Well, it certainly doesn't help any!
:)
Posted on 03/11/2010 1:09:40 PM PST by Daffynition
Pinellas School Board chairwoman Janet Clark is coming under fire for using the term "hoodlums" to describe a small group of chronically disruptive students in county schools.
Board members Mary Brown and Linda Lerner criticized Clark at Tuesday night's board meeting. And now Ray Tampa, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP, said Clark's refusal to apologize has made things worse.
"I was disgusted with her response," Tampa said Wednesday.
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement — better known as the Uhurus — called for Clark to resign for the statement, which it viewed as racist. Clark is white. Tampa said he thought the comment was inappropriate, but not racist.
Tampa said he was considering filing a complaint against Clark, who has a teaching certificate, with the Florida Department of Education's Office of Professional Practices, which handles complaints against teachers.
"The (teacher) code of ethics says you can't embarrass kids or make disparaging remarks about kids," he said.
Clark made the comment at a board workshop last week in a wide-ranging discussion about chronically disruptive students at John Hopkins Middle School and other Pinellas schools.
"So much time is taken up with addressing hoodlums, with kids who don't want to be in school," she said. She also said, "We are talking about a small number of children."
Brown and Lerner weighed in Tuesday night.
"They might be disruptive. They might be in gangs. They might be many things, but they are not hoodlums," Brown said. "I feel that that statement showed insensitivity to our children, and it certainly did not offer good guidance to our staff."
"There are people upset out there about the comment, different kinds of people, including employees," Lerner said. "We have to be careful as board members when we speak."
Before the meeting, Clark said the statement had nothing to do with race. "I made no mention of race," she said. "There are hoodlums of all races and colors and ethnic backgrounds."
• • •
But Clark may have stepped into a situation where the same word conjures up different images, depending on who hears it.
It does not appear the origins of the word "hoodlum" have any ties to race or ethnicity. It is an adaptation of a German word that meant "ragamuffin" or "good for nothing," said Michael Adams, an associate professor of English at Indiana University and author of the 2009 book, Slang: The People's Poetry.
But the meanings of words can change, Adams said. Over time, "hoodlum" may have become a more racially identifiable word, in part because of the slang term "hood," short for neighborhood, and also because hood and hoodlum began to be applied to African-American youths by white people, he said.
"Hoodlum, when you look it up in the dictionary, doesn't look so bad," Adams said. But when people in the black community hear it, "they associate it with words and meanings other than (those from) 1871 or whenever it was the word first appeared in print."
The professor said the case reminds him of the uproar from a 1999 incident when a Washington D.C., city official used the term "niggardly" to describe how he was managing budget cuts. It means "miserly," but another employee took it as a racial slur.
Said Adams: "What people hear always means something more than what a word may mean historically."
• • •
At Tuesday's meeting, Clark told board members that she knew people were upset, but would not apologize.
"We can't continue making excuses when children don't behave and disrupt the educational environment for teachers and students," she said. "That's all I can say on that matter."
The next day, the Uhurus staged a small demonstration in St. Petersburg. Eight protesters stood in front of John Hopkins and chanted as classes let out Wednesday.
They took aim at Clark, the school district and St. Petersburg police, who have arrested 84 John Hopkins students this school year — the most arrests by far in any city middle school.
"Janet Clark! Must Go!" they chanted. "School board! Must go!
"First they fail black children! Then they jail black children!"
The group's president, Chimurenga Waller, said he blames the school's troubles on the adults who run the school system, not the children who go there. "We don't have a John Hopkins crisis," he said. "We have a systematic crisis."
Asked how he would describe the unruly students blamed for the daily fights and misconduct that has plagued John Hopkins this year, Waller declined to answer.
Billie Blackshear, 64, whose nephew attends John Hopkins, said Clark's word choice was impolite — but not inaccurate.
"At the time I thought it was wrong," he said. "But it describes the kids who are doing this kind of stuff."
Mau Mau because they had (at the beginning) a minimally legit complaint.
Or Simbas. Both of those 'movements' turned out rather badly for the players.
Oddly both were either Leftist or communist instigated.
Uhuru seems to be the same as Mau Mau ?,,,
Hoodlum = Thug ?,,,
I can't keep up with all these name changes,,,
One thing they have in common is
“Gimmie,Gimmie,Gimmie,Gimmie What You Have.”,,,
Wait for the food riots and the USA will turn into
Zimbabwe in some parts of this country...
And this is true with thugs whether it's through near total government dependency or stealing it from helpless people in the streets, black or white. Most victims of black thug violence are other black people. I'm sure they have no problem understanding what we're saying here, at least most of it.
And if you have occasion to be among them, you hear, “Wuz up n*****?”
Try saying that if you are a non-minority....oh...scratch that ....we are.
They call Clark racist, but their name (with “Uhuru”) implies to me that their own membership is all black. Who’s the racist?
Recommend in the future she try, “Okay, quit acting like brats, sit down and shut up!”.
Re: “niggas”
Hear it all the time said by Puerto Ricans here in New York City.
In fact, last summer I heard “you ain’t gangsta nigga!” right outside my window (near a public school and playground) just before 3 shots went off. Two rival PR groups have been having a beef over something, possibly drug related. Took about half an hour for the police to show up. But when they did it was massive. Low-flying helicopter and everything.
My post is right above yours. Hoodlums are hoodlums. This isn’t a race issue, like the people in the story at the top of the thread are trying to make out of the word “hoodlum”.
97% “Not racist” at this moment.
People are sick and tired of idiots like the Uhurus screaming “RACISM” when people are trying to deal with societal problems caused by the culture of many inner-city blacks. It is that simple.
If we’re really in the “post-racial” future promised by Obama, it is time to deal with these problems that have festered and grown over the last 40-50 years.
Read the comments about the article, ‘What’s it like to teach black kids?’
http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2009/06/white-teacher-speaks-out-what-is-it.html
Very interesting and informative.
What
What else would you call them?
Of course this doesn't apply to all black kids. Just the ones that many black teachers would agree are a serious problem.
Actually hoodlum comes from the old English. Why do you think they called Robin Hood by that name. It was actually,”Robin, the hood”, short for hoodlum. He was a real character, and so were the other “hoods” who ran with him. Hoodlum is definitely not racist. Only a racist would scream that it is.
Most Often Asked Questions About
African Center Educations
http://www.duboislc.org/EducationWatch/faqs.html
Well, it certainly doesn't help any!
:)
that started in the 60’s,,,
The banks/stores/etc. were robbed so many times that
they left too,,,
No matter what race the owners were,,,
Then the whine started when they had nowhere to shop,,,
The crime followed the whites because the black areas are
now a wasteland with nothing else to steal,,,
This happened rite across the river in my hometown,,,
Shreveport,Louisiana,,,now about 70% black...
hoodlum
Term originally used to describe greasers. "Hood," is what a greasr would originally be called (the term "greaser," wasn't developed until the early 70's) "Lum," was short for "slums(ghetto)," which was were most "greasers," would usually live.
Your referenced definition reminds me of Scorsese’s film Gangs of New York and the rise of the Irish "New Guard" ........dirty politicians ......"the appearance of the law must be upheld, especially when it’s being broken."
Nothing, and I mean nothing is more true than your brilliant statement.
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