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Don't give them any ideas... |
Posted on 10/29/2002 12:01:00 PM PST by marshmallow
Students upset with the handling of racially sensitive material in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" demanded Monday night that the Portland School Board launch sensitivity training for teachers in Oregon's largest school district.
Armed with more than 260 signatures from Portland high school students, Charles McGee and Johnnie Williams Jr. criticized the board for dismissing the issue earlier this month when board member Derry Jackson asked that the book be removed from reading lists.
Mark Twain's 19th-century novel about the adventures of a white boy and a runaway slave uses the word "nigger" more than 200 times. Williams, a Lincoln High junior who is African American, objected to the slur and refused to read the book in class. He said it made him uncomfortable as a student in a predominately white school, and Jackson took that concern to the school board.
The students do not want to ban the book. Rather, they say, teachers would be better equipped to teach it if they had ongoing sensitivity training.
Williams' objections to "Huckleberry Finn" prompted McGee, who is also African American, to poll students about their experiences discussing racial issues in classrooms. McGee sent petitions to Benson, Franklin, Grant, Jefferson and Lincoln high schools asking the school board to review how certain materials create racial tensions in classrooms.
"You all clearly stated that you felt that this issue was about one student," said McGee, a junior at Franklin High in Southeast Portland. "Now I hope you have realized it's about every student in this district."
Monday night, Williams choked up while telling the board why he felt uncomfortable discussing material in "Huckleberry Finn" in class. Williams read an alternate book on baseball legend Jackie Robinson in the library while his classmates studied "Huckleberry Finn."
"You have to be African American to understand what we've been through," he told the school board.
McGee asked the board to revive the African American Baseline Essays, a series of training guides developed by Portland educators during desegregation efforts in the 1980s. The essays cover the contributions of African Americans in science, language arts and other disciplines, said Carolyn Leonard, compliance officer for Portland Public Schools. The essays have been challenged for their authenticity, but have been used by teachers around the world. In Portland, they have sat mostly dormant for years, she said.
Chairwoman Karla Wenzel asked Superintendent Jim Scherzinger and board member Debbie Goldberg Menashe to examine how teachers are trained. Menashe said a student achievement policy the board adopted last spring addresses the need for recruiting teachers from diverse backgrounds and sets guidelines for making sure that teachers understand students from various backgrounds.
Lolenzo Poe, the board's vice chairman, pledged to not have the students' concerns get lost in school district bureaucracy.
"I think it's OK to have us feel uncomfortable," Poe said. "I will push us not to let this die."
Williams' refusal to read Twain's 1885 novel in class has sparked debate about its standing in American fiction and whether it should be taught at all.
Ann Nice, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, said the union supports training that would help teachers relate better to students from all backgrounds. But she doesn't think reviving the 1980s essays will eliminate the problem.
Koty Zelinka, an English teacher at Portland Lutheran High School in outer Southeast Portland, did research on "Huckleberry Finn" as a student at Concordia University. Based on the racial slurs and a body of critics who say the ending is contrived, she has decided not to assign the book to her students.
Colleagues have questioned her decision.
"I have gotten into arguments with other English teachers who say: 'This is a classic. How can you not teach "Huckleberry Finn'? " Zelinka said.
Zelinka teaches in a 100-student, predominately white school but was a student-teacher at the racially mixed Benson High in Portland. She said the Portland students' concerns about the gulf between many teachers and students are on target.
"It gets back to the colleges. My professors were challenging us to think about those issues," she said. "I think it's absolutely crucial that it happens at some point. If we're asking our students to think critically, we should be also."
It is truly sad that American kids are being fed a politically correct line villifying Mark Twain.
The following is from the book titled "The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain," and found under the subject "Race."
Samuel clemens, although not a college graduate himself, paid for the college education of two gifted black men, one of whom graduated from Yale Law School and became a judge, the other graduated from a Southern seminary and became a minister. Clements did not do this as a publicity stunt; in fact, he made no mention of it anywhere in his writings. It was not until 1985 that a Yale scholar unearthed documentary proof of Clemen's tuition payments and a letter to the deam of Yale explaining his motives. It was a partial payment of the reparation "due from every white man to every black man" for having perpetrated the crime of slavery.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
I used to think the people who said this meant that you had to be African American to relate to the "black experience" to be able to understand -- which of course is stupid. (The word "empathy" was invented for a reason.) These days I can only surmise that what they (being the people who say this) mean is that these "African Americans" are saying things to each other that they don't say to other races -- in other words, it's a "secret thing" -- and only the black folks who say "you have to be African American" are the ones in on the secret.
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Don't give them any ideas... |
I strongly suggest Williams (seen that name around recently) pack it up and move to Zimbabwe or Uganda or Somolia where the cultural and political environment is absolutely perfect. And no Huck Finn.
Boy, that's a good point. I wouldn't have thought of it, but it rings true. Shrill voices.
PS- I see by your handle that you've put considerable thought into the matter.
I haven't studied the book or anything; I don't know what a college expert would say it means, but I own a copy, I read it about once a year, and it gets me in my heart every single time. I refuse to watch a movie version of it because I don't want the pictures in my mind tainted by any Hollywood version. I cherish the book, and when I get done reading it, I am inspired to try harder to be a better person, you know, even when no one is looking.
Dare I? Oh, what the hell. Of course the stupid thing to say would be, "You'd have to be white to understand."
Many people from Niger/Congo wound up on slave ships and as sailors working for foreigners who pronounced the word as it looks, hence it was not meant as what politically correct dumbed downs and other idiots think of as a “hate” word, it was simply a mispronounced word denoting where a person was from and who he/she was.
Young Williams and his peers will probably never know the beauty of America’s Aesop’s Fables by Joel Chandler Harris, loved by children of all ages and races. Or the hauntingly beautiful poems of Howard Weeden about plantation life and his wonderful black and white watercolors of the people he wrote about, knew and loved. Shakespeare and the Moors; today’s students learn little of the great literature but a lot about Black hate from authors who never knew anything but inner city ghettos and impoverished countries run by dictators that still enslave people. The well educated person of any color, never seems to have a problem with vernacular or patois of cultures, it is only the deliberately dumbed down American public school student and those teachers who ascribe to Political Correctness that are the loosers.
The Portland School Board will continue a disservice to their teachers and the children entrusted to them to teach if they bow to this childish and silly accusation of Charles McGee and Johnnie Williams, a form of racism in its self.
Stories like the one above make me wonder exactly how he would like the history of slavery treated? Candy coating the situation would surely piss him off, but when it is acurately depicted he gets pissed off about that. Maybe he should rewrite Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer using the PC language and see how it flies.
I can tell.
This is Free Republic, not some chatroom on AOL. Learn how to capitalize letters at the start of a sentence, use apostrophes, and spell words properly before you post. Can't you see the "preview" button?
Pssst, hey whiners, news bulletin:
MINORITIES WERE NOT CALLED "PEOPLE OF COLOR," "AFRICAN-AMERICANS," OR WHATEVER UNTIL JUST RECENTLY. THE WORLD DID NOT BEGIN THE SPLIT-SECOND YOU WERE BORN. ALSO, THERE WERE PLENTY OF DEROGATORY NAMES FOR WHITE PEOPLE IN THE PAST. IRISH, SCOTTISH, ITALIAN, GERMAN, FRENCH, GERMAN, ETC. PEOPLE WERE NOT IMMUNE. I SUGGEST THAT YOU TAKE ALL OF THAT TIME AND ENERGY THAT YOU PUT INTO GRIPING AND STIRRING UP TROUBLE, AND PUT IT INTO BETTERING YOURSELF AND LEARNING SOMETHING.
Anything in there about not being able to figure out boats?
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