not, just trying to understand your position.
My problem with it is that it encourages local officials to restrict funding to the public schools.
And by public funding, do you mean no special tax breaks?
Such as during the mandatory desegregation era (1960s-1970s)? That is when the segregation academies proliferated.
Of course I don’t believe that — the examples I picked in the post are ones that I had direct connection with, ie, affecting me personally or my close family members.
I also wonder about how much you know about the attitudes of Chinese immigrants coming to the USA with respect to the education of their children. Reading what you wrote above, it sounds that you believe that the education of their children is NOT a factor (or certainly not a major factor) in the decision to immigrate, or with respect to bringing (or sending) their children to the USA for an education.
I personally believe it is a major factor, and one that has a history of 140 years dating back to the 1870s. In fact, education of their children has been a major factor that has pushed Chinese Americans and other ethnic Chinese in the USA to fight for civil rights. They certainly have not ignored it or subserved their economic interests or desire to escape persecution at the expense of education of their children.
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@jefe
“And by public funding, do you mean no special tax breaks?” I hadn’t thought about what ‘public funds’ would entail, but no I wouldn’t support tax-breaks for those types of schools.I don’t even support tax-breaks for parochial schools.
With regards to Chinese immigrants, in my experience most people including the earliest colonists came to America for economic reasons. I know though that persecution also drives immigration which I think would cover the pilgrims.
While I’ve read about rich Chinese that want their children to have a “western” education and US citizenship the majority of the Chinese people I’ve actually met came as students who stayed thinking they’d have better life chances here than in China.
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@biggiefriez
When you get a chance, please read up on Chinese American history, what brought them to the USA and the role that education of their children played in that process and their livelihood (1870s-2010s). You are making things up.
In fact, “segregation academies” in the 1960s-1970s also had a major impact on that.
By and large, Chinese and blacks want their kids to go to good schools. Whites want that too, as long as they can go to school mostly with other whites.
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@Kiwi,
“If white Americans truly worked hard, viewed people as individuals, and valued education, they would have no reason to distrust Asians and flee Cupertino.”
Firstly, I don’t really know what is happening in Cuperinto beyond the link Jefe sent. Secondly I didn’t say that white cupertino parents thought the Asian kids were untrustworthy (or if I did I shouldn’t have). but rather less trustworthy than the kids from their own group. Why do I think that? Because I know that at least according to evolutionary theory, people mostly only trust people similar to themselves and have fidelity to the group upon which their survival depends. Social psychologists have found that people are more likely to feel empathy for those similar to themselves and less empathy for those less so and from empathy you get selflessness and selfishness and from that follows so much.
If evolutionary theory is correct then it makes sense that if a parent has the means and ability to do so, they would send their children to be educated with the group similar to themselves. I can see where poor or working class folk might not be able to make that choice, but middle class whites can move and afford private school and place Timmy where they think he belongs. I think many people make choices not just on where they will get the best education or the biggest house but also on where they think they will fit in and belong.
“If white Americans truly worked hard, viewed people as individuals, and valued education, they would have had no reason to impose Jewish quotas at top schools.”
I thought the Jewish quota system was gone. I know their are still some Asian quotas at a few private schools but by and large public university’s are barred from that sort of thing.
“Your explanation of culture as the reason for success is a contradiction of itself.”
I think I said I agreed with your notion that American success and riches were founded on both culture and exploitation of native land and slave labor, the whole package. And I think it’s possible to value education, work and individual initiative in your own group without necessarily extending that appreciation to others, especially if you feel you are in competition with them.
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@Kiwi
I wonder if the adopted Asian kids feel like they fit in and belong in an all-white neighborhood or school. Perhaps that’s something to consider when thinking about adopting a child from another ethnic group.
I think it would be reasonable to assume that a child up for adoption would be better off with a family that loved and cared for them, even if of another ethnic group than staying in the orphanage. Saying that though, is not saying that their life will be easy, just better than at the orphanage.
Do you think it’s important for a child to have a sense of belonging? Would you choose a less big house or a different school if it meant being more comfortable and relaxed and in an environment of people like yourself? Do you think that’s something parents should consider when choosing a school or just school rankings?
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@Kiwi,
I am going to have AMEN that last sentence.
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The “football team” photo you have from Marshall Academy of a pee-wee team and is about 10 years old.
Here is a photo of the 2015 jr. high team:
[img]https://scontent-atl1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/t31.0-8/11886171_881567498591447_3401432055156286241_o.jpg[/img]
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@ColRebSez,
Thank you for sharing a recent picture of students from Marshall Academy and your experience with Holly Springs.
However, that picture may not be very indicative of the actual situation. In fact, it might even substantiate the segregational aspects of the school (and similar such academies).
Segregation academies in the Mississippi Delta typically are about 95% white and 3% black (I am not sure what the Marshall Academy is, but it probably isn’t too far off). The public schools are almost the reverse. Black students are often recruited to the academies to join the sports teams. In counties and towns which are majority black, if black students are specifically recruited to join the sports teams, then we should see majority black sports teams at the secondary level at those academies. However, we do not.
A more realistic representation of the situation would be either
– elementary schools (where black students are not recruited specifically to play sports)
– non-sports organizations at the secondary school level (eg, student government or the yearbook or school newspaper staffs, or even the school choir or band).
–> the pee wee teams of 10-yr olds would be more representative of the situation than secondary school sports teams.
My cousins attended the segregation academies for a while in the Mississippi Delta, so I do know a little bit about their story. I do not necessarily know about what happened at each individual school.
I went to High School in Prince George’s county, MD. The county is 2/3 black and the school system is 80% black. Here is a recent picture of the 2014 football team at the high school I graduated from.
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CNN has just come out with a series of articles about Cleveland, MS reluctance to integrate, 62 years after Brown v. Board and 50 years after they were ordered to do so by the Supreme Court. It is unbelievable how they have avoided compliance since the initial order 50 years ago.
The article has a sidebar about segregation academies in the Mississippi Delta.
Could Mississippi integration ruling trigger ‘white flight’?
(http://us.cnn.com/2016/05/27/us/cleveland-mississippi-sidebar-segregation-academies/index.html)
Cleveland, MS is also the location of the Mississippi Delta Chinese museum and had one of the larger segregated Chinese schools in Mississippi in the 1930s-50s, discussed in this post:
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/chinese-americans-in-mississippi-under-jim-crow/)
The article also points out that the nation’s most segregated schools are not in Mississippi, however, but are in … New York City. California is not far behind, and a lot worse than Mississippi.
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If someone wants to pay more money for a better school, I don’t see that as a problem
If you can’t pay it, than ask yourself why your Great-Grandpa didn’t work as hard as theirs…
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Bobby, how often do you troll for fun?
Likewise, this is a good link that may be viable for the “Blacks are more racist because they segregate” argument: https://www.vox.com/2017/1/18/14296126/white-segregated-suburb-neighborhood-cartoon.
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@ofbordelloandmen – I spent part of my childhood in Deerfield, Illinois. It’s a wealthy suburb outside of Chicago. And it was well known for being sundown, although I didn’t know this as a child.
It was also extremely classist. My family with a working class background didn’t perfectly fit in there, despite our being white. Having moved there from a factory town at the periphery of Appalachia, my brothers and I apparently had picked up a bit of Appalachian accent. My oldest brother remembers being ridiculed for saying ‘zero’ as ‘zeero’.
Classism was also a big issue in the Deep South. Segregation is as much or more about class than race. Most white people with money send their kids to private schools, but poor whites can’t afford to do so. The public high school I went to in South Carolina was desegregated and remains desegregated with a near equal mix of blacks and whites (I recently looked at the demographic data for that school), but I’m willing to bet the economic segregation has grown worse.
Bigotry never limits itself to a single issue. Sundown towns historically tended to exclude, ostracize, and demonize anyone considered different — not simply in terms of race but also ethnicity, immigrant status, religion, sexuality/gender, ideology, etc. James Loewen discusses this and the impact it has on people, not only the victims.
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism
by James W. Loewen
pp. 360-2
“In addition to discouraging new people, hypersegregation may also discourage new ideas. Urban theorist Jane Jacobs has long held that the mix of peoples and cultures found in successful cities prompts creativity. An interesting study by sociologist William Whyte shows that sundown suburbs may discourage out-of-the-box thinking. By the 1970s, some executives had grown weary of the long commutes with which they had saddled themselves so they could raise their families in elite sundown suburbs. Rather than move their families back to the city, they moved their corporate headquarters out to the suburbs. Whyte studied 38 companies that left New York City in the 1970s and ’80s, allegedly “to better [the] quality-of-life needs of their employees.” Actually, they moved close to the homes of their CEOs, cutting their average commute to eight miles; 31 moved to the Greenwich-Stamford, Connecticut, area. These are not sundown towns, but adjacent Darien was, and Greenwich and Stamford have extensive formerly sundown neighborhoods that are also highly segregated on the basis of social class. Whyte then compared those 38 companies to 36 randomly chosen comparable companies that stayed in New York City. Judged by stock price, the standard way to measure how well a company is doing, the suburbanized companies showed less than half the stock appreciation of the companies that chose to remain in the city.7 […]
“Research suggests that gay men are also important members of what Richard Florida calls “the creative class”—those who come up with or welcome new ideas and help drive an area economically.11 Metropolitan areas with the most sundown suburbs also show the lowest tolerance for homosexuality and have the lowest concentrations of “out” gays and lesbians, according to Gary Gates of the Urban Institute. He lists Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh as examples. Recently, some cities—including Detroit—have recognized the important role that gay residents can play in helping to revive problematic inner-city neighborhoods, and now welcome them.12 The distancing from African Americans embodied by all-white suburbs intensifies another urban problem: sprawl, the tendency for cities to become more spread out and less dense. Sprawl can decrease creativity and quality of life throughout the metropolitan area by making it harder for people to get together for all the human activities—from think tanks to complex commercial transactions to opera—that cities make possible in the first place. Asked in 2000, “What is the most important problem facing the community where you live?” 18% of Americans replied sprawl and traffic, tied for first with crime and violence. Moreover, unlike crime, sprawl is increasing. Some hypersegregated metropolitan areas like Detroit and Cleveland are growing larger geographically while actually losing population.13”
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@ofbordelloandmen
Thank you for sharing the article about Worthington, MN.
I suspect that not all readers and lurkers here might not be familiar with what is going on with some of the smaller towns located away from the major metro areas. The notion that the longer term residents are alarmed that they are “losing their country” to some outside force is keenly felt (albeit false). They are probably less alarmed by the top 1%, as they were some faraway elusive force anyhow and they do not see how THEIR decisions and actions have affected their livelihood. They also are not affected by BLM or the prospect of large numbers of blacks moving in — a phenomenon that is now caused by white gentrification forcing blacks to disperse in the major metro areas, not so much in the small towns across the US heartland. Besides, whites can, if they desire, move to some nearby exurban whiteopia.
But, seeing your town become 25% Spanish speaking or 25% muslim within a generation and composing a large percentage of the local workforce makes some of the previous local residents go ballistic.
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