Posted on 05/30/2002 8:16:46 AM PDT by xsysmgr
The current issue of Time magazine has a dubious article on "Learning While Black." The teaser reads: "You've heard of racial profiling on the roads and in the skies. But are minority kids also being unfairly singled out for discipline in schools?" The article is not completely one-sided, but the unmistakable gist of it is that the answer to the question posed is, "Probably so." But neither the anecdotal evidence nor the statistics cited are at all persuasive.
The story begins and ends with the story of a student for whom we are supposed to feel some sympathy, but the article concedes that the youth has "a filthy mouth" and "has been known to saunter into class on his own schedule." He was suspended after "he threw the first punch in a fistfight." The article calls him "a C student"; at the end of the article, however, it is noted that he is worried about "the D and F on his latest report card and whether they will affect his prospects for studying architecture in college."
The reason he and the NAACP think he is "a victim" — of racial discrimination, naturally — is that the white student he punched and who suffered "five stitches over his left eye" was suspended for only three days, versus our victim's one-month suspension and later reassignment to another school. But even if we knew nothing about the two students besides what Time tells us, it seems pretty plausible that there are good reasons for the different punishments. And, indeed, a conversation I had with a school-system spokeswoman confirmed that the extent of injury, who started the fight, past infractions, and so forth all may be considered under the system's student-conduct code in deciding what punishment to mete out.
The statistical evidence is even less persuasive. In big capital letters running across the bottom of the first two pages in the Time story, a finding of the Civil Rights Project is announced: "NATIONALLY, AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE 2.4 TIMES AS LIKELY TO BE SUSPENDED AS WHITES." Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the 2.4 figure is accurate. But the Time article ignores completely two factors that are likely to explain the disparity better than racism: illegitimacy and a pervasive notion among many black students that if you're not acting out, you're acting white.
The illegitimacy rate among blacks is more than triple that of whites: 69 percent of African Americans are now being born out of wedlock, versus only 22 percent of non-Hispanic whites. Does illegitimacy help explain suspensions? As a matter of fact, yes, although there is no mention of it in the Time article. Not every child born out of wedlock is a behavior problem, of course, and many children from two-parent families are; nonetheless, the data clearly show a correlation between illegitimacy and school behavior and performance.
A Department of Health and Human Services study found that for whites, blacks, and Hispanics at every income level except for the very highest, children raised in single-parent homes were more likely to be suspended from school, to have emotional problems, and to behave badly. Another study showed that white children of unmarried women were much more likely than those in two-parent families to become delinquents, again after controlling for income. Other studies have found illegitimacy to correlate with getting into trouble with the law, dropping out of school, having illegitimate children of one's own, and unemployment.
In a column earlier this year, George Will discussed a study by Paul Barton, then with the Educational Testing Service, titled "America's Smallest School: The Family." It found the presence of two parents in the home to be an important factor in school performance. Thus, North Dakota is the top state in math scores and the next-to-top in percentage of children in two-parent families; the District of Columbia is next-to-last in math scores and dead last in family composition. Will concludes by pointing out that, between birth and their nineteenth birthday, an American child will spend nine percent of his or her time in school, and 91 percent elsewhere. For many more blacks than whites, he says, "elsewhere" is not an intact family.
Another likely reason for problems in black performance and behavior in school is something that John McWhorter — an African-American professor of linguistics at Berkeley and author of American Experiment Quarterly — points out: that black students are "told by their black peers that to do well in school is to act white. Doing well is selling out. It is white students who do well; a proper black person really shouldn't do well in school." They make no secret of this, says McWhorter, who has seen it and experienced it firsthand, and it is true at every income level.
Indeed, McWhorter and USA Today last week both focused on the affluent Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, where "studies found that blacks made up only 10% of the top performing students and 90% of the lowest performing students." USA Today points out that researchers "blame a variety of factors, including peer pressure, low parental expectations, too much television and the impact of rap culture on black students, including middle class students."
This is not, of course, a message the civil-rights establishment wants to hear. The Time article highlights the role played in challenging school discipline by "civil rights activists," "civil rights attorneys," and the NAACP. What's scary is the success these groups are having. Time notes that some schools are "bend[ing] their discipline codes" after public pressure by organizations like the NAACP, so that "principals [are told] to stop handing out suspensions for picayune infractions like 'gum chewing' and reserve the punishment for violent offenses." Earlier, the article refers to "nebulous infractions like excessive noise and disrespect," and later describes how the activists and attorneys would like a program "allowing students to be tried by a peer jury [I guess this means other students] for violations such as arguing with a teacher or using profanity."
But this let-the-little-things-slide approach is dangerous. Compare the famous "Broken Windows" article by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, which concluded that "serious street crime flourishes in areas in which disorderly behavior goes unchecked." When the message is sent that little rules are not taken seriously, it's not long before the big rules are broken, too. Conversely, if students know that they are on a tight ship, then they are more likely to stay in line.
The student protagonist in the Time article is given the last word: "You learn which teachers treat different ethnicities differently. And you learn that when you're around them to stay quiet and keep to yourself." Well, we can agree to disagree about whether in fact the teachers are treating different ethnicities differently, but staying quiet and keeping to oneself isn't a bad code of conduct for students to follow in every classroom, is it?
The NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund like to pretend that, if there are racial disparities in academic performance or behavior, it must be the result of antiblack racism, but this is nonsense. Thus, the NAACP has called on every state to submit a plan to ensure that blacks are not over-represented in discipline or remedial programs, and not underrepresented in gifted-and-talented programs or graduation. No one would dispute that bias still occurs, but it is not systematic or systemic, and it is clear that the road to closing these gaps is through the black community itself.
Indeed, the stance of the civil-rights establishment is contrary to the interests and self-respect of African Americans. When discipline breaks down in inner-city schools, it is not suburban whites who will suffer. And what do we make of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's opposition to a change announced this week in Florida, that schools there will no longer require a lower IQ score for blacks to be admitted to gifted-and-talented programs than whites? A double standard like that is about as insulting as it gets.
— Roger Clegg is general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity.
As a black woman law school classmate of mine put it over 20 years ago: I wouldn't be here without affirmative action, but I want my daughter to get in here on the numbers!
I have to say that there is some "racial profiling" in schools in a couple of major ways:
1) Certain attitudes and actions are considered "acceptable" among many Blacks, including a little more outward vocal and physical expressiveness, which is sometimes misinterpreted as being too loud or even violent by Whites.
2. There are sometimes double standards and there are numerous instances where a Black student was disciplined more harshly than a White student for the same offense or in a Black-White conflict.
These things have happened, but it would be no more fair to paint all stories like this with the brush of "racial profiling" than it is to use the brush of theories like McWhorter's. To me both have some truth to them but neither fully explains the problem.
I laughed right out loud when I saw this.
One of the black kids I interviewed for an undergraduate slot at Cornell last year told me he wanted to study architecture.
He couldn't identify a favorite building. He couldn't name an architectural style. He couldn't name a favorite architect.
His cluelessness was astonishing. He wouldn't have lasted one week on a serious college campus.
And the NEA clonetroopers who inhabit the classrooms of America aren't doing a damned thing to help change this! If there is a problem, then you would think that the teachers would go out of their way to try to help these kids either move forward toward a goal of attending college, or identify what problems exist so that they can be eradicated. Unfortunately, most of the clonetroopers are only interested in their next paycheck and whatever they can do outside of helping their students. They would rather the students fend for themselves.
And woe unto them when/if they end up with me as one of their parents. They thought life was "bad" before...[lol]
No, whites do not misinterpret the vocal and physical behavior and attitudes. Those attitudes and behavior are simply not acceptable to whites. That's just a fact, and no posturing or 'understanding' is going to change whites reaction. If blacks want to persist in those attitudes and behaviors in institutions governed by white standards, they cannot complain of punishment.
But my experience as a college interviewer leads me to think that once you get past that first thought, the student's real worth becomes apparant in the course of time, and the quota cases soon self-select out of truly competitive situations.
What is telling, from my experience, is that US-born blacks, or those here from very early childhood, lag way way behind recent immigrants from the DR in terms of mental agility, energy and preparation. It is chilling.
That's true, but sometimes Whites are a little too "uptight" about such behavior, which should only be put in check if it goes too far. Some people over-react when they don't have to.
If blacks want to persist in those attitudes and behaviors in institutions governed by white standards, they cannot complain of punishment.
I agree, but maybe the standards should be modified or else don't complain when Blacks set up their own institutions with their own standards.
I think the proper, correct, and accurate term should have been 'standards of civility.'
And then the sad thing is that even when they do graduate and start practicing a profession, they are continually handicapped by the stigma of affirmative action. For example, knowing what I do about affirmative action in graduate and professional schools, I doubt very much if I would ever hire a black doctor or a black lawyer. I don't like that state of affairs, but when your life or property is on the line, and you need the best doctor or the best lawyer, you can't risk that the person whom you've hired is not among the best and brightest.
This truly saddens me. I'm sure that all liberals (and maybe even some FReepers would cite my personal feelings as proof that I am a racist. I have these feelings because of my experiences with affirmative action, and wish that my experiences had been different. But as long as we have such discriminatory policies that prevent true competition and don't require people of color to meet the same standards as white folks, I and other good people like me will continue to view black professionals with a certain degree of caution and have reservations about hiring one for our personal needs. Like I said, it makes me sad.
And can you blame them? Most black students are admitted despite vastly inferior test scores and grades. It really does black students who got in on their own merit a horrible disservice; they will always labor under the perception that they are part of a "quota" and their professional advancement may in fact be hindered due to perceptions I talked about in my earlier post. It's very sad.
If you aren't careful your children will end up like Dr. Condaleeza Rice, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter Williams, Ward Connerly, et al. :-)
Not anymore. Now they major in African-American studies, and everybody passes.
But that would severely restrict government control over admissions and eliminate AA. Oh, now I get it. :-)
I would not object if someone who had a different view of standards chose to set up alternative instititions, but neither would I be willing to accept them as equal.
I have always believed that the way to avoid racism in myself was to apply to all people the standards I believe in, not to make excuses for members of any group or assume they cannot fully participate in any way in the life of the mind and the great conversation of western civilization. In reading your posts, I have always had the sense that you take a similar view.
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