Afrocentric schools

GAAZ · MOD Black Sheep Commander Gender: Joined: 14 Oct 2002

I saw this on an Episode of Fresh Prince of Belair.

Carlton and Will were failing History.

They complained to their Aunt Vivian stating "We can't understand history because it isn't about us and our heritage."

So aunt Vivian decided to teach "Black History" at the high school..Will and Carlton took the class and failed miserably. All the white kids passed with A's.

It wasn't until Uncle Phil came up to Will and bitched him out for a solid 5 minutes about how easy he has it when he grew up through actual segregation.

The basic point is this...Everyone has it too damn easy nowadays and when life gets hard if you complain enough the government will step in and save you. Be you white, black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. All it takes is a swift kick in the ass or a dose of reality and people tend to come around.

Blackmage · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject:

I couldn't put that any better Gaaz.

FawkesFyre · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:29 pm Post subject:

I actually agree with Gaaz as well. I've been holding off on posting here until I could really figure out what I wanted to say...

An additive to Gaaz's post that I'd like to make is this: If any student is failing a class, you need to take a look into the student and why they are failing. Falling all over yourself to create a special class or special school just to "help" them isn't going to do much of anything for most of them until you figure out what's causing them to fail.

I hate to say it but a lazy kid who doesn't study or do their homework is going to fail any class. And crappy parenting that doesn't include making sure your kid is doing their work doesn't help either.

If a student has a legitimate problem that's causing them to fail, then address it.

My mom's a recently retired teacher who got sick of having students like this b/c their parents march up to the school raising holy hell about why their wonderful child is failing... but never even stop to think that it might actually be their kids own fault.

Jaena · Senior Otaku Gender: Joined: 09 Jan 2007

... Okay then.

I went and read the FAQs that Akanari posted the link to.

They already have a school for gay/lesbian/transgender/unsure students. This I understand, considering the sometimes violent reactions toward this particular group. They deserve to be able to have a learning environment where they are not afraid to be who they are.

They have a school where there are no grades and no homework. Different teaching style. All for it.

But to decide that children who are of African heritage should have all of their classes somehow revolving around that heritage? A little bit further out there for me. Why aren't their parents teaching them this? Classes on culture can be added to existing programs. They can take said courses in college (more motivation to complete high school). These classes are meant to take the history being taught elsewhere, and point out how it affected the black community. Let's point out things that some people already bring up in conversation, and teach them how they are right, giving them more fuel for arguments when they call others racist.

"Well you did this to us." No, that was done to your ancestors, even if it did go into the generation right before our own. But we're supposed to be learning and living and everything TOGETHER now. When you wanted equal treatment, that meant bringing curriculum from many different cultures and putting them into one school. I don't get emphasis on immigration from Europe, but there is always a segment on slavery and civil rights.

Don't blame the dropout rates on "white man keeping you down". Blame it on the fact that you are now wanting to take the easy way out as repayment for centuries of problems. You want everything brought to you on a silver platter.

/end bitch session

feign · Senior Otaku Gender: Joined: 31 Jan 2007

Segregation 2, the sequal.

I love how it's said that all the defenders of this spoke "passionately" or "emphatically". Never does it say in this that anyone argued or demanded argument in a logical fashon. The world it falling into an emotion-centric mindset, further and further away from logic or reason.

Hopefully we can save ourselves from falling into a new dark age... But by the time it becomes a concern, we may have already forgotten the old dark ages existed.

All so sad, so very sad. But someday even this shall pass.

Tobias · *explodes* Age: 38 Gender: Joined: 17 Jan 2003

I just find it interesting that they even came up with this. I know if I'm not doing well in a course, I will get a spank and told to continue trying. If they don't do well, they are given "incentives" and alternative "paths." Now, I could techincally say that I'm a minority. I'm part hispanic. But people don't give a rat's ass about it.

So what would happen if they made a latinocentric school? I would say you would still have a lot of hispanic people mowing lawns around here.

To get to what I wanted to say: you're going to make a nice pile of gunpowder with a school like this. For one, you're always in a place where racism is present. It doesn't matter how much we try to quell it, it exists. People hide it and give their best "shit-eating grin", but it'll always be present.

Making a school geared towards centralizing African studies is centralizing a race, and therefore making a target for racism. I guarantee that if this school flies, the amount of times racist graffiti ends up on the school or defacing of property is going to be large by the end of the first year of active time. Let's not forget to mention that because of this, you'll be pulling the racism not only out of the people around the school, but you'll probably start creating racist roots in the people who go to that school.

I don't think they should do this. If they do, they're asking for high tension - the black people going to the school are going to be nervous because their parents are taking them away from their regular school systems and placing them into a largely centralized black school and therefore creating even more tension.

The moment you take away a race and centralize it in some way, you're going to garner some sort of target on them and its going to draw attention from radicals. I quote from the book No-No Boy by John Okada:

He paused for a long time, just looking and smiling at Ichiro, his face wan and tired. "There were a lot of them pouring into Seattle about the time I got back there. It made me sick. I'd heard about some of them scattering out all over the country. I read about a girl who's doing pretty good in the fashion business in New York and a guy that's principal of a school in Arkansas, and a lot of others in different places making out pretty good. I got to thinking that the Japs were wising up, that they had learned that living in big bunches and talking Jap and feeling Jap and doing Jap was just inviting trouble. But my dad came back. There was really no reason why he should have. I asked him about it once and he gave me some kind of an answer.

Whatever it was, a lot of others did the same thing. I hear that there's almost as many in Seattle now as there were before the war. It's a shame, a dirty rotten shame. Pretty soon it'll be just like it was before the war. A bunch of Japs with a fence around them, not the kind you can see, but it'll hurt them just as much. THey bitched and hollered when the government put them in camps and put real fences around them, but now they're doing the same damn thing to themselves. They screamed because the government said they were Japs and, when they finally got out, the couldn't wait to rush together and prove that they were." (Okada, 164)

Ming · DOOM! Gender: Joined: 13 Jan 2003

Terin · Huzzah! Gender: Joined: 27 Oct 2003

I don't understand how people can pull the salvery card when the jews were slaves for 4k years and they have the stereotype of being VERY good with money, not to mention they went through an attempted genocide, and still persevered. If someone ever starts talking to me about slavery in the south, I'll ask them if they were aware that the wealthiest slave owners at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation happened to be black, or that a majority of black slaves were traded by African rulers, which started theTransatlantic Slave Trade, and also, starting with Denmark, whites were the ones to protest/ban slave trade. This swept through Europe and made it to the United States. Further below the Wiki document it covers apologies that African nations have demanded. I can see apologizing to the nations where their peopel were kidnapped, but in the slaves that were traded off, those kingdoms are just as guilty as the traders who took them. I digress. I still think that playing the race card in order to explain away children not learning in public schools is ridiculous. There are PLENTY of successful black men and women in today's society that attended public schools.
-T