Parents: White Teacher Should Not Teach Black History

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/2360897/detail.html ^

[Lunatic Fringe]

OBERLIN, Ohio, Updated 1:33 p.m. EDT July 28, 2003 -- A group of parents said they will fight a possible decision to allow a white teacher to lead classes in black history at Oberlin High School.

 SURVEY

Should white instructors be allowed to teach black history?

Yes. As long as they're truthful and fair, I'm all for it.

No. I think it sends the wrong message.

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NewsChannel5 reported that a scheduling conflict could cause the district to reassign the black teacher who has taught the course for seven years.

Using a white teacher at Oberlin High School would send the wrong message to black students, said A.G. Miller, an associate professor of American and African religious history at Oberlin College.

"The message is that we are not concerned about the importance of your historical background ... that that is less important than a schedule conflict," said Miller, whose three children graduated from Oberlin High School.

Jaqui Willis, a black Oberlin parent, said the teacher is a role model and that removing him from the class would be detrimental to students.

The parents have protested the move to the school board, but the district's superintendent, Beverly Reep, has not commented on the case. Reep told parents at a school board meeting that scheduling issues would be addressed this week.

Schools and community leaders in the Cleveland area are split over the issue of whether blacks should be the only ones to teach black history.

In Cleveland, white and black teachers teach black history. A black teacher teaches black history at Shaker Heights High School, but a white teacher handles classes on oppression and human relations, both which deal extensively with race relations and slavery.

Little research has been done to determine whether same-race teachers lead to higher achievement by minority students. Ronald Ehrenberg, director of Cornell University's Higher Education Research Institute, said many researchers steer clear of the topic out of fear of being attacked.

Michael Williams, interim director of Cleveland State University's black studies program, said schools should choose a black teacher if that person is most qualified, not just because the teacher happens to be black.

If two teachers are equally qualified, Williams gives the edge to the black teacher.

"That person still has the advantage of the culture," said Williams, who is black. "They understand the nuances of the culture."

Phyllis Yarber Hogan, a member of the Oberlin Black Alliance for Progress, said a white teacher wouldn't be well-suited to teaching students about subjects like slavery.

"When you talk about slavery, students need to understand it is not our fault," she said. "Our ancestors did nothing wrong to be enslaved.

"How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?"

[Lunatic Fringe]

Please delete

[Iconoclast2]

Gee, maybe we should charge the parents with hate crimes on account of their virulent racism. ;)

[Ed_in_NJ]

They ought to do away with racist studies altogether.

[Conservababe]

The problem would be easily solved if they deleted Black History from the studies entirely, and just studied history.

[pbear8]

but a white teacher handles classes on oppression and human relations

Does this course teach how to become oppressed or how to oppress someone else?

[4mycountry]

And they say whites are racist.

[Buck W.]

""How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?""

The complementary question, logically, is, "How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who sold the slaves to the highest bidder?"

[Hugin]

"How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?"

Se being white makes him the "same type of person" as a slaveholder? Sounds pretty racist to me. What he means is "How is a white person gonna teach these kids to hate whitey?"

[stylin19a]

There better not be any blacks teaching the Spanish language. Can't have a double standard, you know.

Oh wait.....double standards ARE allowed, but only when it benefits a minority or a democrat.

[Conservababe]

Yes, indeedy, they are calling whites racists.

All the while, thirteen percent of our population (blacks) are making us apologize while they are the real racists. Oh, not all of them, to be sure.

But, we have colleges that cater to blacks only dorms, clubs and eating facilities.

We have Black history month.

We have the Black Entertainment Network.

I could go on...but it seems that blacks want "separate but equal" once again.

Sad!

[squidly]

Well I guess they can have their own school like the queers in NYC, if that's what they want. It sure looks like that's what they want.

[squidly]

"When you talk about slavery, students need to understand it is not our fault," she said. "Our ancestors did nothing wrong to be enslaved. "How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?"

You should have put the mega barf alert on this one.

[BIGZ]

Teaching history or teaching a particular, self-serving, version of what you want the black students to think slavery was.

Slavery was an original Muslim institution. Slaves moved from Africa east not from Africa west to the New World. The Portuguese, Dutch, British and French moved the slaves, that were Traded as commodities by their own people, to the New World. The United States had a small roll in the actual movement of slaves compared with the countries above. The Slave trade was winding down when the United States gained its independence, and the abolition movement had started.

Aprox. 12 million slaves came to the New World, 5% or aprox 500,000 ended up in the US. The majority of the slaves were located in South America and the Carib islands.

This history is not taught in the American schools. History as taught in the American Schools is that the United States is responsible for slavery, a complete and utter falsehood. This is one reason for the racial problems in our country, the truth shall set you free.

[henderson field]

Wait a minuute. This is a high school? Time is short in high school. Even to teach basic things like English, math, American history, social studies, the sciences, etc. So the question should not be "who should be teaching this class?" but "should this class be offered?" In what way does black history prepare students to go out in the world and make a living?

[Conservababe]

Touche'

[ntnychik]

"researchers steer clear of the topic out of fear of being attacked."

Another case of unintended consequences. In many places black studies/issues are avoided out of fear of unleashing retribution from the black community.

[Natural Law]

The outraged parents would be hard pressed to find any human on earth who is not decended from slaves or otherwise similarly oppressed people. They would better serve their children if they concentrated on the accuracy and quality of the instruction rather than the color of the teacher.

[Arpege92]

Is this black history course allowed to have white students?