BLACK FOCUSED SCHOOLS

author=demondestiny link=topic=776.msg10281#msg10281 date=1204947899
The School will be focusing around Black history and Culture. So, what do you guys think?

Every other school focuses on white history and culture, so why not?

Well, their trying to address a real issue (blacks dropping out), not appease a minority. <INSERT QUIP ABOUT SCHOOL AND ASIANS HERE>

I had no idea there was a substantial amount of blacks in Toronto, and can hardly believe there's more than 1% hispanics. I'm going to wikipedia to check this out. (edit: checked out and they make up 2.2%. wow.)

I guess I assumed Toronto was very similar to Vancouver's ethnic makeup.

Also, race and culture are getting used interchangeably it seems. It's not racist to make something for those who relate to one culture more than another, regardless if that person's relation to one of the cultures is race.

Ideally, the history taught in schools would be all encompassing and focus on what everyone can find interest in and bring people together, no?

Well for a more serious reply:

So yeah before you call me a racist you should probably read the entire post and not just the part where I say that black people have ruined their own lives and that it isn't society's fault. Also I make a lot of very bold generalizations that are by no means universally true and I am not politically correct at all (for example I will not use terms like African-American or African-Canadian because the last time a black friend heard me call him an African-American he was pretty pissed off about it).

I think the real problems with the race barriers in the western world come from a much more more fundamental problem than they do from the shortcomings of the educational system. You can offer scholarships and hiring preferences to minorities all you want, but if minorities are not applying for the scholarships or jobs, then the money isn't going to the right places. I could tell you all sorts of things about how easy life is for a black person living in America as long as they are willing to take advantage of the special treatment afforded to them; the problem is that they do not.

So really I think the problem is not with the system but with the individuals themselves and their values. On an individual-by-individual basis you will find that an overwhelming number of black people in America and I assume Canada are simply uninterested in making their lives better. It does not matter how hard the system tries because it is the individuals that are unwilling to put forth any effort or to take themselves and their lives seriously. The gangs and the drugs and the racism aren't the problem -- it's the individuals who make bad decisions that screw up their own lives.

But you sort of have to think about why the individuals are the way they are and try to address the problems that make those individuals. In my opinion it is other individuals; a black person who does not take himself or his life seriously passes those values on to his children, who think the same way. There are always neighborhoods and parts of town that "belong" to certain minorities, and these communities have fucked-up values that send children down the wrong path. A black child living in the ghetto sees that people of his color live life a certain way and sometimes accepts that maybe his life is doomed from the start. I think this is where ideas like "you'll never get out of the ghetto" come from.

The black-focused school movement in my opinion sounds dangerously like SEPARATE BUT EQUAL and the Jim Crow laws that inspired dangerously violent and angry people such as the Black Panthers and amazing, brave people such as Martin Luther King, Jr. By taking members of a minority under the pretext that they are fundamentally inferior and need the extra help and segregating them into their own separate public school system, the city is taking the ghetto culture and artificially superimposing it onto high schools. Rather than treating black kids like human beings the school system is taking black kids and treating them like highways that need to have their potholes filled and HERE IS SOME PUBLIC FUNDING TRY AND CORRECT THE PROBLEM.

There was a time in the United States where if you were not Jewish you probably would never be a successful person. In Hollywood you can still see traces of that today but it isn't like the 1920s when the Igor Stravinsky and anyone from France were the only people who could be successful in publishing music in the western hemisphere. We did not make opportunities equal for all white people by giving non-Jews special treatment (except for Hitler and well look at how that turned out) but by treating all white people as human beings and letting the system sort itself out.

I think the only result of this system will be that black kids in Toronto will feel even more margianalized and lower-class than they already do. Rather than seeing other kids who come from better backgrounds and maybe feeling inspired to work hard to make life as good for their own kids as it is for their more fortunate peers at school, they'll come from their homes in the black ghettos and go to school and see nothing but a bunch of other kids from the black ghettos. They'll learn all about George Washington Carver while kids in other schools are being told phony shit about the iventions of Eli Whitney (who actually stole his designs from his wife who could not secure a patent due to her gender) but it will be a waste of time because they'll see the same separate but equal bullshit at school that they see back at home in the ghetto. The result is that the black kids you are trying help will only have the reinforced notion that it is hopeless for them to want to get out of the ghetto because hell apparently that's how life is for everyone.

I could go on but seriously I think that this is the worst idea I've seen in terms of race relations since those water fountains where the black person would have to stoop lower than the white person and drink the water cycled through the white person's fountain backwash and all for no reason other to be really fucking spiteful. If you want to see black people succeed and stop dropping out of school you need to treat them like human beings and not like a government project. The most powerful influence in a young person's life is that young person's peers, and if you start to separate young people by skin color, you start to separate them by social class. Even though they live in a society that is officially equal to people of all colors and creeds, if you don't expose young people that are taught by their parents it is hopeless to have hopes and dreams to other young people who are taught that the world is their oyster, you're dooming them to accept the negative attitudes prevalent in their drug-addled ghettos and pass those ideas on the next generation on highschool dropouts.

I still believe something must be done, but "By taking members of a minority under the pretext that they are fundamentally inferior and need the extra help and segregating them into their own separate public school system, the city is taking the ghetto culture and artificially superimposing it onto high schools" is probably an accurate picture of what will happen.

Is withdrawing support the answer? Him, that seems to be your answer - take away the special help provided to them instead of adding new "help". Basically, it boils down to despair and hopelessness being a motivator to better your life. It's a negative motivator - "I don't want to be despairing" - vs. a positive motivator - "I want to have a better life." The help, such as the proposed exclusive schools, are supposed to help enable the disenfranchised to achieve a better life.

Remember, withdrawing/denying ANY support also inspired dangerously violent and angry people and amazing, brave people.

I have similar concerns to the natives in my city/province.

I don't know the answer to equality for all.

Wow, I went into reading him's and holbert's posts ready disagree and they both said some good stuff.

Him, why do you first boldly say it's black people's fault, and then go into a lengthy description on how it's the growth of black culture's fault encompassing a dislike of the mainstream?

I'd call what Holbert called white male Christian values middle class values. When people of the middle class wonder why others aren't viewing the world the way they do, they seem to get angry. Native Americans in Canada get free education, and lots don't take it and the middle class compares. It's not fathomable that some native Americans don't want to have the middle class definition of success and would want to be on their land with their family. Policies given to the poor and different cultures are not to help them, but to assimilate them to having middle class values.

If the whole system would change to create a history that everyone can be proud and ashamed of together and value systems could be questioned, then I think it would work a lot better. However, this probably wouldn't happen because people like to identify problems so long as they don't have to change the way they do anything. Changing is for others to do. Going to university isn't the only answer, and working to support your family as opposed to leaving home for university is ok, nor is the way you speak or words you choose to use make you stupid.

I'm not sure about Toronto, but in Vancouver the race issue isn't really as tense as it is in America. Traditionally, Canadians (or atleast British Columbians) are taught that America is a melting pot and Canada is a mosaic.

Also, as a resident of Japan, I bet the Japanese government could offer me many opportunities I'd definitely turn down that would make Japanese people scoff.

author=brandonabley link=topic=776.msg10418#msg10418 date=1205249667
It's a very astute point and it is pretty unfortunate that every culture with a given set of values assumes that there is something wrong with the values of another culture. It's entirely possible that the dropouts in Toronto are dropping out because their set of values does not include a High School education and that sending them to a separate school where the instructors speak in Ebonics and have thick inter-city accents isn't going to make them suddenly want to graduate. And if it does, the program will not be helping the poor but will rather be executing culture genocide.

I won't respond to the majority if your post, him, because it was simply a big excuse. It's like when racist white guys says "HEY I HAVE A BLACK FRIEND". Don't pretend growing up white but having some native american heritage that you do on the weekends allows you to understand their suffering. Sleeping in a tee-pee one night does not a native american make. It's like when Tyra Banks slept in the streets for an hour with a camera crew to make her understand homelessness.

But the part of your response that I quoted struck me profoundly as ignorant. Your idea of a school teaching african culture is a place where all the teachers speak in ebonics and "inner-city" accents?

Also, most Native Americans cultures specifically didn't include paying the rent. Most tribes belive their land to be owned jointly by the people. Paying the man is an idea we have forced upon them.