Two recent news stories have revealed some disturbingly racist and segregationist ideas floating around in public K-12 education.
First off, a rumor spread through Oberlin (OH) High School that a white teacher might be appointed to teach the African-American studies class. The reaction to this (apparently unfounded) rumor is the disturbing part:
Schools and community leaders in the Cleveland area are split over the issue of whether blacks should be the only ones to teach black history. In Cleveland, white and black teachers teach black history. A black teacher teaches black history at Shaker Heights High School, but a white teacher handles classes on oppression and human relations. Both classes deal extensively with race relations and slavery...
Phyllis Yarber Hogan, a member of the Oberlin Black Alliance for Progress, said a white teacher wouldn't be well-suited to teaching students about subjects like slavery.
''When you talk about slavery, students need to understand it is not our fault,'' she said. ''Our ancestors did nothing wrong to be enslaved. How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?''
Am I to understand that the assumption is that any white teacher would teach black kids that slavery was their fault? Any teacher, white or black, who wanted to present the full picture of slavery would have to teach about the black leaders who sold slaves to white traders, but this isn't the same thing as telling kids today that slavery was "their fault." How many of them really believe that, anyway?
It seems to me that this sort of opposition to white teachers is in fact an attempt to teach black children that they should continue to hold all white people responsible for slavery, and they should assume that all white people are the "type of person" capable of enslaving others. If this is the case, the class doesn't fall under "education," as far as I'm concerned.
(John Hawkins of RightWingNews has more, but his page is temporarily down.)
A new public high school in New York City goes one step further in assuming that kids should be surrounded only by their own "kind" - Harvey Milk High School is exclusively for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students. The school recently spent $3 million dollars on renovations, which has some politicians steamed:
State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long blasted the school as "social engineering" that wastes tax dollars.
"Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there gay math? This is wrong. This makes absolutely no sense," Long said. "There's no reason these children should be treated separately."
Long said there are city and state discrimination laws on the books and that authorities should enforce them to stop gay-bashing. "What next? Maybe we should have schools for chubby kids who get picked on. Maybe all kids who wear glasses should have special schools. It's ridiculous," he said.
What burns Long most is the $3 million spent on renovations. "Maybe this is one of the reasons the city has no money," he said.
Jay Nordlinger covers both of these stories for National Review. He points out the obvious racism in the Oberlin flap:
If you say a white teacher can't teach "black history," you must say that a black teacher can't teach "white history." (Why should we have "black history" and "white history" anyway? When it comes to the United States, black people are as much a part of the story as cherry trees, Westward expansion, D-Day, and everything else.) When you say that black children must have "black role models," because white ones won't do, you must say, at the same time, that white children can't look up to Jackie Robinson, Marian Anderson, etc.
His comments on the high school for gay kids is equally insightful:
As American life gets ever more Balkanized, I'm not sure this is a good idea. Two quick points: First, are teenagers so sure about this sexuality business?... And shouldn't the life of young people be as little sexualized as possible? Isn't there enough time — too much time — for that later?
Then there's the argument about feelings, social comfort: Gay kids — obviously gay kids — come in for a very rough time in school...But, as New York's Conservative party boss Mike Long pointed out, what about fat kids? What about clumsy kids? What about kids with acne? What about handicapped kids? Do we farm them all out, ghettoize them, to protect them from the bumps and bruises of community living?
Nick of Twilight of the Idols also comments (after doing some background research as well):
First off, are heterosexual students actually excluded? If so, then I'd love to see how they get public funding to run a public school. Replace the word "gay" with "black," or worse, "white," throughout the article, and you begin to grasp just how ridiculous this idea is...
On top of this, it seems to fly in the face of the pro-diversity propaganda that's so widespread these days. Homosexual students will miss out on learning to interact with straight students, the heterosexual students won't have the diversified benefit of homosexual viewpoints in class, and neither side will learn the benefits of tolerance, etc.
As Nick points out, this sort of segregation only encourages homophobia and homosexual stereotyping. Back in the 1950's, the cry was for integrated education, and an end to "separate but equal" schooling. Now we seem to be swinging back the other way - and it's the allegedly liberal types who are supporting the return to segregation. Black students taught black history only by black teachers, gay kids in a separate high school altogether - to put it bluntly, the Klan would be happy with these arrangements, and that makes me very uncomfortable with these ideas.
As Opinion Journal puts it, these ideas "should not be acceptable from anyone in America in the 21st century."
Posted by kswygert at July 29, 2003 10:19 AM