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.
I vigorously dispute the allegation that women receive affirmative action in education. As a white woman, I can't think of any time where my educational opportunities were expanded or changed because I had two x chromosomes. I suspect that people tend to forward this view as a "smoke screen" for continuing affirmative action..."Well, but women benefit, too..." As if it's okay to discriminate, as long as we are only discriminate against white males!
Oh, yes! They work exactly the way people "think they do" and worse! While you contend that race "is only one factor" when schools take that "one factor" and make it the most important factor by giving people who happen to have that one factor a huge advantage, then it's disingenuous to say that it's only one factor.
I'm not buying the "one factor" argument, and I don't think anyone else on this forum will, either.
"I vigorously dispute the allegation that women receive affirmative action in education. As a white woman, I can't think of any time where my educational opportunities were expanded or changed because I had two x chromosomes."Sorry, I used the wrong word when I said "benefit". That's the Pro-AA stance, not mine. I want to get rid of AA. I should've used "suffer", but that sounds too much like we're victims of something. The point is, it's true that there are AA quotas for women, too. I've read that more white women qualify under AA than anyone else. So, do you suspect that the women you interview for a job are probably less qualified than the men? Many people do.
That's actually the problem. A minority student who would have been a star at USSB gets into Berkeley and struggles -- either dropping out or taking a wimpy major.
Yes, that's a problem as well.
Actually, whites often see such behavior among whites -- they call it "white trash". It's not accepted in middle-class white society, but I suspect that black society has not effectively differentiated black middle-class culture from underclass culture.
I suppose what ends up happening is that blacks who join the middle-class, end up adopting the white middle-class culture.
I encouraged him to attend a lesser school, and then transfer when he was ready.
In white society, those who display similar socially deviant attitudes and behaviors are marginalized and remain stuck in a relatively small lumpenproletariat or underclass. One thinks of England's soccer hooligans.
Members of groups outside of the traditionally white, primarily Anglo-Saxon, middle and upper middle classes, regardless of race, who wish to be accepted and attain the benefits of middle and upper middle class status must expect to conform to the attitudes and behavior norms appropriate for those classes. And, as with accents, it's almost harder because there are those of ill will who look for a 'slip', a reversion to former attitudes or behaviors, as a way to reject the upwardly mobile minorities. That's sad, but you can only ultimately change hearts with goodwill and behavior, not with demands and 'in your fac' behavior.
This is absolutely correct. Put another way, there ain't no broke people in Shaker! Kids I knew from there always went out of their way to give an image that they were from where I was (East Cleveland, err, the lower region of hell). It was so funny to me looking at these kids perp like they were "hard."
This is one area where American black parents and students are totally without excuse for failure.
Here, I'd like to mention a little of my background. Few in my family, before this generation, were educated in any real way. My family was what one might classify as the so-called "working class". But the more I got educated, the more I met people whose college and post-graduate education was assumed and not some sort of miracle.
I suspect that most educated and middle-class blacks have many close relatives who are very uneducated and it's hard to divorce their kids from some very bad elements.
lumpenproletariat
Is that a real word? I love it! Probably German.
Members of groups outside of the traditionally white, primarily Anglo-Saxon,
I'd disagree with that last one. The Italian, Irish, German (see screen name) and Jewish middle-class is (publicly) indistinguishable from the Anglo-Saxon one.
That's sad, but you can only ultimately change hearts with goodwill and behavior, not with demands and 'in your face' behavior.
"You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," excellent point.
Oh, but it doesn't mean that I will refrain from trying!
Actuall, when I spoke of minority groups conforming to the values of the primarily Anglo-Saxon middle and upper middle classes, I had in mind the early 20th century experience of the Irish, Germans and Italians as well as the more recent experiences of Jews, Asians and now blacks and hispanics.
Yes, lumpenproletariat is a German word, a lovely one originating in Marxist/socialist writings in the late 19th century and used to distinguish the real dregs of society from the 'authentic' working class proletariat. Likewise lumpenintellectual.
Your comment on the different educational expectations of the various classes is apt and well-taken. When I was in high school, I was astonished that there were kids (other than the obvious thugs and their molls) who were not planning to go to college, let alone graduate school! In my own family, though we were hardly wealthy, college and professional education was taken for granted in one or more branches on both sides for hundreds of years. I had a good friend in grad school who was finishing his PhD, he was not only the first one in his family to go to college, but the first to finish high schoool. What a different perspective! How he valued his education!
Of course, I thought the bourgeoisie were supposed to be the eggs. I guess that's the idea of a Communist revolution. If you believe it's inevitable, then you'd better be on the leading edge of it!
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