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The Boston Globe ^ | 10-15-03 | Eileen McNamara

[johnny7]

WELLESLEY -- What does it mean that the teenager who scrawled a threat on a bathroom wall to burn down Wellesley High School so "there will be no blacks in our schools" is black himself? Why would a student, bused from Dorchester for 11 years to schools in this western suburb, choose to vent his frustration or rage or pain by assuming the persona of a white racist? When is a troubled kid just a troubled kid?

[camle]

it's a black kid. excuses must be found, rationalization must be discovered, he's a victim.

had it been a white kid? he must be punished. his hatred must be suppressed. put him in jail, expell him permanently, send him to sensitivity training.

no double standard here folks, just move on.

[Support Free Republic]

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[AnAmericanMother]

The kid did this because liberals in their patronizing "help" of "poor minorities" are sending the message "You are worthless without OUR help." They graciously allow him to hang around the doors of Paradise, but he knows the only reason he's there is because they allow him to shuffle forward and glimpse the good life purely out of pity and the goodness of their hearts and purely because of the color of his skin - not because he's a good and hardworking individual who can make whatever he wants of himself. The program is not about giving good kids a hand up - it's all about making the liberals feel good about themselves. He knows good and well his only value is as a prop for the Boston intelligentsia's self-esteem.

People who receive the message that they're worthless are really into self-loathing.

[Bigg Red]

It is hard enough to "walk that divide between two worlds," Kelton said, without feeling that every black student must answer for the actions of one.

**

What an idiot of a teacher. How do the actions of this one kid who is a jerk sully the reputations of the good black kids?

[Gorzaloon]

The program is not about giving good kids a hand up - it's all about making the liberals feel good about themselves. He knows good and well his only value is as a prop for the Boston intelligentsia's self-esteem.

Great point! I had composed a reply, but yours left me nothing to add.

[Bigg Red]

Excellent points, AAM!

[SpyGuy]

Why would a [black] student...vent his frustration or rage or pain by assuming the persona of a white racist?

Another absurd and contrived assumption by a liberal "journalist", in order to spin this story to fit the Left's world-view.

Of course, the most logical explanation is that the black student wrote the anti-black statement in order to cast blame on white students, thus portraying the school environment as a haven for white racists. Anyone who has followed the news over the past several years recalls at least several stories where this has been done by other black students in schools, as well as by black adults in their communities. (And it's likely that there have been even more cases where the news stories have been spiked.) But I guess this journalist doesn't pay attention to history...or simply choses to ignore it.

[OpusatFR]

"It is hard enough to "walk that divide between two worlds," Kelton said, without feeling that every black student must answer for the actions of one."

Yet, Blacks can demand that every single white be condemned because of the past.

[AnAmericanMother]

Guys, I've thought a lot about this. This country can't afford to discard all the poor kids in Boston . . . and everywhere else that an anti-learning, anti-achievement mentality has taken over.

I wonder if some variation on Booker T. Washington's plan wouldn't work better for these kids. . . . instead of an "us versus them" (having the white intellectuals doling out a few spots in a good school and bus a few kids over there), get together a group of no-nonsense, politically incorrect, and highly motivated successful black businessmen to start a program IN their community FOR the community. That would short-circuit the whole self-loathing thing right from the start - "look - I did it, despite all disadvantages, and you can do it too."

Might have to start with a good dose of practical, trades-oriented education side by side with academics, so the first groups of students could get out there and earn good money quickly - nothing like bringing home a fat paycheck to impress the younger kids coming along. (My dad made all us kids learn a trade as well as an academic specialty. I know this may cause some resentment in certain quarters as making students "second class citizens", but what the heck are they now? They don't know a trade, PLUS too many of them can't even read or write on a high school level when they graduate!)

[CalvaryJohn]

The kid's a racist little punk trying to stir up the very trouble he desires. Congratulations, Civil Rights Movement. This is the fruit of your labour, and IMO, exactly what you want.

[San Jacinto]

What does it mean that the teenager who scrawled a threat on a bathroom wall to burn down Wellesley High School so "there will be no blacks in our schools" is black himself? Why would a student, bused from Dorchester for 11 years to schools in this western suburb, choose to vent his frustration or rage or pain by assuming the persona of a white racist?

I don't know. But I do know this--It's Whitey's Fault.

It is probably all this delay in paying reparations.

[Leisler]

Bump!

Just liberals getting their ticket punched. The real people are just props. Basically this is a problem with the help story. A minor indecent at the liberal plantation
.

[randita]

get together a group of no-nonsense, politically incorrect, and highly motivated successful black businessmen to start a program IN their community FOR the community.

But then the white liberal elitists couldn't revel in the smug self-satisfaction of having "cared".

[GirlShortstop]

...without feeling that every black student
must answer for the actions of one.

     Yet, Blacks can demand that every single white be condemned because of the past.

I agree Opus... I thought the statement was awfully hypocritical as well.

[AnAmericanMother]

Aw, shoot, the businessmen ought to let the liberals give money, and have a big banquet for 'em once or twice a year, where they can feel superior and smug (but where the kids can't see 'em, except a few of the older star students who understand how the game is played and can be props without being harmed . . .)

Booker T. Washington played that game to perfection years ago.

[CatoRenasci]

Eminently sensible suggestion ... too bad it won't happen.

But, you're quite right, that's what blacks like Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver and many others did in the post-Civil War era in the South.

[misterrob]

Because sadly enough, people will use this as an excuse to demean the program and the rest of the kids are cast in a suspicious light, fair or not.

[JesseHousman]

When is a troubled kid just a troubled kid?

And when is he just a pain in the ass?

Self-denegraters, such as this one, possibly hate their race and know they are too lazy and, therefore, incapable of improving their station in life.

Or, he might simply want people to think that a white kid did it.

[AnAmericanMother]

Yeah, and in a perfect world folks could get all self-righteous like W.E.B. DuBois and say let's devote all time and effort to the "talented tenth" and let the others go hang.

But I think men like Washington and Carver, who (1) recognized the situation they were in rather than living in some idealistic fantasy world; and (2) figured out a plan to do the most good for everybody given the circumstances, did more to help the average black man or woman than all DuBois's fussing ever did.

It's a shame that the black 'establishment' has decided to follow the philosophy of DuBois rather than Washington et al.

[misterrob]

I really detest reading Ellen Goodman. The never ending quest for finding victims in society gets tiring after a bit.

[CastleMan95]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2003/10/15/wellesley_school_links_graffiti_to_metco_teen/

The above is the story as reported in the Boston Globe today...goes along with the column by the Lib. Ms. McNamara.

[madprof98]

it's a black kid. excuses must be found, rationalization must be discovered, he's a victim.

I recently read a book that tried to make excuses for the men on Death Row here in Georgia. Naturally, it dismissed the blacks as victims of racism. But what about the inconvenient fact that almost all of them had killed other black people? Ah, said the liberal writer, they must have done that because our racist society had taught them that the lives of black people were not valuable. And the beat goes on . . .

[CatoRenasci]

Well, if you were black, and thought of yourself as in the "talented tenth" (and what striver doesn't), DuBois' approach has a certain self-interested attraction. Not to mention a whole lot of appeal to the white guilt-ridden crowd who can demonstrate their moral purity by admitting a few blacks to the better schools and training them to be salonfaehig for show and tell at liberal cocktail parties and foundation dinners.

[an amused spectator]

What does it mean that the teenager who scrawled a threat on a bathroom wall to burn down Wellesley High School so "there will be no blacks in our schools" is black himself? Why would a student, bused from Dorchester for 11 years to schools in this western suburb, choose to vent his frustration or rage or pain by assuming the persona of a white racist? When is a troubled kid just a troubled kid?

Maybe that the youth learned something from the Sumner-like media caning of Rush Limbaugh the previous week? :-)

[AnAmericanMother]

You know, the 'talented tenth' will take care of themselves. They always have. The super-motivated succeed no matter what.

It's the average student that needs a well-organized, disciplined, motivating school to get behind him and give him the tools and the drive to succeed.

[KellyAdmirer]

Maybe the kid just hates schoolwork and wants to go back to his easier school - or no school at all. Some things in life are just made more complicated than they have to be. Looking for huge implications for society here or something is a fool's errand.

[CatoRenasci]

Yes, but unfortuantely, one of the ways they're taking care of themselves is the DuBois approach of getting theirs on the backs of everyone else. And actually, I was think less of the truly talented, the Tom Sowells and Ward Connerlys, than the top tenth wannabes (or think-they-ought-to-bes) who get by on the help. It reminds me of many party libertarians I used to know in California in the ''60s and ''70s: third raters who thought they were first raters, but because they'd been put down by the evil government hadn't been able to be successful. Gag me with a spoon!

[AnAmericanMother]

It's really a mess. I get so frustrated thinking of all the kids who aren't getting the leadership they need!

[CatoRenasci]

I know what you mean. I think I am almost past caring: I worked for civil rights in the '60s -- probably one of the few SSOC (Southern Students Organizing Committee - what was left of the whites in SNCC when the blacks decided whitey had to go) at VMI. I was never a political liberal, but I have always believed legal segregation was wrong. I was active as a graduate student in the University of California system working to design affirmative action programs -- our version (that was all remediation away from the university, and then come to the university when (if) you're ready to meet the standards everyone else meets) narrowly lost to the version that we've ended up with.

Now, after 30 years of policies of bussing and affirmative action I was arguing were stupid the whole time, with results even worse than I and others predicted, and the minority community happily embracing hand outs and even demanding reparations, I guess I'm just emotionally and morally deadened to it all. If that's how they want it, I'll do what I can for my own kids and the devil take the hindmost.

[Budge]

Bears repeating - many times!

Congratulations, Civil Rights Movement. This is the fruit of your labour, and IMO, exactly what you want.

[Devil_Anse]

So a black high school student wrote graffiti that said "We'll burn down the school so no more blacks can attend it"? And it seems understood that he did this to make it look like white students did it?

He's just following the role model, Al Sharpton, presidential candidate.

It never ceases to amaze me that a person who perpetrated a similar but far more involved hoax, then proceeded to ruin a man's life out of racism and revenge, then when losing a court case the man brought, refused to pay up and to this day has not paid up, is actually being interviewed on TV, taken seriously as a candidate, and actually viewed as just another political hopeful.