Destroying black youth

TownHall.com ^ | Wednesday, July 2, 2003 | Walter Williams

[JohnHuang2]

In last week's U.S. Supreme Court's affirmative action decision, Justice Clarence Thomas' dissent included a quotation from an 1865 speech by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. "What I ask for the Negro," Douglass said, "is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. ... All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... Your interference is doing him positive injury."

Forget how the majority used the phrase "compelling state interest" to trump the 14th Amendment's requirement of equal treatment under the law and give continued sanction to racial discrimination. Let's examine some practical matters ignored in the pro-affirmative action celebration of the court's decision.

According to recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports, the average black high school senior had math skills on par with those of the typical nitnth-grade white student. The average 17-year-old black student could read only as well as the average 12-year-old white. Twelfth-grade black students were doing science problems at the level of sixth-grade white students and writing about as well as whites in the eighth grade.

As of 1998, only 18 percent of black students were rated proficient or advanced in reading, as compared to 47 percent for white students, which itself is nothing to write home about. In Michigan, the source of the controversy leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, just 2 percent of black eighth-graders score proficient in reading, compared to 34 percent of whites -- again, nothing to write home about. In addition to grossly fraudulent education, there's unthinkable school violence at many of the schools that black students attend.

According to a Department of Education report, "School Crime Patterns" (August 2002), "High schools with the highest levels of violence tended to be located in urban areas and have a high percentage of minority students (black and Hispanic), compared to high schools that reported no crime to the police."

The bottom line is given the day-to-day destruction of education for black students at the primary and secondary levels of schooling, most will never be able to compete academically. The fact that the affirmative action crowd demands discriminatory admission practices for post-graduate education such as in law and medical schools confirms something else. Black performance on admittance exams, such as the LSAT, MCAT and GRE, is stark testament that four years of undergraduate education cannot erase the damage of 12 years of fraudulent primary and secondary education.

In the name of diversity, college administrators and their campus sycophants support racially discriminatory admissions practices. They argue that racial diversity enriches the education experiences of all college students, for which there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever. However, since most college students and administrators are white, it might simply mean that racial diversity gives them a greater sense of superiority having a few campus mascots around, who can't hold their own, beholden to them.

Then there's the false-face of diversity, as Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in his dissent. Academics support campus "tribalism and racial segregation" with "minority-only student organizations, separate minority housing opportunities, separate minority student centers, even separate minority-only graduation ceremonies."

Black politicians and civil rights organizations' loyalty to the education establishment means academic doom to black youngsters. Washington, D.C,. politics and its schools, among the worse in the nation, are a case in point. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, along with most members of the Congressional Black Caucus, use private schools to educate their children. But, when D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams broke ranks with most black elected-officials and endorsed recently proposed education vouchers, Norton blasted him as being "a sell-out."

Whom do you think Frederick Douglass would deem the sell-out: those who seek an alternative to rotten schools that cost taxpayers $13,000 a year per student or those who support the status quo?

©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

[JohnHuang2]

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

Quote of the Day by Liz

[lainde]

bttt

[Mo1]

The black community needs new leadership that actually wants them to succeed

The likes of Jesse Jackson need to be replaced

[Jonathon Spectre]

When literally everything in your culture tells you that hard work and learning are "white" (Is this really an insult?) and therefore bad, what do you expect?

[optimistically_conservative]

The black community needs new leadership that actually wants them to succeed

Best known as the bullhorn-toting, baseball-bat-wielding principal of the rough Eastside High School in Patterson, N.J., from 1983 to 1990, Clark was the subject of the hit movie Lean On Me, starring Morgan Freeman. A former Army drill instructor with a bachelor's degree from William Paterson College and a master's in administration supervision and doctorate equivalence from Seton Hall University, Clark sees education as a mission. After only two years of his hard-nosed leadership at Eastside High, the formerly raucous institution was declared a model school by New Jersey's governor, and Clark himself was named one of the nation's 10 "Principals of Leadership" in 1986.

[slasher82]

Simple, It all starts at home period..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................oops.

[Bullish]

The likes of Jesse Jackson need to be replaced

The likes of Jesse Jackson need to be jailed.

[Atlas Sneezed]

I'm really not sure that the mantra of "blame public elementary schools" is where it's at (though they are to blame for much.)

The real problem does not begin in Kindergarten, but in the black culture that shuns academic achievement. (I grant that the predominantly black teachers at predominantly black schools may be passing on more of that disfunctional culture, but that would not be a concern if the parents were actively promoting academic achievement of their children.)

[Bob]

...but that would not be a concern if the parents were actively promoting academic achievement of their children.)

Parents are a bit limited when it comes to a kid's ability to overcome peer pressure. While parents do have some influence, the attitudes of a kid's friends will always be a huge factor to contend with.

[Atlas Sneezed]

"Parents are a bit limited when it comes to a kid's ability to overcome peer pressure. While parents do have some influence, the attitudes of a kid's friends will always be a huge factor to contend with."

That peer pressure comes from the disfunctional culture. If those kids' parents were pro-learning, there wouldn't be a problem.

[Bob]

That peer pressure comes from the disfunctional culture.

I agree 100%.

If those kids' parents were pro-learning, there wouldn't be a problem.

And if my grandma had two wheels, she'd be a bicycle. :=)

Seriously though, since many of the other kids' parents aren't pro-learning, their kids' attitudes will continue to be a very big problem (regardless of how pro-learning any particular kid's parents are).

[Mo1]

Parents are a bit limited when it comes to a kid's ability to overcome peer pressure. While parents do have some influence, the attitudes of a kid's friends will always be a huge factor to contend with.

You have a point .. when I had my kids in pre-school (I know it's not like regular school) .. every September thru Nove/Dec I would always have discipline problems with them when they came home from school every day.

When it came time to have them start elemenary school, I choose to put them in catholic school. They are still influenced by their peers, but I don't have a problem with discipline like I use to.

So, yes I agree parents play a big role with kids ... but so do the teachers

[fieldmarshaldj]

*Bump* A good read for y'all...

[Bob]

When it came time to have them start elemenary school, I choose to put them in catholic school. They are still influenced by their peers, but I don't have a problem with discipline like I use to.

So, yes I agree parents play a big role with kids ... but so do the teachers

Their teachers' influence is undoubtedly significant.

Consider, though, that your kids' peers probably have parents who are raising them a lot like you're raising yours. :=)

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

Walter Williams:"Whom do you think Frederick Douglass would deem the sell-out: those who seek an alternative to rotten schools that cost taxpayers $13,000 a year per student or those who support the status quo?"
---------------------------------
Charley Reese: "If you white liberal racists crave gratitude, buy yourself a dog and feed it properly."
And: "Judges who apply the law as it is to the facts as they are is what we need. If we had those kinds of judges, it wouldn't matter if they were liberal or conservative."
=================================

Guys, Charley Reese has a related article at King Features Syndicate Inc. today. Finally, writers are putting the blame where it truly belongs. Those in POWER making policy. And, considering the education of these, there is NO WAY that the destruction IS NOT deliberate. What passes for education today is pure unadulterated EVIL!!! Peace and love, George.

[foreverfree]

bump

[republicman]

I know its unusual but I think putting it all on the schools is a kind of conservative PC scapegoat. When blacks and whites are put in the same schools and even in the same classes blacks do more poorly.

Perhaps the schools play a role, and certainlycsonservatives should be skeptical of liberal indoctrination and the schools.

But the fact remains When blacks and whites are put in the same schools and even in the same classes blacks do more poorly.

Unfortunately I believe the truth to tend more towards an alternate explanation- black culture just doesn't place as a strong a value on education as other cultures, whites, and even more so Jewish and certain Asian cultures. And without pressure to excel, from parents, peers whatever, the drive to do so disappears. And sometimes pressure goes in reverse - i.e. that it is deviant to succeed (or as it often is said - succeding is "acting white" or "selling out" et al)

[Kelly4023]

To Charley Reese and all you think he is right:
First: we live in America, a blatantly white racist society, where non whites have suffered and continue to suffer injustices by whites and the laws that govern. If you pay attention to this nation's history, you'll see that there have been exceptional people of all races in all endeavors. You seem to forget the climate that still exists for particularly Black, and many non-white people in regard to any endeavor of achievement, even White women: that the white boy gets the first and best of everything, regardless of your superior or determined efforts. The best educational efforts are made where the money is spent and typically non-white eduactional districts don't get the educational attention ($) white districts get, regardless of the parents efforts. Black parents have been your scapegoat long enough.
Second: You can't police someone's mind. The laws that exist now are basically the same as they were some 20 years ago. If an employer (or a dean) didn't want any peolpe of color in his firm(or school), none entered, or entered and worked in a diminished capacity. I agree, affirmative action aleviated some of the white man's guilt. Without a legal mandate (and sports) whites would not have willingly opened the educational doors to blacks, because in many circles the practice was unaccepable, aside from the continued undercurrent of white supremacy, something you are still purporting here.
And: I live in Westchester County, New York. Within 5 miles, one high school is conducted like a small college campus with many activites, well run and attended functions, beautiful school grounds and is fed by solid pre-school and primary ed programs, the other high school is staffed with security guards (that do little or nothing) has regular fights, has teachers afraid of the kids, and has poorly staffed, poorly run programs, fed by kids who come from programs with no computers, not enough books or desks, poorly trained teachers. Which area needs the most financial help? which school system will graduate kids ready to compete in college? WHICH SYSTEM WILL DO NOTHING BUT FEED THE STATE PENAL SYSTEM? WHICH AREAS KIDS FEEL LIKE THEY'VE BEEN GIVEN UP ON FROM VERY EARLY ON? That is why "some" kids do better than others: some are actually nurtured by the combination of school, family and society, or factions thereof.
This "America" still has a lot of problems. One is the sharing of information. You people still forget the effect living in this white socety has on Black people. Even though I wear a Suit and tie to work evry day, I still have white women, clutch their purses closer to themselves when I pass, and still have white men and women look out of their car windows and blatantly lock the doors. What are they trying to tell me? You and the "handkerchief head" negroes beleive the "playing field is level"?

[Steve0113]

The best educational efforts are made where the money is spent and typically non-white eduactional districts don't get the educational attention ($) white districts get, regardless of the parents efforts.

Explain why Washington, DC, has the highest per-student spending in the country, and the worst student performance. The explanation is something other than money.