Will it ever go away? The little voice inside my head that makes note of a person's race. The one that notices how I do treat all folks the same, and yet notices how I take extra care to do so?
I was raised in a racist household. My father and his side of the family have names and jokes and stereotypes for each group, but most especially black people. Thank God for my mother, who abhorred the racism, though really never tried to do anything about it. I was completely immersed, from an early age. I remember being under 10 years old and using the word 'n****r' constantly. I didn't question it – I didn't know that I was supposed to. This continued until I was in my mid teens, when I had a life changing experience – I started claiming my faith for my own. I came to understand that in the Kingdom of God, it doesn't matter who you are in the physical. I couldn't fit racism into my understanding of Christianity. I was heartbroken for all of those years that I had despised people who were different. I repented, in the true meaning of the word. I rejected that path I had walked for so long, and started in a new direction. I've been walking this path for about 10 years now, and it's so refreshing.
The problem is, those ingrained ideas just don't go away. They flooded me from such an early age that I don't know if it's possible for me to be completely colorblind. I can't control those unconscious thoughts and assumptions, just my actions. I don't have to work so hard anymore to act in a colorblind manner – the years and maturity have made it easier.
So why do I feel like such a racist? Is it this guilt I carry around for the half of my life I lived in darkness? Is it for the little annoying voice that points out people's race? Will I ever be free of the past, or do I just treat people the same externally while ignoring the faded tattoo of racism in my mind?
I seek the renewing of my mind that the Bible promises. I've caught myself wishing that it was instant, but it's never that easy.
[ March 20, 2006, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: Swampjedi ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Dont' feel too bad. At least you think consiously about it, unlike other people who just go along with it and never question it. Questioning that voice is a good thing, it says you are on the right path. My grandmother disliked Jamaicans, Haitans, Catholics, quite a few people. Took me a while to realize I didn't have to pick up her attitudes and could think for myself.
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
Even if it never goes away for you, you can restrain your actions so that you don't pass racism on to your children. I think the world will slowly move away from racism because wise parents will slowly move away from their parents' hate, such that it will slowly stop occurring to their children and children's children that there's any reason for the hate to exist.
At least, that's my optimistic, starry-eyed prediction for the future of race relations. I'm sure some parents will continue to pass racism on to their children from generation to generation, so hate will probably continue to exist. But if the larger society teaches and enforces that it's not okay to harbor such feelings, maybe most of us will feel guilty enough to do as you are trying to do.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
That is my hope, Brinestone. My shot at redemption, as it were.
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
The things you learn as a child are really hard to erase.
For example, my boyfriend is black.
But if I walking by myself down a street and there's two black men walking the same sidewalk from the other direction, I get really anxious. And when I feel that way, I know that the indicator is skin color and nothing else.
My family isn't particularly racist (my mom is alittle but she had bad experiences when she was younger, but she knows its wrong and never tried to instill racist feelings in my brother and me.) I blame alot of watching too much news.
Its something you just have to first accept, and then deal with one day at a time. That you recognize those feelings at all is a sign that you'll be alright.
And on a random note, I've given up on the word "color-blind." You can't ignore the color of a person's skin and we shouldn't try to because that implies that color itself is wrong. I see rather to see skin color like a see hair color or eye color...as a feature which causes no presumptions or negative stereotyping.
Posted by Evie3217 (Member # 5426) on :
...Although blondes do get a bad rap.
I think the fact that you recognize these feelings is the first step towards being able to put them behind you. I agree with Shanna. I think you can't become color-blind, you just learn not to judge a person by their color.
I hate to admit it, but I sometimes get nervous when I'm walking and I pass a black man. It's not fair, but it happens. I recognize it, and try to push past that initial reaction. Sometimes it's just hard to get over the stereotypes.
But, even so, I admire you for admitting it and attempting to work through it.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
See, I don't have those reactions...I am nervous if passing ANY group, particularily at night, regardles of race.
Of course, both times I got robbed/mugged, it was by groups of white kids. Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
I'm glad to know that this feeling isn't uncommon.
Kwea, I too get nervous passing any groups at night.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Just out of curiosity, how are these men dressed? Are they in business suits, or fairly clean cut, or are they dressed like gangsters commonly dress?
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
I'd say anyone not in business or business casual. I'm just jumpy at night. People dressed like "gangstas" or "rappers" or "punks" or "rednecks" or "skinheads" make me more nervous though.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Swampjedi: Will it ever go away? The little voice inside my head that makes note of a person's race. The one that notices how I do treat all folks the same, and yet notices how I take extra care to do so?
You may never be able to do so yourself. But what you can do is refuse to act on it, to the best of your ability. Be color-blind by policy.
If everyone does this, it'll take a generation for the differences to fade. Of course, not everyone is going to do it, so it's going to take a lot longer than that, but don't beat yourself up about it. I always notice when someone is a redhead. I notice albinos. I notice very tall people and very short people. I notice people who have smoother skin than me or rougher skin than me, or darker or lighter skin than me (though there aren't many of the latter, unless you go back to albinos). I notice people who have noses that are shaped very differently from mine. Pug noses. Big, flattened noses. Hooked noses.
And human beings conceptualize in categories. You can't help it. That's how our brains work. You see that piece of wood with four legs, and you think "table". You notice that it has a telephone and a pad of paper on it, and you change what you think to "desk". It's automatic. You can't help doing it with people as well.
The only solution, I think, is just getting used to the idea that of all the differences that could possibly be significant, skin color is one of the most bizarre. Culture, religion, language... all of these make more sense than skin color, which should be lumped with hair color and eye color and height in terms of their significance.
Don't beat yourself up. Just do your best. It sounds like you already are.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
So perhaps it's not just black people you have a problem with, but people you perceive to be a threat. Since people in business and business casual attire don't make you jumpy, regardless of race, perhaps you are classifying them based on perceived threat level rather than race. This is a perfectly normal psychological reaction (and survival trait).
Sometimes it's easy to become hypersensitive to racial issues. To echo Lisa, stop beating yourself up about it. As long as you are making a conscious effort to stop any prejudices you might have before it turns into discrimination and racism, my hat is off to you. When you teach your children and they don't even have ingrained prejudices, it will be far easier for them than it is for you.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
I wouldn't say that I beat myself up, just that I feel guilt.
I honestly am more nervous around a bunch of "rednecks" than I am "gangstas." Oh, and male only. Groups of women make me nervous for a completely different reason!
I can't imagine life without the shortcuts that categorization provide. Does the fact that we naturally (unconsciously?) categorize people make the idea of a totally 'prejudiceless' society impossible? I think this is the idea I wanted to bring out and discuss.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
MrSquicky could answer this question better than I, but from what I recall from my college psychology classes we form these categories instinctually. It's a survival trait. In a dangerous situation, a snap judgement is needed to save your life. We also can't constantly be re-evaluating everything. We form these categories naturally.
The phenomenon has a lot of treatment in the subject of cognitive psychology. You could try looking there for more info.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
SJ, I think the idea is to behave justly, and not to worry so much about gut reactions. People are always going to make categorizations, but have you ever felt uncomfortable around people with blue eyes? You might notice them as having blue eyes, but it doesn't carry a value judgement with it.
I agree with BQT that this sounds like more of a reaction to cultural/"class" differences than purely a racial one. But then, most cases of "racial awareness" are really mislabeled in the same way. Racism based purely on things like skin color is far, far less common nowadays than most people think, because most cases of it aren't really a matter of skin color at all.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
Do we really want it to go away?
We can make it go away if one's race no longer means anything, but that means giving away all our racial identities.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Tersopax-
Are you talking about race or culture? It seems like you're intertwining the two. Must they be inseperable?
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Not passing it on to children is a very good thing.
Because of shows like "Dora the Explorer," the Spanish language holds almost a magical, mystical quality for my children. Whenever we encounter someone who is Hispanic in our errands, my children utter with hushed reverence, "They speak Spanish!" I am more than happy to let them feel that way. Posted by I Am The War Chief (Member # 9266) on :
You should all go and look on the other side of this forum under the blog topic Humans A Failure you will see everything i have to say about race and how it doesnt actually exist enjoy!
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Even if it never goes away for you, you can restrain your actions so that you don't pass racism on to your children.
Brinestone is wise. I try very hard to do the exact thing she's talking about here. I was raised by a stepfather who was a bigot, plain and simple. My mother wasn't, so at least I didn't get influenced by two parents but it was bad enough.
Racial epithets are not spoken in our home, and my husband and I (he was raised by a very traditional, old-south father who also looked down on people of different races) have to work hard not to pass along what we learned as kids. Our policy is just not to focus on race much at all, to act as if there is no difference, and address the issues and talk about them honestly when they do come up. OUr religious beliefs also teach that there is only one race - the human race - and that we are all related, so we try to instill those values in our kids as well. Love your neighbor as yourself, regardless of the race of that neighbor.
I hope we're successful. I too, sometimes feel shame when I have a reaction to something that I know is coming from my upbringing.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Are you talking about race or culture? It seems like you're intertwining the two. Must they be inseperable?
I don't believe they need to be inseperable - but I do know more that more than a few black individuals consider being black to be an important part of their identity, and would not want to give that up. I assume the same is true for other minorities. Nevertheless, there is a paradox in wanting to not be judged by one's race while simultaneously wanting one's race to be an important characteristic of oneself. I think we can probably only ever accomplish one or the other.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Thank you Belle. Your perspective seems a lot like mine.
So far this thread has encouraged me and confirmed my idea that to act as if that annoying voice isn't there is the best way to go, and that not passing that voice on to my children is possible and desirable.
Tresopax has a good point. Lots of people hear "let's all get along" and think "everyone needs to act white" and it puts their hackles up.
I like having different cultural groups. It makes things more interesting. Food especially. Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Do we really want it to go away?
We can make it go away if one's race no longer means anything, but that means giving away all our racial identities.
I don't have a racial identity. Do you?
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:Will it ever go away? The little voice inside my head that makes note of a person's race. The one that notices how I do treat all folks the same, and yet notices how I take extra care to do so?
I'm not sure that we should want, or need, to not notice someone's race. We're different, and that's not a bad thing. There's nothing racist about noticing that someone is black, or white, or asian. No more than it's sexist to notice someone is a woman. I notice people's hairstyle and color, and I notice their skin color (even if they're white I notice if they're especially fair-skinned or not). It's only racist if you treat them differently because of their skin color.
And tolerance isn't achieved just by restraining yourself from using racial slurs (not that anyone has intimated that), because I know several people who never disparage any other races but whose behavior is colored by prejudice. Their actions, and not their words give them away. It's not enough to pay lip service to equality, if you don't walk the line.
I notice skin color, and I don't see that I should stop. I treat everyone with respect, and I try not to assume motives for their behavior based on my own prejudices.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Well, I suppose I should have been more precise.
quote: Will it ever go away? The little voice inside my head that derisively makes note of a person's race. The one that notices how I do treat all folks the same, and yet notices how I take extra care to do so, and laughs because it's thinking of people differently?
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax:
quote:Are you talking about race or culture? It seems like you're intertwining the two. Must they be inseperable?
I don't believe they need to be inseperable - but I do know more that more than a few black individuals consider being black to be an important part of their identity, and would not want to give that up. I assume the same is true for other minorities. Nevertheless, there is a paradox in wanting to not be judged by one's race while simultaneously wanting one's race to be an important characteristic of oneself. I think we can probably only ever accomplish one or the other.
Therein lies the rub. I feel free to dislike certain things about cultures. There are elements that I dislike about United States cultures, Latin American cultures, Muslim cultures, Asian cultures, etc. (I'm being very broad here on purpose, I realize that people that are members of these cultures are members of smaller and smaller sub-cultures.)
However, intentionally trying to associate race with culture makes it difficult. It begins to blur the lines between skin color and who I am. You mentioned African-Americans. They have done this. As a result, it is difficult (even for their own leaders) to point out cultural problems and work to solve them-it is seen as a racial attack. This type of practice is counterproductive (or a paradox as you put it).
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I'm thinking about how I respond to race.
My first instinct was to say that I didn't notice it at all. But then I realized that most of the time, I too edge away from groups of black men on the street.
Then I thought about it some more, especially considering culture.
I don't edge away from all black men. I edge away from black men and their friends who are leering at me and who have grills because they seem to be the ones who are most vocal in their, um, "observations" about my body, and they generally do it in a way that makes me uncomfortable.
But I'd like to think that this reaction is more of a response to their dress and demeanor than their actual skin color. I also tend to avoid leering frat boys, for example. So maybe it's more of a subculture thing. I think the problem is that certain subcultures seem to be very dominated by one race, and that makes it hard for people to distinguish between the two.
-pH
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Palliard wrote this on the Vendetta thread:
quote:first you're led to believe that V has his vendetta against the people that tortured him at the concentration camp. Then you slowly realize that his vendetta wasn't so much against them as it was against the government that allowed there to BE concentration camps.
My view towards white America is similar, as much as we can trace our cultural, political, and intellectual heritage through the revolution, how the hell did it take 170 years for black people in this country to be seen as equal.
Individuals don't bother me. I don't mind the cops or the parents or even the employers. Racists old people don't bother me, even racist young people are out of fashion and are so far removed from directly influencing me that I'm not worried about individuals.
Here is my problem. There is something deeply wrong in our American constitution-- not the document, the zeitgeist-- that allowed for those years of indignity. Who knows, it could be the same thing that can explain the atrocities in our current penal system and whatever is happening in Guantanamo bay. But whatever it is, it'll take a deep look into the character of white America, for that trait to be excised. It may mean rethinking democracy, education, christianity, economics, and politics.
Until a significant group of white people start on the project of figuring out what went wrong, and what part of that political incompetence still lives in our culture, I'm going to keep bristling against white America and white American institutions. It's not an issue of reparations. Money can't solve this problem. It's an issue of American character, and taking a close look at those qualities that buttress our institutions.
_______________
I think this is why black people don't play the cultural assimilation game very well, whereas Asian and Indian and even African immigrants are more eager to adopt the mores of white America.
[ March 20, 2006, 11:31 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
*stare*
My flippant reaction to that was, "Reverse racism is fun."
But that's not really what I mean. I shall ponder.
-pH
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:Until a significant group of white people start on the project of figuring out what went wrong, and what part of that political incompetence stills lives in our culture, I'm going to keep bristling against white America and white American institutions. It's not an issue of reparations. Money can't solve this problem. It's an issue of American character, and and taking a close look at those qualities that buttress our institutions.
I was listening to NPR today about a battle fought against sexual discrimination. I thought how men have been so incredibly *UNAWARE* of the inequality. Why?
Because they are the benefactors of the circumstances. They are the ones in power.
You could take your above paragraph and apply it to sexual inequality. Why did it take so long? Why is it *still* taking so long? What is inherently wrong?
I will tell you. When one group is in power and things are going their way, it is like moving a mountain to try and get them to *understand* what it is like to be the ostracized second-class citizen. It's like caste systems, feudal systems. Slavery was the same. The ones in power, whether majority or no, just don't get it.
Let them eat cake and all that.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
The parallels are obvious. I'm surprised more American woman aren't more wary of men.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Irami, it seems like your requirements for white America are rather nebulous. How will you be able to tell when they have met your standard? Can they ever?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
It's a nebulous affair. It isn't as if 70 percent of the populus needs to pass a Scantron test on character before I'll believe that theirs is worthwhile. Again, the white problem in America is an issue of character, not race or sex, racism and sexism were just symptoms of a deeper moral malformation.
I can tell you that Bill Bradley has addressed it, and the people who were casual about torturing Greenpeace demonstrators on this thread haven't.
There was an article in the New York Times yesterday concerning this, and how black men, completely unsurprising to me, are moving farther away from the mainstream society.
The rhetoric in the article talks around the central question, which is, why won't black men just go along and play the game like everyone else? Riches and status are available for the black man who assumes white sensibilities, why won't they just do it. It works for other immigrants. The answer, I believe, is something out of Faust.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
I can't say that I blame these black men for moving away from mainstream. Why sell your soul for riches and status? It's a very poor trade. The mainstream is so shallow that I prefer to do my swimming somewhere else.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:I was listening to NPR today about a battle fought against sexual discrimination. I thought how men have been so incredibly *UNAWARE* of the inequality. Why?
At the same time, I've observed that there are many women and members of minorities who are hyperaware of the problem - to the point where they see it as worse than it actually is, and perceive discrimination where it is not. This is problematic, because even the perception of being disliked and discriminated against can be very harmful. (Consider the young girl who thinks she is overweight and who believes people find her ugly - even if this is not true, the perception that it is true harms her.) I'm uncertain of where the balance lies, but I think current attempts to raise awareness tend not to reach the unaware people while tending to make others overaware - because most of the preaching ends up going to the choir.
I think people mistakenly treat racial and gender discrimination in a fundamentally different way from discrimination against overweight individuals or discrimination against short people or discrimination against people considered less attractive. Racial and gender discrimination are treated as political problems that our society is supposed to one day eliminate, rather than inevitable unfairness rooted in human nature. I think the latter is also more realistic.
Slavery, segregation, political inequality, institutional inequality - these things can be eliminated by changing the way society functions. But the human tendency to judge based on certain characteristics is not going to be eliminated through any political means. You could prevent race from being an issue by teaching people not to notice differences in skin color as much, except for the fact that people do care about their racial identities - and even then that would only mean people are discriminating on the basis of something else instead.
The real solution to discrimination is to teach people to be good judges of character - and to look at people as individuals. The little voice that makes them notice race will not go away, but they can be taught to naturally look beyond what that voice says. That solves the issue not only for racial and gender discrimination, but also for discrimination in general against any group. But this is something that must be done for each new child individually, and it must continually be done for each generation. It's not something we can solve and then be done with, once and for all. It is a permanent dilemma for human beings - the development of a healthy character, including the ability to judge fairly.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: It's a nebulous affair. It isn't as if 70 percent of the populus needs to pass a Scantron test on character before I'll believe that theirs is worthwhile. Again, the white problem in America is an issue of character,
How is that not calling it a race issue? I mean, you're SAYING "character" but at the same time calling it a "white problem."
-pH
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Irami-
Like Dog, I find myself searching for exactly what it is you want. What changes do you think need to be made? What exactly do white people do that's the problem, what would you like them to change? What do you want to see black people achieve (since you've mentioned that attaining what white society defines as success is not good)?
I've read a number of your posts on different threads and you make the same assertions that you did above. Leaving aside the question of how accurate and true they are, I want to know what your solution is.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Good point, pH.
Irami, it does seem that you're saying that the problem with whites is that they lack character. That seems to me to be of the same ilk as saying the problem with blacks is that they're shifty, lazy, and oversexed/too agressive.
Tresopax, I agree with what you're saying. Just because I don't find dark skin attractive doesn't make me a racist. [NB: I don't find tanned light skin attractive either. ]
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
When people of whatever race, stop being discriminatory to multi-racial people then our society will have arrived. It's not how people react when others are classified as varelse that is the measure, it's how they react to quasi-raman, and can accept them as fully raman.
When I don't have to fear for my boyfriend depending on which part of the city he's in, as to which gang would look at him crosseyed today, because of his ambiguous racial characteristics. People always default to the most varelse conclusion too, the most opposite from what "they" are. To the blacks he's latino, to the latinos he's black, to most whites they think he's Arabic.
And even when he actually is in the culture where his facial characteristics fit (afro-cuban), they make assumptions about him that aren't true either. He becomes varelse when they discover he can't speak a lick of Espanol, and his white girlfriend translates for him.
AJ
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: My view towards white America is similar, as much as we can trace our cultural, political, and intellectual heritage through the revolution, how the hell did it take 170 years for black people in this country to be seen as equal.
That's like asking how the hell (to use your phrasing) it took Africa centuries to get anywhere near Europe in the sciences.
There were events. There were economic issues. Bigotry is certainly not a uniquely American problem, and it's certainly not a uniquely white one. At the time that white Americans were trafficking in black slaves, so were black Africans.
You might ask how it is that a nation founded on principles of liberty managed not to see that they weren't living up to those principles in the case of slaves, but it's a bad question. You can't look through a retrospectoscope like that.
America was founded on lofty principles, yes. But people are people, and until a specific status quo is challenged, we often don't even notice that it needs to be challenged. Many of the founders didn't even notice that there was a contradiction involved in treating blacks as less than whites. But note that even those who did had a hard time implementing that knowledge in practice. Take Thomas Jefferson, for example. And note further that even those who got this didn't, for the most part, extend the same reasoning to women. How many black men who were troubled by their lack of equal status with white men cared the least bit about the unequal status of women, regardless of color? And it continues on even today. How many blacks or women are concerned about the denial of equal status to gays and lesbians?
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Here is my problem. There is something deeply wrong in our American constitution-- not the document, the zeitgeist-- that allowed for those years of indignity.
That's kind of silly. You say that like it's a particularly American thing. It's not.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Who knows, it could be the same thing that can explain the atrocities in our current penal system and whatever is happening in Guantanamo bay. But whatever it is, it'll take a deep look into the character of white America, for that trait to be excised. It may mean rethinking democracy, education, christianity, economics, and politics.
Pardon me? "White America"? How offensive. The flaws you're talking about are hardly limited to one set of people based on their skin color. And I find it unbelievable that someone who is so sensitive to bias based on something as dumb as skin color would actually espouse the prejudiced views you're espousing, based on skin color. You really need to look in a mirror.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Until a significant group of white people start on the project of figuring out what went wrong, and what part of that political incompetence still lives in our culture, I'm going to keep bristling against white America and white American institutions.
Then bristle. <shrug> No one owes you any such thing. My job is to make sure that I don't treat people poorly just because they look different. And to raise my child to do the same. Everyone else has the same job. Nothing "went wrong". Do you have any idea what the world used to be like? You're complaining because the progress didn't happen as fast as you would have liked?
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: It's not an issue of reparations.
Good thing. Because I can hardly think of anything more immoral and racist than the suggestion of forcing people to pay "reparations" to other people based on skin color.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
starLisa said pretty much what I was thinking, except perhaps a bit more feistily.
In other news, feistily is now a word.
The thing is, saying that the problem is "white America" is racist. Period. Because saying that the problem belongs solely to whites is the same as saying that all blacks are gangbangers who shoot up houses. And saying that you don't have a problem with individuals is the same as a racist who says that he hates N's, but he's friends with a couple who are the GOOD kind.
And do you really think that Asian or Indian immigrants have totally adopted whatever it is that you consider to be "white culture?"
I don't even understand what you MEAN by "white culture," and I don't see this:
quote:he rhetoric in the article talks around the central question, which is, why won't black men just go along and play the game like everyone else? Riches and status are available for the black man who assumes white sensibilities, why won't they just do it. It works for other immigrants.
As anything but offensive and ridiculous. It's the same as saying, "If you have status, it's because you've betrayed your heritage and sold out to the white man!"
It's offensive to MINORITIES, too. It implies that they lack the qualities to be successful on their own, so they have to adopt the tactics of other cultures.
-pH
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Oh this is just too bizzare not to post... from the google ad at the bottom of this thread:
quote: Alien cow abduction. Aliens are brittle and need milk, please help them.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
pH, I must say, that's pretty fiesty too, on top of being well put. Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Rawr, baby.
-pH
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Irami, it does seem that you're saying that the problem with whites is that they lack character.
I am saying something very similar. I'm saying that they have character, and there is one facet of their character that is corrupt like a cancer. If I were a religious man, I may even say that it's a wickedness. Well someone did:
quote:"And I find it extremely discomfiting that, really to a shocking degree, love of money has pervaded Mormon society. It's something that as a people we have great cause to repent of. I think it will lead to our condemnation in the eyes of God. When I talk that way, there are some people who are extremely troubled because they think I'm saying that they're wicked. And they're correct -- I am."
Starlisa,
quote: Many of the founders didn't even notice that there was a contradiction involved in treating blacks as less than whites. But note that even those who did had a hard time implementing that knowledge in practice. Take Thomas Jefferson, for example.
This is debatable. There is a book that't just came out called the Forgotten Fifth by a historian named Nash. He devotes the second chapter to detailing how the founders did understand the contradiction, and that they accepted it anyway, kind of like what we doing right now with the right to trial and Guantanamo Bay. It was a choice the founders made, just like the firebombing of Dresden was a choice the military made. How that choice is palpable is another story. I imagine that Germany had to go through-- or at least should have had to go through-- quite a bit of soul searching after the Holocaust.
The Sun-Times ran a long excerpt of Nash's book about two weeks ago, but I'm having a hard time finding it.
quote:And note further that even those who got this didn't, for the most part, extend the same reasoning to women. How many black men who were troubled by their lack of equal status with white men cared the least bit about the unequal status of women, regardless of color? And it continues on even today. How many blacks or women are concerned about the denial of equal status to gays and lesbians?
Quite a few, actually. I do admit that a narrow understanding of christianity hems up too large of a proportion of blacks with respect to this issue, but if we took out white men from the voting pool, my gut tells me that same sex marriages would do quite a bit better in the general elections.
Don't get me wrong, I have huge problems with respect to the character of black men across the nation. I just don't talk about it on this board because, well, there are only four or five black posters on the board so I didn't think it would be worthwhile.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:I am saying something very similar. I'm saying that they have character, and there is one facet of their character that is corrupt like a cancer. If I were a religious man, I may even say that it's a wickedness.
But that's not racism, right? Only the big bad white man is racist. How would you feel if someone said that exact same thing but referring to blacks?
-pH
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I'm saying that they have character, and there is one facet of their character that is corrupt like a cancer. If I were a religious man, I may even say that it's a wickedness.
*wipes brow* Whew. There's nothing worse than a religious bigot. So I guess you dodged that bullet.
quote:if we took out white men from the voting pool, my gut tells me that same sex marriages would do quite a bit better in the general elections.
You know, the same-sex marriage issue has actually been specifically marketed by Republicans to whip up the Hispanic vote. It's not a "white man" issue.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
quote:I am saying something very similar. I'm saying that thier have character, and there is one facet of their character that is corrupt like a cancer. If I were a religious man, I may even say that it's a wickedness.
I'm not going to respond to this. I'm just going to post it again, alone. Irami, can you see why this is a) offensive and b) not helping to solve the problem?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:But that's not racism, right? Only the big bad white man is racist. How would you feel if someone said that exact same thing but referring to blacks?
I think they'd be right, to some degree, except we have a different kind of tumor. I never said I was color blind.
Princess Leah, et al., sometimes getting to the truth includes having your feelings hurt every now and again.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
Do you not see that you can't advocate ending racism by pushing racist attitudes?
Maybe I'm crazy. I just wrote a paper on cultural issues in business (though this was between countries in different parts of the world from one another), and pretty much, one of the biggest things you can do to promote business exchange is to increase the flow of information. You can't encourage stereotypes of the other country and expect your people to embrace them. You have to get the other country to exchange knowledge about one another's cultures. All you're doing is saying, "This is a white man's problem." You won't even explain WHY. You're just creating more conflict.
-pH
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Irami, you're really going to have to get past this bizarre hangup you've got. It'll hold you back.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
Irami: I'm flattered that you quoted me, but I have to ask if you're using the term "white" in a cultural, or a "you look like a white guy" context. And here's why:
My grandparents (on the one side) were Okies. If you haven't read "The Grapes of Wrath"... or seen the movie, with Henry Fonda, which is quite good... "Okies", in their time, were basically "white niggers", in a cultural sense. My dad, as a child, picked peaches and apricots and lived in a one-room house without running water.
Is the fact that he had blond hair and blue eyes important in your analysis of him, or not?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:I'm flattered that you quoted me, but I have to ask if you're using the term "white" in a cultural, or a "you look like a white guy" context.
Cultural context. Because of America's racial legacy, I think that cultural distinctions often fall along racial lines. It's a historical accident, but that's how it falls, unless you are Gatsby(the character) or Steinbeck(the author), then you see the same cancer that I see in our society. ________
quote:All you're doing is saying, "This is a white man's problem." You won't even explain WHY.
I'll try to be clearer. It's not enough that America has repudiated its history of racial injustice. What is necessary before we are all become one big happy family, is a thorough understanding on how such an attitude became acceptable to begin with, especially given our rhetoric of individual inviobility and the increasing respect for individual rights across Europe at the time of the drafting of the US Constitution. Such questions include, "What does it say about democracy, that a democratic state could invite this atrocity." "What does it say about education, that some people hailed as the brightest minds of their generation decided so poorly, and there was debate upon the issue, so it's not as if they didn't know." Lastly, "what does it say about the importance economics in politics, that it was tolerable to subjugate an entire people for economic and political expediency?"
These are questions that need to be considered, and the appropriate changes in the political realm made and the educational curriculum adopted before black people are going to come the mainstream. In other words, the mainstream is going to right itself.
There is an awful movie called Dark in the video stores. The dialogue and plot are superb. The direction, acting, editing, and the monologues are horrendous. It could have been an incredible short film, instead, it's a full-length travesty. It's about a young black man dealing with all of the issues I'm talking about while going to school at the University of Chicago. Again, the dialogue and plot are both first rate, and everything else about the movie is awful. I give a very qualified recommendation for the movie to anyone who is serious about the problem of young black men in America.
Back to the Nash book, in The Forgotten Fifth, he calls into question the winner's argument of historical necessity. You know, all of those historians who say that the founders had to allow slavery in the new Republic, when it was clear that morally and politically, it would have been possible for them to abolish slavery then and there. (Again, just as it is possible to take seriously the claim that we should bring the Guantanamo gang up on charges, but I imagine that in fifty years, people it'll be taken for granted that Bush had to detain them without trial. It makes me wonder if Japanese internment isn't just another example of this pernicious meme.)
[ March 21, 2006, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I don't, especially since I still don't see how you're defining "white culture."
I suspect that you have no definition and restrict yourself mostly to skin color.
By the way, you know, white people are all of different backgrounds, too. Some are French, some are Russian, some are Irish...
-pH
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: The rhetoric in the article talks around the central question, which is, why won't black men just go along and play the game like everyone else? Riches and status are available for the black man who assumes white sensibilities, why won't they just do it. It works for other immigrants. The answer, I believe, is something out of Faust.
That is, if you believe class and intelligence are inherently white qualities.
My father's a Mexican immigrant, with a fairly heavy accent. But because he dresses well and speaks politely, (most) people respect and like him. When Mexicans from my old neighborhood wore wifebeaters and jeans ten sizes too large and shaved their heads, people didn't like them or hire them. As you (sort of) said, it's not about race anymore, it's about character. And if you're the one tying the black race to an identity of pimps and drugs and bling, I humbly submit it's you who needs to consider introspection.
No matter how guilty white liberals may feel, at some point we need to acknowledge the obvious -- there's a serious problem on the darker side of the fence, and no matter how we try to excuse it, it's still there. Why are blacks and Latinos consistently underperforming in school? Why are we idolizing the most worthless representatives of our races -- even Eminem was (uh, once) a smart rapper, not a brainless self-declared pimp. What the hell is wrong with us, and why are we so often outraged that white employers won't hire losers who can't even wear decent clothes like my father does?
Bill Cosby really stunned me when he spoke out against what black culture's degenerating into. I know this is the fodder of every Republican pundit out there, and it disgusts me to be arguing the same point Bill O'Reilly is, but Cosby is right. We need to take care of our kids before we buy new shoes, and break the goddamn gang culture, and teach our kids what class is and why people respect it. Complaining that prejudice is simply a consequence of white "moral malformation" is bull, and we both know it. Call these problems symptomatic of poverty, they are. Call it a spiral of unemployment and poor education, it is. And yeah, there's a lot that can and needs to be done for poor neighborhoods to get back on their feet -- starting with cops to break up the gangs, and continuing with teachers to give kids a different future. And god knows the justice system needs a serious examination before we can ever pretend minorities have fair treatment. But god, we need some degree of introspection, or we'll never advance anywhere.
This can just as easily apply to poor white culture. I just volunteered in Louisiana for Spring Break, and good lord, I've never seen the Confederate flag used so often as a fashion statement. There's a lot of trashy people, both white and black, in their own ignorant culture, proudly celebrating their own ignorance -- and neither side will get anywhere blaming the other.
Especially when both of these are simply sub-cultures -- very few of any of us are the waste of our cultures. Blacks and Latinos admittedly suffer the stereotypes of our trash far more than white people do, but blaming white people for not seeing through the fog of bling isn't where we should start.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
quote:I think that cultural distinctions often fall along racial lines
Ah, here we get, I think, to the meat of your argument.
Let me say this, in regard to my own ancestors. My great_x_3 grandparents on my mother's side were Cherokee and Chickasaw, respectively, who had fled from the reservation after refusing to accept their Dawes Rolls numbers. They adapted themselves to live in the White Man's World, in which they weren't always welcome, but their expertise was.
A practical result of this is that I am barred from registering myself as a member of the Five Civilized Tribes, and getting in on that hot Indian Casino action.
Culturally... if they weren't white people, they were aspiring to be white people, in any sense that mattered.
If they'd just have shut up and eaten their mealy wheat, today their descendants too could be Oklahoma City trailer trash.
So how does that fall out on your racial-vs-cultural lines of distinction?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Lalo, it's worth pointing out that some people in the South don't look at the Confederate flag in the same way that people from other parts of the country do, especially since a LOT of people in the South don't think that the Civil War was really about slavery.
ALSO, I would like to remind you that you were in SLI-FREAKING-DELL. Which is not New Orleans.
My neighborhood. Slidell. My neighborhood. Slidell. Slidell was hit WAY harder than New Orleans, hurricane-wise. It's really sad.
-pH
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
No, I don't pretend the Confederate flag is a rallying point for racism -- as I understand it, it's a symbol for what some to believe is Southern pride. A specific sect of Southern pride which, I believe, while fundamentally racist and homophobic, is more of a trashy identity than a cause. The flag doesn't need to represent the Civil War (which I'm fairly divided on -- if the South weren't affiliated with slavery, I may even side with it) to represent a classless culture.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
As long as you understand that Southern pride in general is not...whatever it is you're describing.
I have pretty much lost patience with negative generalizations about the South after going to Chicago and having nearly everyone I met ask me if we lynch blacks and gays. Oh, and Jews. Apparently, we also lynch Jews. And something about tubleweeds; I don't remember.
-pH
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Culturally... if they weren't white people, they were aspiring to be white people, in any sense that mattered.
That's the important sentence. About the resilliency of black men, no amount of poverty, drug abuse, degradation, the threat of prison, will make black Americans want to be like white people. It's really astounding. It's shocking. Immigrants, on the other hand, even African immigrants, are so embracing of white culture that they are out-performing the whites.
Lalo, what do you know about the cultural differences between immigrants from South America and Mexicans who were conquered, regarding American institutions?
[ March 21, 2006, 11:28 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Irami, I'm going to ask you this again.
What the hell do you mean about "being like white people?"
-pH
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lalo: No, I don't pretend the Confederate flag is a rallying point for racism -- as I understand it, it's a symbol for what some to believe is Southern pride. A specific sect of Southern pride which, I believe, while fundamentally racist and homophobic, is more of a trashy identity than a cause. The flag doesn't need to represent the Civil War (which I'm fairly divided on -- if the South weren't affiliated with slavery, I may even side with it) to represent a classless culture.
Exactly. I live in Georgia, and I see this flag as the banner of proud, willful ignorance and lack of civilization.
I think I might be shot, but I'll say it anyways. I see the gangsta/pimp movement as almost exactly the same thing, but on the other 'side.' We're stupid, and proud of it - and if you cross us, you might get hurt.
I'm an equal opportunity loather here. I can't stand either group - their ways of speech, their music, their uniforms, etc. But in the end, it's the proud, defiant ignorance that makes me the maddest.
</diversion>
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
quote:Oh, and Jews. Apparently, we also lynch Jews. And something about tubleweeds; I don't remember.
Wait, I'm confused. Why would you lynch tumbleweed?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Ph,
Generally comfortable with democracy and majority rule. Generally think that education is a means to get a job. Generally think that only bad people are in prison, and that the conditions therein aren't something that good people need to pay too much attention to. Generally "tough on crime." Generally believes that education should consist of practical skills above all. Generally includes a healthy belief in the moral rectitude of the Market and competition. Generally believes that one should always vote in ones own best interests. Generally believes that if it's legal to do x, it's morally defensible to do x. Generally believes that hard science is more serious work than humanities. Generally believes that fiction should entertain.
Weber wrote a great book called, "The Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic," that better job at this than my statements.
quote:Irami, you're really going to have to get past this bizarre hangup you've got. It'll hold you back.
I don't know if it is about getting past anything. I could hold it in. But I think that its bad for my health, now when people ask me what I really think, I tell them.
[ March 21, 2006, 11:56 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong:
quote:Culturally... if they weren't white people, they were aspiring to be white people, in any sense that mattered.
That's the important sentence. About the resilliency of black men, no amount of poverty, drug abuse, degradation, the threat of prison, will make black Americans want to be like white people. It's really astounding. It's shocking. Immigrants, on the other hand, even African immigrants, are so embracing of white culture that they are out-performing the whites.
Lalo, what do you know about the cultural differences between immigrants from South America and Mexicans who were conquered, regarding American institutions?
But this is the point. You seem to be defining black identity as "poverty, drug abuse, degradation, [and] prison." How are Africans who come to the US and do well in business embracing white culture, rather than simply succeeding in a capitalistic venture as their own identities? Do they need to wear bones through their noses to not be white?
I come from a Mexican, not South American neighborhood. As I understand it, South Americans are far more removed from American culture than Central Americans are. There's a great deal of distaste for the US from both camps, but South America seems more occupied by our government's yesteryear subversive interference with their countries and our modern economic policies than Central America is, which itself is more concerned with our immigration policies. I don't pretend to know the political climate of the Americas, only my own childhood and adolescence in a Mexican-American neighborhood -- and there's a lot we can do to improve ourselves. It's not about being white, it's about having class. And it's a true shame if you think class and ethnicity are mutually exclusive.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Generally comfortable with democracy and majority rule. Generally think that education is a means to get a job. Generally think that only bad people are in prison, and that the conditions therein aren't something that good people need to pay too much attention to. Generally "tough on crime." Generally believes that education should consist of practical skills above all. Generally includes a healthy belief in the moral rectitude of the Market and competition. Generally believes that one should always vote in ones own best interests. Generally believes that if it's legal to do x, it's morally defensible to do x. Generally believes that hard science is more serious work than humanities. Generally believes that fiction should entertain.
Again, this is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. My personal, Jesuit-educated BBA student feelings about competition and the market aside...where the hell are you getting this from? Because it's what YOU think "American culture" is like? Newsflash: There is no one American culture, and American culture, whatever you think it is, is not an entirely white creature.
-pH
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Irami, I don't remember this. In what part of the country are you?
-pH
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Take comfort, Swamper. I was surrounded by racism as a kid, and I always noticed race. But after years of working with blacks and whites and treating them no differently . . . and making a point to refer to "that guy" rather than "that black guy" . . . now, very often, I just don't notice. Not always, but often.
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
Its nice to have vindication that I am truly as evil as I had always hoped to be. And look, all this work I did was for nought.
All it took was burning easily in the sun and having a penis.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by HollowEarth: Its nice to have vindication that I truly am as evil as had always hoped to be. And look, all this work I did was for nought.
All it took was burning easily in the sun and having a penis.
Totally! I, unfortunately, am slightly less evil, as I lack a penis. But I am in favor of the free market, so maybe that makes up for it.
Let's start an evil empire. We shall be co-chancellors and rule with an iron fist and crush all who stand in our way.
-pH
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
I dunno pH, tempting as it is, I'm just not sure how having someone who lacks that defining evil attribute as co-chancellor would impact my evil status.
How about I be chancellor A, and you be chancellor B? No fair changing it to chancellor 1 or the mongooses after the fact, though.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Only if the B is for Bootylicious. And the A is for...Adequate.
Also, I bet I burn more easily in the sun than you do. I think that adds to my evil points.
-pH
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
Ouch.
How about A for Anti-Apotropaic?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Well, that's AA, really.
-Chancellor Bootylicious
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I have pretty much lost patience with negative generalizations about the South after going to Chicago and having nearly everyone I met ask me if we lynch blacks and gays.
I've said this before, Pearce, but it bears repeating: somehow, you met all the stupid people who live in Chicago.
quote: Generally comfortable with democracy and majority rule. Generally think that education is a means to get a job. Generally think that only bad people are in prison, and that the conditions therein aren't something that good people need to pay too much attention to. Generally "tough on crime." Generally believes that education should consist of practical skills above all. Generally includes a healthy belief in the moral rectitude of the Market and competition. Generally believes that one should always vote in ones own best interests. Generally believes that if it's legal to do x, it's morally defensible to do x. Generally believes that hard science is more serious work than humanities. Generally believes that fiction should entertain.
I'd be interested in hearing you describe "being like a black person" in a similar vein, Irami. I think it's very revealing of your biases.
Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :
Based on Irami's definition, I conclude that I am not white.
I always knew it.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
Irami: I don't mean to seem obtuse, but I guess I'm not grasping your point.
quote: About the resilliency of black men, no amount of poverty, drug abuse, degradation, the threat of prison, will make black Americans want to be like white people.
Aren't you just advocating a culture of victimization? Inner-city poverty, drugs, and prison are largely a self-inflicted problem.
You can't escape a crappy way of life by desperately clinging to it.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Generally comfortable with democracy and majority rule. Generally think that education is a means to get a job. Generally think that only bad people are in prison, and that the conditions therein aren't something that good people need to pay too much attention to. Generally "tough on crime." Generally believes that education should consist of practical skills above all. Generally includes a healthy belief in the moral rectitude of the Market and competition. Generally believes that one should always vote in ones own best interests. Generally believes that if it's legal to do x, it's morally defensible to do x. Generally believes that hard science is more serious work than humanities. Generally believes that fiction should entertain.
This is what you call a stereotype - and not an accurate one. Most "white people" don't believe most of these things.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by pH: starLisa said pretty much what I was thinking, except perhaps a bit more feistily.
"Feist" is my middle name.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:My personal, Jesuit-educated BBA student feelings about competition and the market aside...where the hell are you getting this from?
A bit of Weber and a bit of De Tocqueville. If you think I'm joking, go ahead and read, "The Spirit of Capitalism", and "Democracy in America." I find Weber's and De Tocqueville's insights penetrating and adequate. Both works were written quite a while ago, but as Americans haven't made a deep effort to examine or change who they are as a people, I think that De Tocqueville is as relevant today he was in the 19th century.
quote:Aren't you just advocating a culture of victimization? Inner-city poverty, drugs, and prison are largely a self-inflicted problem.
You can't escape a crappy way of life by desperately clinging to it.
I'm more struck by a phenomenon, rather than advocating for rightness of the current crime. Despite all of the reasons for doing so, we are a people who won't take the blue pill and become functioning productive Americans. And I think I'm telling you why. (I'm wondering about how many people who are taking anti-depressants to get through the day are similarly disposed.)
Money won't change the problem. Better schools won't change the problem. And in my view, church won't change the problem. Maybe church would, but it would take a legitimate faith, and I don't think that that's an appropriate expectation.
You can talk about education being the answer, but I can tell you right now, the nation doesn't want that. I'm moderately well-educated, and I'm a nightmare. Judging from the hostile receptions of Kayne West and Chris Rock, when they stopped playing music and being funny and decided to say what they really think, there would be something damn near a civil war if the next generation of black men turned out like I did.
Lissande,
quote:Based on Irami's definition, I conclude that I am not white.
It wouldn't have mattered what I wrote.
[ March 22, 2006, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
quote:Money won't change the problem. Better schools won't change the problem. And in my view, church won't change the problem.
What do all these things have in common?
They're not YOU.
Why does who YOU are depend on a morally bankrupt church, an equally morally bankrupt public education system, and somebody else's money?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Despite all of the reasons for doing so, we are a people who won't take the blue pill and become functioning productive Americans. And I think I'm telling you why.
Hm. Is it because you think "white Americans" fit the stereotype you gave here, and -- if it follows that being a functioning, productive American requires "acting white" -- you're leery of embracing that stereotype?
Hell, man, last I heard you were piggybacking on existing coffeehouses to sell wireless Internet, which is the modern equivalent of a vending machine franchise. You're in service to the service industry, Irami.
quote:I'm moderately well-educated, and I'm a nightmare.
That's because you're moderately well-educated, but limit yourself to your uninformed opinions when discussing race. In this situation, you're not actually bringing your moderate level of education to bear; you're just hurling your gut at it, and anyone can do that, even monsters.
-------
Consider the ridiculous "Confederate States of America" movie that's out now, a dippy polemic that completely misses the point of the Civil War in favor of broad criticisms of the most obvious and egregious forms of bigotry. Had the South actually won the Civil War, would the United States still practice slavery? Would Jim Crow still rear its head? It's very unlikely; these things were products of the industrial age, NOT some inherent worldview. The big "worldview" question in the Civil War was the role of the federal government, NOT whether slavery was some necessary way of life.
And that's the thing, Irami. You spend all your time railing against "worldview" and declaring that you'll never make peace with the Evil White Man until the following happens:
quote:What is necessary before we are all become one big happy family, is a thorough understanding on how such an attitude became acceptable to begin with, especially given our rhetoric of individual inviobility and the increasing respect for individual rights across Europe at the time of the drafting of the US Constitution. Such questions include, "What does it say about democracy, that a democratic state could invite this atrocity." "What does it say about education, that some people hailed as the brightest minds of their generation decided so poorly, and there was debate upon the issue, so it's not as if they didn't know." Lastly, "what does it say about the importance economics in politics, that it was tolerable to subjugate an entire people for economic and political expediency?"
Dude. You MISSED it. This ALREADY HAPPENED. People have had these conversations and moved on; they just didn't necessarily come to the same conclusions you wish they'd drawn.
So get over it.
Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :
Irami - ? I was just making a goofy comment, and hope it didn't come across wrong. But I don't understand what you mean - I wouldn't be white no matter what you wrote? I would be white no matter what you wrote? Something else?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I think he means that you'd conclude you didn't fit the stereotype no matter what it was.
Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :
Oh, ok. Carry on.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:What do all these things have in common?
They're not YOU.
Why does who YOU are depend on a morally bankrupt church, an equally morally bankrupt public education system, and somebody else's money?
I don't think that the church is morally bankrupt, just inadequate. I fear public education is morally bankrupt. And this makes me sad. And regarding money, it doesn't matter whose money it is, money won't change the underlying issues.
I guess I was being unclear again. For black men to drift back into mainstream, it is going to take fundamental changes in the mainstream. And if the mainstream doesn't come willingly, it'll have to be ripped from its foundations.
Now it may the case that it doesn't ever get better. It doesn't have to get better, you know, it could just keep getting worse. There is no breaking point. We could keep going like this until the sun burns out. There will always be percentage of blacks who take to the mainsteam without moral qualm, Condoleeza Rices and J.C. Watts, the percentage will ebb and flow. There will be the Booker T. Washingtons of varying degrees, but again, I don't think that black men will come willinging into the mainstream if the mainstream doesn't adjust.
Since I'm laying my cards on the table, the best scenario is for a guy like Barack Obama, a man who could very well be the Hegelian synthesis, a sort of half-vampire half-werewolf, who is just wise enough to move the mainstream over by tinkering with American institutions and priorities, such that issues of character will be spoken about with a little more care, and issues of economics will be considered a little bit less, but done with such deep wisdom that he could foment a bloodless revolution that'll bring estranged black families into this new mainstream. That's the hope, anyway. That's a whole lot of pressure to put on one man's skinny shoulders.
[ March 22, 2006, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: For black men to drift back into mainstream, it is going to take fundamental changes in the mainstream.
Why? Why not make the changes in the black men? I don't see Barack Obama changing the mainstream in any appreciable way -- but I DO see him selling the mainstream more effectively to black men who're intuitively afraid of it.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
rotfl.... like Barak Obama had the upbringing you are describing of the "black man" or even half of it.
Plus he's from the Chicago Machine. He may be less corrupt but he's still from the Chicago Political Machine.
AJ
quote: OBAMA, Barack, a Senator from Illinois; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 4, 1961; obtained early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii; continued education at Occidental College, Los Angeles, Calif., and Columbia University, New York City; studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received J.D. in 1992; lecturer on constitutional law, University of Chicago; member, Illinois State senate 1997-2004; elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004 for term beginning January 3, 2005.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Why? Why not make the changes in the black men? I don't see Barack Obama changing the mainstream in any appreciable way -- but I DO see him selling the mainstream more effectively to black men who're intuitively afraid of it.
It'll take both. I figured the changes in the black men part was obvious.
BannaOj, it's not a matter of sharing the same upbringing, but rather, an issue of having insight into the issues. W.E.B DuBois didn't grow up as slave on a southern plantation, but he did have compelling insights into the problem of blacks in America in the twentieth century.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
Incidently, if people of any particular skin color willingly choose not to be part of the mainstream (whatever exactly that is supposed to mean), they should not consider it racism when they, individually, are viewed as outside the mainstream.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I figured the changes in the black men part was obvious.
What changes do you think would be necessary on their part?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I have pretty much lost patience with negative generalizations about the South after going to Chicago and having nearly everyone I met ask me if we lynch blacks and gays.
I've said this before, Pearce, but it bears repeating: somehow, you met all the stupid people who live in Chicago.
Maybe it's because I was brought up in the suburbs (the north suburbs), rather than in the city, but I never even knew there was such a thing as prejudice based on skin color until I was almost 12. I knew very few black kids, and I definitely saw them as different, physically, but it simply never occurred to me that it mattered. I wasn't raised to think that it mattered.
And Tom, unless you've worked helpdesk at a company here in Chicago, you can't imagine the number of stupid people in Chicago.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Generally comfortable with democracy and majority rule.
So... black people are what... more into totalitarianism or communism or something? Or do you mean that people who have a problem with democracy and majority rule are generally black?
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Generally think that education is a means to get a job.
As opposed to... what? Thinking that jobs are a right that should be granted regardless of education?
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Generally think that only bad people are in prison, and that the conditions therein aren't something that good people need to pay too much attention to. Generally "tough on crime."
So are you saying that black people are generally "easy on crime"? Or that white people should be?
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Generally believes that education should consist of practical skills above all.
Hmm. Which probably accounts for the overwhelming of white college students who get ridiculous liberal arts degrees.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'd be interested in hearing you describe "being like a black person" in a similar vein, Irami. I think it's very revealing of your biases.
I'm with you, Tom.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: For black men to drift back into mainstream, it is going to take fundamental changes in the mainstream.
Why? Why not make the changes in the black men? I don't see Barack Obama changing the mainstream in any appreciable way -- but I DO see him selling the mainstream more effectively to black men who're intuitively afraid of it.
Speaking of Barack Obama (or maybe not), why is it that if you have three black grandparents and one white one, you're black, but having three white grandparents and one black one doesn't make you white?
It's kind of funny that racists once thought of a drop of black blood (though blood is actually red) was enough to treat someone badly, and now a drop of "black blood" is enough to demand special privileges.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:And Tom, unless you've worked helpdesk at a company here in Chicago, you can't imagine the number of stupid people in Chicago.
I HAVE worked helpdesk at a company in Chicago. I'm well-acquainted with the Stupid. *grin*
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:What changes do you think would be necessary on their part?
With a more relevant curriculum, the anti-education trend could be appropriately addressed. Before we push practical skills, we need to study more issues concerning dignity and self-respect. I think, but I am not sure, this affects problems in communication. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but if one doesn't feel comfortable in the environment, I believe that language acquisition is somehow adversely affected. Again, I'm speaking off of the cuff.
Of course there is an issue with children. It's not even that we are having too many too young, it's that the parents are too hemmed up with confusion, distrust, fatigue, and ignorance that it really doesn't matter how old the parents are, the children are still going to end up with issues.
The problem with black men is only loosely concerned with money and work. The problem is chiefly a matter of dignity, otherness, and a real reluctance to be slave, then on top of those issues, there are problems of money and employment.
starLisa,
What I say doesn't matter, just keep on doing your thing.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I think the real problem is that the onery black grandmothers that would kick their grandchildren's behinds if they misbehaved is on the decline.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
What constitutes misbehaving? Because the jails are doing a decent job of butt-kicking, and the result is more criminals.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Before we push practical skills, we need to study more issues concerning dignity and self-respect. I think, but I am not sure, this affects problems in communication. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but if one doesn't feel comfortable in the environment, I believe that language acquisition is somehow adversely affected.
I think teaching dignity and self-respect is a project doomed to fail, and that these things are generally acquired as a consequence of utility and service. We should, IMO, concentrate our efforts on providing opportunities to serve and be useful, and parents should focus their efforts on promoting these activities.
(And as a side note, I guarantee you that if black women stopped having so many children so young, things would improve. As you point out, there are other issues to address -- but not having an additional child when you're already relying on my tax dollars to support your existing children seems like an obvious and effective solution to at least one problem.)
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Well let's just say that if Steve or his father had descended into anything remotely criminal, Grandma Jones (although she was a tiny woman) would have been dragging them by their ear with her thumb and forefinger and giving them what for. Her husband was a truck driver in the Carolinas and New York, she worked low-paying positions her entire life. She sent Steve's father to military school, when he appeared to be getting involved with some unsavory adolescents. All 6 of her children are college educated, and Steve was the oldest grandchild, and she was as proud as could be he got a college scholarship.
AJ
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:I think teaching dignity and self-respect is a project doomed to fail, and that these things are generally acquired as a consequence of utility and service.
See, this is tricky. Because you are right. Utility and service are intricately tied to dignity and self-respect. There is a section in Up From Slavery where Booker T. Washington says,
quote:the Negro shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.
The problem is that I'm just not sure it's true. I think that Washington is too casual about the usefulness of a poem.
Up From Slavery is an interesting work. Throughout the entire book, Washington expounds on the virtues of a practical education, of making bricks, cleaning, building houses, and tilling fields, and then he says that the greatest joy he has had in his life was when he was away from school talking about Tuskeegee at receptions and banquets. There is the conflict. Shouldn't his greatest joy be in making bricks?
Tom, you said this:
"I think teaching dignity and self-respect is a project doomed to fail, and that these things are generally acquired as a consequence of utility and service."
I think you have it backwards. I think that utility and service are the by-products of dignity and self-respect.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Perhaps he draws a distinction between joy and virtue. Many of the greatest joys of my life were not remotely connected to the things I've done that I consider most virtuous.
quote:I think that utility and service are the by-products of dignity and self-respect.
A lot of people agree with you. That's the motivation behind all those "Black is Beautiful" and "I'm OK, You're OK" programs we saw in elementary schools in the '70s and '80s. But I submit that these programs intended to teach dignity and self-respect failed utterly, and suggest that expecting utility and service of our people would teach those same lessons much more effectively.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:. Before we push practical skills, we need to study more issues concerning dignity and self-respect.
My problem with this statement is that this is the parents' responsibility.
In fact, I think that's the key to being a successful minority in this country.
Niki and I delivered food for the salvation army on Christmas, and the great part about doing this was being invited into people's homes and talking to them for a while.
The people we were talking to were all at the low end of the income spectrum (of course), and because of the region of Omaha we were delivering to, they were all black.
So we saw a lot of families, and a lot of depressing situations. But one family we absolutely loved. We were invited in, and made very welcome, and we had a long talk with the father of the house. He was a very proud and hardworking man, who was both respectful and deserving of respect. He was elderly, and had three college aged children living in the house with him. He had another two children living away from the home, and every single one of them either had a college education, or was recieving one at the time. He himself was uneducated, but had spent his whole life working hard in order for his children to be able to go to college. He was so proud of his kids he couldn't stop talking about them .
We met two of his children, and they were smart, bright eyed, and happy people. One of them was in college going to be a nurse, and they were very friendly. They also had class and dignity, and valued education.
I don't think their schools taught them that. I have no doubt in my mind that it was their father and mother who taught them that.
Which I think is the reason other minorities, such as asians, do so well. I think any family which teaches their children the value of an education, of hardwork, of having respect for yourself and for others, will be able to succeed in america.
Of course, when the father is absent, this becomes a lot harder for the mother to do alone.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
If you haven't noticed, I'm not one of those, "I'm OK, You're OK," type of guys. I agree that those programs are too morally mushy. But throwing out the project of teaching dignity and respect prior to utility and service, seems to be an instance of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
quote:My problem with this statement is that this is the parents' responsibility.
This is another issue where I bristle with mainstream white America. We can add this as another, "Generally," statement. Cultivating dignity and self-respect is the parents responsibility and it is the school's responsibility.
My parents stopped being able to help me with math homework around 7th grade. And now that I'm older, I kind of understand why, because the math I learned in high school is superfluous unless I went into a specialized field. The school kind of expects that not all parents are going to be able to teach physics, and supplements the child's education.
I'm a little curious as to why we don't do the same with character. I find it a little bit shocking that we don't admit that there is a large percentage of parents, of all races, who are incompetent in teaching ethics beyond a fourth grade level. With all of the talk about our poor math and science scores, the real pit in our public educational system is that we are producing too many students who are morally retarded.
[ March 22, 2006, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But throwing out the project of teaching dignity and respect prior to utility and service, seems to be an instance of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Well, they've tried this approach for thirty years, now. And I don't think it's working.
What changes would you make to this curriculum to more effectively teach people to respect themselves prior to expecting them to do anything worth respecting?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Thanks Xavier. That's exactly what I was thinking while reading some of Irami's arguments.
But I'm confused from the get go. Irami, are you suggesting schools actually teach dignity, pride, self respect, so on and so forth, to kids?
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I think self-respect and dignity are things that cannot be mass-taught through videos or any classroom curriculum. They must be learned by each individual separately in his or her own way.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Well, then, there you go. Xavier, Tom, Tresopax, and Lyrawn, you all are in agreement. And I think that you all are wrong.
I think that dignity, character, and self-respect can be culitivated in the classroom by the thoughtful consideration and discussion of good literature and philosophy. It's in my bones.
I imagine that that's entire point of Sunday school, or at least, it should be.
Until this issue is settled, I think that getting black men to go to school and care about it is going to be a job.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I think that dignity, character, and self-respect can be culitivated in the classroom by the thoughtful consideration and discussion of good literature and philosophy.
How do you intend to have thoughtful discussions of philosophy with children who do not attend or care about school?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
So your problem is with high school English teachers? or something much earlier in their education?
I don't see any reason why we need to formalize and for that matter institutionalize the teaching of something parents have been responsible for for literally thousands of years. Further, for someone who is against joining a society that stamps out carbon copies of people, you're surprisingly willing to give the state control over how our children are taught self respect and dignity.
You really think parents know less than lawmakers about respect and dignity? Have you HEARD of the US Government?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Start with literature. The drift starts being pronounced around second or third grade, and I think that all children of that age are hungry for stories.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The drift starts being pronounced around second or third grade, and I think that all children of that age are hungry for stories.
I suspect that what you're trying to do here is provide fictional role models in place of the real ones which should be playing a part at this age.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
So is third grade reading the ultimate solution, or just step one?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Lyrhawn: You said this:
quote:You really think parents know less than lawmakers about respect and dignity? Have you HEARD of the US Government?
Obama said this:
quote:The problem I had is that when I examined Judge Roberts' record and history of public service, it is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak. In his work in the White House and the Solicitor General's Office, he seemed to have consistently sided with those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racial discrimination in our political process. In these same positions, he seemed dismissive of the concerns that it is harder to make it in this world and in this economy when you are a woman rather than a man.
I want to take Judge Roberts at his word that he doesn't like bullies and he sees the law and the Court as a means of evening the playing field between the strong and the weak. But given the gravity of the position to which he will undoubtedly ascend and the gravity of the decisions in which he will undoubtedly participate during his tenure on the Court, I ultimately have to give more weight to his deeds and the overarching political philosophy that he appears to have shared with those in power than to the assuring words that he provided me in our meeting.
The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts' nomination. I do so with considerable reticence. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that this reticence on my part proves unjustified and that Judge Roberts will show himself to not only be an outstanding legal thinker but also someone who upholds the Court's historic role as a check on the majoritarian impulses of the executive branch and the legislative branch. I hope that he will recognize who the weak are and who the strong are in our society. I hope that his jurisprudence is one that stands up to the bullies of all ideological stripes.
In this one speech, Obama showed a level of courage, thought, and dignity that far outstrips most parents(even if you don't agree with his vote), and further, that's why he'll continue to get re-elected.
quote:I suspect that what you're trying to do here is provide fictional role models in place of the real ones which should be playing a part at this age.
There is a bit of that, and I'm not sure that's so bad.
_____________
quote:So is third grade reading the ultimate solution, or just step one?
Step one.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:In this one speech, Obama showed a level of courage, thought, and dignity that far outstrips most parents...
And yet, as a teaching tool for dignity, that speech fails miserably on a number of levels -- including accessibility and relevance to the target audience. Whereas parents win handily in that category.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote: In this one speech, Obama showed a level of courage, thought, and dignity that far outstrips most parents(even if you don't agree with his vote), and further, that's why he'll continue to get re-elected.
If you're suggesting that Obama is represenative of the entire US Government, including the Education Department, and for that matter EVERY neighborhood school system across the country, I think you'll have a hard time proving it. I also think, that regardless of how good an idea you think it is, you'll have a hard time selling to parents across the country the idea that they are incapable of teaching their kids the basic principles of being a good human being but not to worry, because the US Government can fix it for them.
And quite frankly, I think your toughest audience will be minorities.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Those are your opinions. I disagree.
There is a great scene in Hart's Hope where the street kid (Flea?) participated in the dangerous activity of snake dancing. Orem asked him why he did it, and I can't remember his answer, but it had something to do with dignity and self-respect. I wish I had that book here.
[ March 22, 2006, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Since this is starting to look more and more like a dog-pile, I just want to mention that I do agree with Irami that teaching self-respect and dignity is important.
I also wouldn't be opposed to trying to bring this teaching into the public education system.
I'm not quite sure how this would go, however.
What, exactly, would this entail?
When I was going through the public school system, the big push was for "self-esteem". We had some classroom talks about it, and a couple presentations to the whole school, but I don't think it effected even one single student.
The best way I can think of to have the education system teach self-respect and dignity is through charity work, but then we are back to teaching service.
Can you explain how we would bring this goal into the education system Irami? Perhaps that would make it more palpable for those of us who are skeptical.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The best way I can think of to have the education system teach self-respect and dignity is through charity work, but then we are back to teaching service.
*steeples his fingers* Yes. Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:I think that dignity, character, and self-respect can be culitivated in the classroom by the thoughtful consideration and discussion of good literature and philosophy. It's in my bones.
I imagine that that's entire point of Sunday school, or at least, it should be.
Teaching character and teaching self-respect are two different things.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
In the beginning, it starts with fables, and then as the children become older, the issues are more complex and the decisions less obvious, thereby cultivating morality and a sense of humanity and character in the student.
In theory, this is what all humanities and social science classes should be doing constantly. In fifth grade, you can do an entire day on the first ten pages of Ender's Game. The goal is two-fold, to wrestle with these decisions in an engaging manner before they present themselves in real time. And secondly, to develop a sense of individuality and compassion that literature is uniquely suited to cultivate. Martha Nussbaum wrote a book called, Poetic Justice where she describes why and how literature is uniquely suited and necessary for cultivating some parts of judicial reasoning.
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
I agree with a great deal of what Irami has posted, in particular:
quote:Cultivating dignity and self-respect is the parents responsibility and it is the school's responsibility.
quote:I think that dignity, character, and self-respect can be culitivated in the classroom by the thoughtful consideration and discussion of good literature and philosophy. It's in my bones.
More later, Aerin just threw up on me. Again.
Posted by Crotalus (Member # 7339) on :
This is a little off the current discussion, but keeping with the main gist. Just this morning a friend of mine told me of what happened to her husband today. He bought a bus for their business (a non-profit rehab house for recovering addicts). When he went to the local tag office to get tags for the vehicle they refused to give him one, even though he had all the signed paperwork in his hands. Their reasoning: he is a black man and black men don't own businesses in this area. Here's where it gets worse. They had him escorted out. This was in Lee county Georgia. So, for the record, racism is definitely not dead in the south. I told her if I was him I would sue.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
He should ABSOLUTELY sue.
--------
quote:In theory, this is what all humanities and social science classes should be doing constantly.
Most of the great dictatorships of the past century agreed with you, too. But I'm not comfortable with using our public schools for moral instruction at that level, Irami, for precisely that reason.
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
I don't think anyone has said that racism is dead in the South. I'm a Southerner and I know it continues to be a problem. I think what frustrates us is that there is racism everywhere, not just in the South. Also, the efforts of those of us who are working to correct it are either ignored or belittled.
And Lee County does not represent the entire state of Georgia. I'm from Gwinnett County and there are many black business owners there.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Getting kids to wrestle with the issues is not the same as narrowly inculcating dogma. I'm talking about promoting dialogue and stimulating thought, not the Hitler youth.
Granted, I do think once this is done, more kids will, of their own volition and out of a sense of humanity, choose to become more engaged in school, not to steal cars, not to do drugs, and not have unprotected sex.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Getting kids to wrestle with the issues is not the same as narrowly inculcating dogma. I'm talking about promoting dialogue and stimulating thought.
How would you do that with third-graders, again?
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Irami, I have to say as I'm reading through this thread that although I'm not in agreement with all of your ideas, I really do admire the way you've thoughtfully responded to the questions and criticisms without becoming defensive (or more importantly, offensive).
I have started typing responses in this thread several times, but I'm slow and the thread is moving fast, so by the time I have a post typed out, the salient points have already been addressed and passed by, and that will probably be true of this one but I won't hit refresh this time and peek before I post!
My fear and my experience is that children who are not getting the parental reinforcement and consistency at home are not equipped to care about discussions of moral dilemmas in literature. There are clearly exceptions, and just giving up is not an option. So we must try, as you have said, to teach self-respect and dignity in the schools. But as it has been said on here already, skill aquisition and success are the best tools for aquiring this basic self-respect. And I think it is blind to say that it is not the parents' primary responsibility; yes, it does become the role of society to step in when parents fail. But society does not have the primary responsibility for instilling dignity in children just because parents have abdicated their role. Society is then forced to come up with stopgap measures are.
I don't know what the answers are. How do we help parents understand their responsibilities when THEIR parents didn't teach them?
I personally feel that faith is the best answer--that it has a transformative power absent from any government or curriculum program. I know many will disagree with that, and in the meantime we have to work together as a society to come up with secular solutions. I'm just not sure what those solutions are. Most programs I've seen that have been successful in instilling self-respect have been extracurricular. I'm not impressed with the trends I've seen in education lately for rigidly imposing whatever curriculum program has been adopted by the state or community, without leeway for the teacher. I think it takes away the ability of the teachers to use their judgment and talents to the best of their ability. I do feel a caring teacher can work miracles, but as far as I can tell they're not being given a lot of leeway to do so.
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
I completely agree, Irami.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:n the beginning, it starts with fables, and then as the children become older, the issues are more complex and the decisions less obvious, thereby cultivating morality and a sense of humanity and character in the student.
But again, how do you go from teaching character and a sense of humanity to teaching self-respect and dignity? The two are not the same. I have known plenty of people with excellent character and poor self-respect - and even more with a lot of self-respect but who don't have correspondingly great character.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
quote:My parents stopped being able to help me with math homework around 7th grade
Interesting... so did mine. I managed to teach myself up to pre-calc...
AJ
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:But again, how do you go from teaching character and a sense of humanity to teaching self-respect and dignity?
Well, if you have a strong and unbecoming character, you shouldn't have self-respect, you should change. Just as if you have a strong and unbecoming odor, you should bathe.
I imagine that part of being willing to change has to do with humility, but then again, a certain amount of humility is part of having shining character.
_________
Mrs. M,
I don't think I'm off base here. Your husband is a legal ethics professor, right? If ethics weren't able to be taught in the classroom, it would reduce his job to teaching manners. Instead of cultivating morality, his job would be teaching behavior.
Behavior can explain why we drive on the right side of the road as opposed to the left side. Behavior explains why women should not wear white shoes between labor day and memorial day. I think that the reasons as to why we shouldn't abandon children are deeper than mere behavior.
__________
Uprooted,
Faith is great, if you believe, but if you don't, it doesn't do too much. I actually think that one of the problems with black communities and leadership is that they rely too much on the influence of church.
[ March 22, 2006, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
My mother couldn't even help me learn fractions.
I am honestly bewildered by all the opposition to Irami. Discussions about the humanities have always led to discussions about morals and ethics, especially literature. This starts at a very early age - Grimm's fairy tales were actually morality tales collected by the brothers.
Dang, I have to run out, but I have lots more to say on this subject. Until I get back (and have time), Irami, I'm behind you, friend.
quote:Mrs. M,
I don't think I'm off base here. Your husband is a legal ethics professor, right? If ethics weren't able to be taught in the classroom, it would reduce his job to teaching manners. Instead of cultivating morality, his job would be teaching behavior.
Behavior can explain why we drive on the right side of the road as opposed to the left side. Behavior explains why women should not wear white shoes between labor day and memorial day. I think that the reasons as to why we shouldn't abandon children are deeper than mere behavior.
Absolutely. Incidentally, his manners aren't stellar. I've been slowly transforming him into a Southern gentleman. Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mrs.M: Discussions about the humanities have always led to discussions about morals and ethics, especially literature.
I guess I don't see that those discussions have been abandoned. I would never want to see that happen -- in my brief foray into the public schools as an English teacher, having those discussions was my favorite part of the job, and I loved watching those kids work through their beliefs. I always talked about the moral dilemmas--but the kids brought with them their own inherent sense of right and wrong and how those dilemmas should be handled. I do believe in the humanities and their place in the curriculum, and will fight to keep them there, so that's not my beef. I just don't think it is the most effective way to teach dignity or self-respect.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Discussions about the humanities have always led to discussions about morals and ethics, especially literature.
Sure. But to propose that we integrate black men into the "mainstream" by teaching children more literature in second and third grade seems to me like a horribly, horribly holistic "solution" to the wrong problem.
quote:I think that the reasons as to why we shouldn't abandon children are deeper than mere behavior.
Irami, one of the things I can't quite understand is why you're equating teaching utility and service with "abandonment," whereas adding more literature to a curriculum is seen as a concrete solution.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Irami, one of the things I can't quite understand is why you're equating teaching utility and service with "abandonment," whereas adding more literature to a curriculum is seen as a concrete solution.
I think you are just putting the cart before the horse. I worry that you want to teach kids what to do before having the kids figure out why to do it.
By the way, isn't this the plot of a third of the science fiction stories that end up with some monster or bomb created.
Here is what I see, when you teach utility and service before literature, we end up with MBA students who are very good at being useful and serving to all of the lowest and profitable appetites of man. When we put skills and service ahead of literature, we run the risk of cultivating a society of personal assistants and marketing execs. It may even be a profitable society. But I think I'd rather live in a ghetto.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Irami, I don't think the majority of humanity truly wants answers to "why" questions in the way you are talking about. I think the people who ask the "why" questions are *always* in the minority, whether they be orange, blue or purple. I agree overall that getting people to ask "why" is a good thing. BUt I don't think it will solve the problem you think it will solve.
AJ
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I worry that you want to teach kids what to do before having the kids figure out why to do it.
That's EXACTLY right. That's EXACTLY what I want to teach. Because when you're teaching your kid not to touch a stove, you teach them NOT TO TOUCH THE STOVE even if they've never experienced a burn, even if they have no idea what real "heat" feels like, even if they've never even felt real pain. You tell them that they don't touch the stove for any reason, and then add the "why" later, once they've internalized the command. When you're teaching your kid to look both ways when crossing a street, or to stop when you yell "stop," you can go ahead and explain "why" -- but it's more important to teach the lesson first.
Understanding of "why" makes the appreciation of the lesson deeper, and makes it possible for the subject to personally advance beyond the teacher in the future. But it's more important to make sure you've got the "what" and the "how" really, really down before you move to "why."
Consider murder. I don't want to have to explain to my kids why they shouldn't kill people. I want them to know that we don't kill people -- I want them to absolutely internalize this standard -- and cover the "why" later. They might even come up with their own "whys" later, different ones from my own; I don't particularly care, to be honest, as long as the "what" doesn't change.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
No, racism isn't dead in the South. But it's definitely not dead in the NORTH, either, and as I said, one of my huge problems with Chicago (and my classmates' probles in New York) was that for some reason, the people we met seemed to think that WE were all racist and THEY were more enlightened and advanced.
A lot of them would later make "towelhead" comments that made me wish I had a sword that could shoot out of my hand a la Ultraviolet. They made all kinds of racist comments...off-handedly, and for some reason what they were saying didn't occur to them. Perhaps because they weren't lynching tumbleweeds and gays, or something.
-pH
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
BannaOj,
The big ones are, "Why should I keep going to school?" I do think that the majority of black kids do think about this. And too often, the answer that comes back isn't morally compelling. _____
As an aside, there are quite a few people who do what their parents and their community tells to do, right up until their 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s, and by the time they think about the moral worth of school or their lucrative job and why they do what they are doing, they already have personal responsiblities, habits, or debt that keep them in line feeding the cycle. The problem is that these people are too often billed as role models or success stories.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Here is what I see, when you teach utility and service before literature, we end up with MBA students who are very good at being useful and serving to all of the lowest and profitable appetites of man. When we put skills and service ahead of literature, we run the risk of cultivating a society of personal assistants and marketing execs. It may even be a profitable society. But I think I'd rather live in a ghetto.
So MBA students (apparently, especially white MBA students) know nothing beyond...what, business?
Are you aware of the range of knowledge one needs to be truly effective in business?
-pH
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I do think that the majority of black kids do think about this. And too often, the answer that comes back isn't morally compelling.
Which is why the lesson you teach is "you go to school, period, because mommy and daddy tell you to and you do what we say." College is when the little dears get to worry about what's "morally compelling;" it's the parents' job to make sure the kids don't even get to choose whether to get a basic education or not.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:So MBA students (apparently, especially white MBA students) know nothing beyond...what, business?
Are you aware of the range of knowledge one needs to be truly effective in business?
Yes, I do. Ph, good luck in the music business. I'm probably not going to like what you do, but I'm sure you'll be good at it. I hope you get your Phaeton, and your private jet with the hot tub.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:I am honestly bewildered by all the opposition to Irami. Discussions about the humanities have always led to discussions about morals and ethics, especially literature. This starts at a very early age - Grimm's fairy tales were actually morality tales collected by the brothers.
Yes, but why is it specifically "white people" that Irami blames for that lack of discussion? I don't see how any of this supports Irami's earlier claims.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I can't figure out why it's more moral to sell wireless internet access than music.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Yes, I do. Ph, good luck in the music business. I'm probably not going to like what you do, but I'm sure you'll be good at it. I hope you get your Phaeton, and your private jet with the hot tub.
My point was that GOOD businesspeople aren't profit-centered robots. You HAVE to be a well-rounded person, and I don't think that you can become a well-rounded person unless you WANT to be one. You can't just know about whatever field you're going into in business. You have to know about literature and music theory and science and random things that no one ever thought you'd actually need to remember.
-pH
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I can't figure out why it's more moral to sell wireless internet access than music.
Because people who sell music are evil corporate whore sellouts. See, you aren't REAL unless you're barely able to support yourself in a minimum standard of living.
-pH
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
An anecdote supporting the statement that racism is still a problem in the south:
Some friends of my brother's at LSU had a MLK day BBQ, with 40s, dice, and rap music. One of my friends from Montana went to it, and had a blast. He called me later that week and, in the course of recapping, asked me why we'd never thrown a party like that in Butte. To which I replied, "People in Montana aren't that racist."
He said, "That barbeque was racist? How so? Everybody was having a good time, and no one was ripping MLK."
"Yeah," I said, "but it's not as if the point of the bbq was to honor MLK and his contributions to the civil rights movement, was it? It was mocking the day, and the stereotypical version of the people who really celebrate it."
That hadn't occured to him at all, that there was some underlying animosity towards black people for how big MLK day has become to them. Of course, in Montana the Indians were the designated whipping boys.
And it's not that any of these guys really hate all black people. They don't fly the confederate flag, or call every black person a n-----; they just did it because they thought it would be a funny idea for a party on a Monday where no one has class. But the underlying tensions are all still there, if you know what to look for.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
quote:I worry that you want to teach kids what to do before having the kids figure out why to do it.
You kinda have to do this, for this reason:
quote:Because when you're teaching your kid not to touch a stove, you teach them NOT TO TOUCH THE STOVE even if they've never experienced a burn...
It seems like half of educating children is keeping them from stupidly killing themselves before they're even aware that some things are dangerous. When you move into murkier territory like politics, this gets orders of magnitude harder. Try explaining "hate crimes" to an 8-year-old... hell, I can't explain why it makes any sort of sense to myself, let alone to a kid, I can simply promise what the consequences are.
Try to remember BEING a kid. You had to depend on adults for a LOT... they knew shit you didn't know, like why you shouldn't touch a hot stove, or why you shouldn't jump off the roof using an umbrella for a parachute.
If you try to have every kid learn every thing the hard way, you're going to wind up with two things: (1) kids that didn't learn much, other than that hot stoves burn your fingers, and (2) kids that don't trust adults for squat, because the adults KNEW ALL ALONG that touching a hot stove would burn your fingers, but didn't say anything.
Now, I understand that reflexively you think that if children are being taught things you think are WRONG, you want to take away the teaching altogether. I would strongly encourage you to rethink this position.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
JT, it sounds similar to a white trash party. I've never heard of one here, but I know they have them in Florida and Chicago. Everybody wears wifebeaters, and the girls wear gstrings with the strings above their pants and bad makeup and I don't even know what else and drink beer.
-pH
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Both fine industries. I believe in internet access. People should have music, and people should have internet access. But you aren't going to see me lauding the rigors and rewards of business administration. Even if it is hard, labor intensive work, it is still small compared to the dignity in teaching literature well, or writing a morally engaging story.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
The funny thing is that in Montana, people would say, "Man, it's just not right how you guys treat black people. I mean, c'mon, they can't be as bad as Indians, right?!"
Dead serious.
---------
Yeah, I don't have any problems with a white trash party, because it's making fun of stereotypes aimed at my race. So I know it's good natured joking. You can't know that when you're making fun of another race's stereotypes.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
You know, Irami, maybe you didn't pick up on this because I'm a morally corrupt white business student, but I don't ACTUALLY define success in life as being able to purchase a $100,000 car or a jet. And believe it or not, there are very few people who actually DO.
-pH
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Irami, I think you romanticize the role of art a bit too much. I don't want to imply that literature's not important, but I think you're guilty of making the assumption that someone IS what someone DOES for a living -- and so someone who writes literature is by their very nature deeper and more thoughtful than someone who designs corporate logos or engineers paper cups. And since you want deep, thoughtful people, you imagine that a world in which everyone were really into literature would be ideal.
But literature isn't the only path to depth, and not even necessarily the best one. For that matter, depth isn't necessarily the best path to integrity.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:They don't fly the confederate flag, or call every black person a n-----; they just did it because they thought it would be a funny idea for a party on a Monday where no one has class. But the underlying tensions are all still there, if you know what to look for.
So... question: Is there anything wrong with that? Consider how we celebrate St. Patrick's Day before you answer.
Poking fun at a stereotype is not necessarily racism. Nor is telling race-related jokes. Both could potentially promote racism in people who fail to realize the difference between stereotypes and reality, but there is a significant difference between doing something in fun that could spread a stereotype and actually believing in that stereotype.
This is part of the overawareness of racism that I mentioned earlier. It's not always that there's a "tension there if you know what to look for." Often times, instead, it's that a tension can easily be perceived if you are focused on looking for it. If you are concerned for the way in which Irish-Americans are treated, you might perceive a lot of racism on St. Patrick's Day, even when racism is not truly present.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Maybe there's nothing wrong with it. But it just feels wrong, to me.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:He said, "That barbeque was racist? How so? Everybody was having a good time, and no one was ripping MLK."
"Yeah," I said, "but it's not as if the point of the bbq was to honor MLK and his contributions to the civil rights movement, was it? It was mocking the day, and the stereotypical version of the people who really celebrate it."
So people who decide to get together on a day off and have a barbecue are racist because they didn't stand around and talk about how wonderfl MLK was? Come on - since when did we even care what the holidays are supposed to signify anyway. Look at Labor Day, Memorial Day, how many of us really sat around on Labor Day talking about and contemplating how hard people have to work to make our lives better or spend too much time on Memorial Day honoring the military dead?
Sometimes a barbecue is just a barbecue, you know. There don't have to be nefarious motivs for getting some friends together and having a good time.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:I think you romanticize the role of art a bit too much.
I do believe that we underappreciate art at our own peril.
I also believe that teaching children to obey their parents does very little to prepare children for a world where moral thought is called for. Not to mention that parents are often full of poor advice, and lastly, there is a dignity that comes from acting of ones own agency that can't be attained by blindly obeying orders. Is it really the case that the only time you want a child to feel that sense of agency is when they disobey orders?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:There don't have to be nefarious motivs for getting some friends together and having a good time.
No. But chugging 40s and playing rap music to celebrate MLK Day is pretty nefarious, IMO.
quote:I also believe that teaching children to obey their parents does very little to prepare children for a world where moral thought is called for.
Irami, I'm curious how in your example you would prevent children from touching the metaphorical stove. We're not gods; unlike gods, we lack the ability to communicate perfectly with our children, or to monitor them at all times. Given that, it seems reasonable to establish certain basic standards before we attempt to impart self-reasoning and ethics.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:No. But chugging 40s and playing rap music to celebrate MLK Day is pretty nefarious, IMO.
I would agree if they only chugged 40s and listened to rap music as a way to spite MLK day. On the other hand if they normally do these things to celebrate a day off, then it's just a freakin' barbecue like any other they've had before.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I would agree if they only chugged 40s and listened to rap music as a way to spite MLK day.
I got the impression that this was a "theme" barbecue.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
It wasn't an impression. I flat out said it.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Irami, what is art? What are you defining as art? Cause there are so many definitions of art out there I have no idea which ones you are endorsing.
African drumming or Mozart? Totems or Michaeangelo???
AJ
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Don't try to muddle the conversation. I am talking about literature. Morally engaged literature. If you want to talk about Mozart, drumming or totems, that's your conversation to have, but I am talking about literature, and specifically the ability for literature, and attending discussion, to bring individual moral problems to bear such that education could be something that all people, and in this thread black children especially, find relevant in their lives.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I obviously didn't pick up on the "theme" aspect. My fault for not reading clearly.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Ok, so when you said "art" you meant "morally engaged literature". The question naturally follows, "What morality is the correct morality to be engaged in?" Cause that determines what morality of literature would be allowed in the school.
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Also, sometimes it's difficult to understand the "meaning" of concepts unless you already know how to excecute them properly.
And, morals go both ways. Sometimes doing what you "should" do means your character becomes more like the person you "should" be.
Sometimes the person you are, dictates what you do. But, it can go either way for everyone.
AJ
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Also, sometimes it's difficult to understand the "meaning" of concepts unless you already know how to excecute them properly.
I would say that for certain concepts, in fact -- like marriage, childrearing, etc. -- it's nearly impossible. Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:"What morality is the correct morality to be engaged in?"
That's ultimately up to the child. Of course, there would be stories of children the teacher prefers, and the discussion would concern why the teacher prefers them, and stories of children the teacher dreads, and discussion concerning why the teacher dreads them, stories of children displaying friendship and envy, kindness and prodigality, niggardly behavior and benevolent, and while teacher gives her or his opinion, he or she more importantly, is talented in teasing out the thoughts and concerns of his or her students, supplying food for thought.
This approach does require a belief in the judgment of children, and also a belief in the attractive power of goodness, once exposed.
I'll never forget the time my class talked about "The Boy Who Called Wolf." It's a simple story, and from it, I learned that if I call wolf, I run the risk of help not believing me if and when I actually did get in trouble. From then on, the choice to call wolf was mine, but I chose not to, out of respect for the time and the lives of the people who would come to help and out of fear that when I actually did need their help, they may not come.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I guess the problem is that most parents don't really think the morality should be left up to the child, in the formative sates.
It's an interesting idea though, now that I understand it better.
*muses*
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Have you ever read the book "Summerhill" by A.S. Neil? I think you might be interested in his educational philosophy, even if he was a british white guy.
What I got out of the story of the Boy who Called Wolf was that people were easily fooled and dumb sheep most of the time, and that the person who wrote the fable didn't know much about wolves.
AJ
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
The Summerhill school looks a bit hippy for me. I don't have a problem with lesson plans or curriculum, and I think that, for the most part, the teacher should design them with an eye towards the student's moral development.
quote:What I got out of the story of the Boy who Called Wolf was that people were easily fooled and dumb sheep most of the time, and that the person who wrote the fable didn't know much about wolves.
It's possible that I had a superior grade school teacher.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:That's ultimately up to the child.
Hm. This is an experiment that I fervently want to see happen in some other country I don't ever plan to visit. But, then, it's possible that I'm reading more into this than you mean; after all, you talk about leaving things up to the child in the same breath as you talk about curriculum for moral development.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I loved reading about Summerhill, it was facinating. I would have loved at all, as there was no formal structure. Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Doesn't this plan presuppose that we have a nation entirely composed of very bright and well meaning elementary and later middle and high school English (and I think History as well) teachers?
Firstly, if you want to push literature that hard, something else has to go, what do you choose to not teach them? Everything you leave out puts kids one day behind, and it's a day they WILL have to make up later.
Second, while I think our education system is for the most part filled with very intelligent well meaning people, I don't think it means that all of them are inherently well read, and up for the kind of challenge you put before them. Trying this sort of thing on young impressionable minds and screwing it up can be far more dangerous than doing nothing at all.
Third, what if kids flat out refuse to do all that reading and thinking? Your premise seems to be that kids need more personal responsibility, and that we have to give them a real choice and reason to stay in school (beyond self interest and their future apparently), and that literature is the way to draw them in and make them into better people. That only works, if you decide beforehand that all children want that in the early and later years of school. I loved reading as a kid, and still love it now, but not everyone does. I've read "Democracy in America" and "Jane Eyre" and Tolkien, and a lot of other stuff (mostly dry history books). A lot of it isn't easy. I'm a history student, and I LOVE history, but even I get bored out of my skull sometimes by 19th century literature and a lot of the stuff that came before it.
I think you're assuming way, WAY too much about children as a whole (which by the way seems to be an issue with you, lumping entire groups together and making assumptions about them). Just because you like reading and it worked for you, doesn't mean you can rubber stamp every kid in America with it. Kids may rebel against schools that only teach heady literature when they'd rather be learning math and science.
Which gets me into another point. Teaching kids that liberal arts makes them into naturally better people than business execs and whatever other professions you seem to think are morally bankrupt certainly isn't healthy for kids. When I have kids, I'll tell them what my parents told me, that they can be whatever they want, and that their job won't define them.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Your premise seems to be that kids need more personal responsibility...
That is ALSO my premise. But I believe we can teach that more easily by teaching utility and service than teaching literature, because ultimately I think those are better teachers of the same ideals.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
What do you mean by utility and service? Forgive me, this is the first time I've seen this debate.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Ok, so when you said "art" you meant "morally engaged literature". The question naturally follows, "What morality is the correct morality to be engaged in?" Cause that determines what morality of literature would be allowed in the school.
There is only one morality. There are many opinions on what that morality is, but the ability of literature to teach morality is not derived from an author's ability to present one viewpoint. Rather, I think "morally engaged literature" would be literature that encourage reflection on moral issues, rather than just telling you what the author thinks the answers are. And through reflecting on the moral implications of the events of a story, one gets a better understanding of what truly is moral and what is not.
To put it differently, you don't teach morality through literature that says "X, Y, and Z are wrong." (If we were going to do that, we could skip the literature and just tell them the moral rules striaght out.) Rather, you teach it through literature that presents a series of events that pose difficult questions, and allow the child to see for himself or herself what right and wrong seem to be in that situation.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I fail to see the point of having a nation of people who know a whole ton about literature and next to nothing about any other number of subjects.
Don't get me wrong. I love literature. But I love learning about other things, too.
-pH
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
I'm with Tom, point for point, on this issue. I think that's the first time that's ever happened.
I do see some of what you're saying, Irami. Before I get into that, let me say how much I respect your level-headed posting style, even when you're vastly outnumbered.
I know that there were times my calculating mind informed me that I was learning things that I'd never use. I never did think about dropping out of school, though, because learning was too much fun.
I am not comfortable with the idea of the state teaching children morality. I feel that's my job, and I will protect it visciously. Also, the 'nanny-statism' bothers me tremendously. Part of me is uncomfortable with the idea of children getting no moral instruction from parents, though. Children left behind, to steal a popular phrase.
Also, I can't understand the idea that kids should find their own morality. Kids aren't little rational adults, no offense meant to OSC and Ender's Game. The time for finding yourself is later.
I'm still not seeing how this is "white man's" problem.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
"I'm still not seeing how this is "white man's" problem."
Here is how it goes:
Black men are drifting away from formal education. I think that black men are drifting away because the curriculum is irrelevant to their perceived educational needs. The curriculum isn't going to change because, for the most part, the curriculum is meeting the perceived needs of white children.
I can talk all I want about the need to change the priorities in education from science to literature, but it's not going to work for a few reasons, there is enough British empircism left in modern America such that we get nervous if there isn't a way to quantatively test the amount of information going into our children, and Math and Science are much, much easier to test, and secondly, a preoccupation with global economics-- which isn't stemming from the black neighborhoods, is shifting our educational priorities away from cultivating citizens and towards becoming economically dominant.
There is a great article here by a kid from the University of Chicago.
Anyway, if we want to keep black kids in formal education, the formal educational curriculum needs to reflect the unique concerns of being a black citizen in America, which includes, but not exhaustively, making sense of how American institutions treating black people through the years, and how those same institutions are the ones we are supposed to respect. It's not that complicated. That's not true. There is a huge contradiction there, that's not easily manageable, and it affects parents, students, and citizens.
I understand that quite a few of you won't agree with my assessment, but I laid out what I see as the problem and the solution, so I don't know if you get to tell yourself or complain to me about how you don't understand. If you don't agree, it's perfectly acceptable to say that you do not agree.
quote:Part of me is uncomfortable with the idea of children getting no moral instruction from parents, though.
More than part of me is also uncomfortable with that idea. That's why I didn't say it. That didn't stop other people from putting those words in my mouth, but I can only do so much.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I think that black men are drifting away because the curriculum is irrelevant to their perceived educational needs.
Wouldn't it be easier to change their perception of their educational needs?
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Irami> This has been a very interesting discussion to read, and I'm sorry I was away for so long now for having missed it. But it's downright puzzling, all the same.
I have difficulty "getting" your perspective on two different levels, and I'm not sure which (if either) of them is more important. I'm going to have to discuss the more complicated one first, I guess.
I can't pretend I don't enjoy literature--given that I've been reading for a very long time, it'd be hard to make that case. But I don't think I can pretend that there is anything morally or culturally superior about it. Yes, sometimes it produces deep thoughts, which may have value (or may not)--but given that the Earth X trilogy did more for me along those lines than A Tale of Two Cities, I'm not sure it's the literature itself that's all that important.
I've quoted from a eulogy given about one of my church's preachers about another before--intended as praise, but tending to provoke a rather different response these days. "He waved no plumes, wreathed no garlands, but struck from the shoulder and at the vitals. He was barren of poetry and destitute of imagination." Fact is, though I'm aware that a lot of people see this as horrible, I'm hard-pressed to see all that much of a problem with it. I'm a practical guy as well as a religious one, and so far as I can tell, "goodness" consists of making other people's lives enjoyable (not just your own) and gaining more information about the universe. Now, since some people like to read, I can't very well object to literature--but I can't see that it's anything more than enjoyment.
The other thing is this: This started as a thread about racism, right? What I've gotten from most of the discussion, though, is that many black men want to opt out of mainstream culture. I have no problem with that--I don't think many of us here do--but I'm not sure you can then claim racism is at fault when you don't reap the benefits of that culture. I don't want a Phaeton any more than you do, Irami--largely because I don't care about status or "dignity"; if anything, I see such attitudes as causes of prejudice, not solutions to it. But I want to have a functional, affordable car, and I want others to have functional, affordable cars, if they want them--and I don't see anything small or unimportant about that. If there are people who don't want to work for such things, I don't see that the rest of us are obligated to provide them anyway.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
quote:I can talk all I want about the need to change the priorities in education from science to literature...
Uhm... "educating" children, in the sense that you seem to desire, i.e. about critical thinking and how to be good citizens, is not the function or purpose "public education". "Public education" exists to train the lower classes to be efficient minions, hence it emphasizes arithmetic, reading comprehension, and most of all, unquestioning obedience. Philosophy and critical thinking would be counterproductive to this aim.
This is not motivated by race politics. It is motivated mostly by economics. "We have to make our children employable! So we'll teach you how to be a good employee... NOT how to start your own business. "
The best end-around I'm aware of to this unfortunate state of affairs is Public Libraries. Sadly it seems as if those people who could benefit from libraries the most, appreciate them the least, and they're a dying institution. If I ever hit the lotto, I'm gonna sponsor "Library Door Prizes".
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Black men are drifting away from formal education. I think that black men are drifting away because the curriculum is irrelevant to their perceived educational needs. The curriculum isn't going to change because, for the most part, the curriculum is meeting the perceived needs of white children.
And you think most black men perceive that education should be less pragmatic and more liberal artsy?
I'm inclined to think you have this backwards. Young black men aren't dropping out of school because it doesn't have enough Dostoevsky. They are doing so because it doesn't seem to offer a path to success (a.k.a. it isn't economically pragmatic enough.) They are doing so because they don't perceive Dostoevsky as being useful. The same reason, I suspect, is behind white dropouts too. And if that is the case, the real problem in both cases is changing what they perceive they need. Changing the curriculum without changing those perceptions is only going to result in more dropouts.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Wouldn't it be easier to change their perception of their educational needs?
You may be right, but I can't make that argument because I think that their perceptions are right. And I'm not going to lie to the kids.
Palliard,
quote:Uhm... "educating" children, in the sense that you seem to desire, i.e. about critical thinking and how to be good citizens, is not the function or purpose "public education". "Public education" exists to train the lower classes to be efficient minions, hence it emphasizes arithmetic, reading comprehension, and most of all, unquestioning obedience. Philosophy and critical thinking would be counterproductive to this aim.
This is not motivated by race politics. It is motivated mostly by economics. "We have to make our children employable! So we'll teach you how to be a good employee... NOT how to start your own business. "
There problem is two-fold. There is a section from the Massachuestts constitution that says that this is not the case,
quote:Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar-schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, and good humor, and all social affections and generous sentiments, among people.
And then there is Senator Fulbright's remark:
quote:To me, the irony of this involvement with size, as I observed earlier, is the unwillingness or inability of so many Americans to identify themselves with something as vast as the United States. Bigger cars, bigger parking lots, bigger corporate structures, bigger farms, bigger drug stores, bigger supermarkets, bigger motion-picture screens. The tangible and the functional expand, while the intangible and the beautiful shrink. Left to wither is the national purpose, national educational needs, literature and theater, and our critical faculties. The national dialogue is gradually being lost in a froth of misleading self-congratulation and cliché. National needs and interests are slowly being submerged by the national preoccupation with the irrelevant.
In many ways, I believe Fulbright was right on.
quote:This is not motivated by race politics. It is motivated mostly by economics.
The problem is that the inordinate amount of sway that economics has in political debate is a racial problem. There is simply a tie between dignity and money that doesn't exist in the same way for black people. There are a few reasons why this is the case. They go like this: 1) you can't underestimate the disdain that being treated as cattle imputes on black Americans view of the chase for money. 2) We've had to eek out a sense of dignity from being poor so long, we don't know any other way, 2) white people still hold more dearly to the Protestant Ethic sensibilities that conflate net worth and godliness.
Maybe Scopatz could design a poll, but if we polled white men and black men on what is the most important political priority, I think, and I could be wrong, security and economic policy are going to score much, much, much higher with white men than they do with black men. This includes the 13-25 year old bracket.
I actually wouldn't mind seeing the poll set sorted by GPA, also.
I shudder everytime I remember Clinton saying, "It's the economy stupid."
Tresopax,
I think you all have a narrow view of literature. I'm not talking about Dostoevsky, as much as Paul Dunbar.
Maybe I'll put it in a way you guys can understand, whether true or not, I believe that the most practical skill a young black male can have is nimble mind and a solid sense of dignity.
[ March 23, 2006, 09:21 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I can't make that argument because I think that their perceptions are right.
Ah. You have yet to tell us what those perceptions are. Earlier in the thread, I asked you to sum up what it means to be a "black person" in this country in the same way you gave us that stereotype of "white people;" I think that'd be especially relevant now, not least because I'm curious why you think black children are leaving high school because they're not getting enough good literature in second grade.
quote:There is simply a tie between dignity and money that doesn't exist in the same way for black people.
This is a steaming load, Irami -- or are you going to say that "pimp my crib" and gold "bling" are products of WASP culture?
Edit: As I think about it, I realize that perhaps what you're seeing as a tie between dignity and money in WASP culture is in reality a tie between dignity and self-sufficiency. As recently as fifty years ago, accepting a "handout" was seen by many people as the lowest of the low, the one thing they would not do, because it implied that they failed at the bare minimum criteria of being an adult: supporting themselves and their family. You might legitimately argue that modern black culture doesn't have this stigma, but I think it's more accurate to say that the New Deal worked to eliminate this stigma among the poor in general; now, huge swathes of the elderly, the infirm, and the simply poor have no trouble taking money from the government, and students accept low-cost loans and Pell Grants from the Feds without a second thought. You can argue, in fact, that certain programs -- like Social Security and the Earned-Income Credit -- are specifically designed to provide "charity" in disguise, without making it seem charitable, to help break down this stigma.
But self-sufficiency is still seen as a virtue, so there's this odd dichotomy: people who are on welfare are often considered to be abusing the public good, but society is "officially" discouraged from calling them wastrels and the recipients themselves are carefully protected from exposure to that scorn at an official level. But it leaks down, so they pick up a sense of generalized disdain -- without perhaps understanding why people are disapproving of them, since they lack the "handouts are shameful" tradition in their immediate past (and note that young childbirth and broken families accelerate the "immediacy" of this past, since one way to perpetuate traditions is to maintain a strong family line; if the only person in your household is your 15-year-old mother, herself a runaway from a family of teenage drug addicts, you're going to be lacking a lot of social signifiers.)
So perhaps the different attitude towards "money" is instead a lack of shame towards charity. It's easy to confuse this with a lack of materialism -- but, hey, it's flatly ridiculous to argue that black culture isn't materialistic; in Gary, where I grew up, being even moderately middle-class meant that you flaunted your "wealth" like a rock star. Raiders jackets, flash sneakers, "bling," hydraulic suspensions -- all these things are "hey, look at my money!" excesses, and it's a bit disingenuous to argue that these are just twisted inheritances from "white" culture.
[ March 23, 2006, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:I think you all have a narrow view of literature. I'm not talking about Dostoevsky, as much as Paul Dunbar.
It doesn't matter. I strongly suspect the average dropout (black or white or asian or hispanic) perceives a much greater need to be taught how to make money than to be taught either of those authors.
quote:Maybe Scopatz could design a poll, but if we polled white men and black men on what is the most important political priority, I think, and I could be wrong, security and economic policy are going to score much, much, much higher with white men than they do with black men.
I would not be so sure about that. But I would bet "teaching more liberal arts in schools" is going to score higher with white men - even if only based on the percentage of fellow students of color in my philosophy classes vs. the percentage of students of color who were in my business classes in college. (Minorities were MUCH better represented in the business classes.)
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:This is a steaming load, Irami -- or are you going to say that "pimp my crib" and gold "bling" are products of WASP culture?
No, they are our bastard caricatures. Clowns. The problem is that their white and immigrant counter-parts, gaudy in a different way, are seen as paragons achieving the American dream.
__________
quote:But I would bet "teaching more liberal arts in schools" is going to score higher with white men - even if only based on the percentage of fellow students of color in my philosophy classes vs. the percentage of students of color who were in my business classes in college. (Minorities were MUCH better represented in the business classes.)
Do I really have to explain how you are working with a skewed sample, the kids who could have benefitted have already dropped out or didn't have the marks to get into UVA, not to mention my views on Anglo-infused worthlessness of popular philosophy pedagogy. ______
Tom, re your edit,
quote:But self-sufficiency is still seen as a virtue, so there's this odd dichotomy: people who are on welfare are often considered to be abusing the public good, but society is "officially" discouraged from calling them wastrels and the recipients themselves are carefully protected from exposure to that scorn at an official level. But it leaks down, so they pick up a sense of generalized disdain -- without perhaps understanding why people are disapproving of them, since they lack the "handouts are shameful" tradition in their immediate past (and note that young childbirth and broken families accelerate the "immediacy" of this past, since one way to perpetuate traditions is to maintain a strong family line; if the only person in your household is your 15-year-old mother, herself a runaway from a family of teenage drug addicts, you're going to be lacking a lot of social signifiers.)
You are not wrong. The myth of self-sufficiency does do a lot of work in seperating black people from white people. According to Alasdair MacIntyre, it comes from Aristotle's Ethics, as Aristotle's sensibilities held so much sway in the early formation of Europe and then, like small pox and democracy, came over on the Mayflower. It's not a simple problem because somehow Truimph and Bush are seen as self-made businessmen, but I do believe that the demands and quality of self-sufficiency are differently perceived through the races. Some people think that only private industry people are really self-sufficient. I need to do some more reading and thinking about self-sufficiency.
[ March 23, 2006, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Irami, I think you've mis-stated the Protestant ethic, which equates virtue with hard work, not earnings. Of course, hard work will get you money reasonably often, but it's not a simple equation of godliness=gain.
If you really view working for a living as being treated like livestock, I don't know that we have enough in common to even discuss the issue meaningfully. I'm not happy about cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors for a living--I'm not suited to manual labor, and my efforts in getting a degree are being wasted--but it's not "beneath me". If it makes the people who eat at Cracker Barrel enjoy their food more because the restaurant is clean instead of dirty, or if my efforts at proper sanitation stop someone from getting sick, then my work is worthwhile. I don't have to be pontificating on the meaning of life to validate my existence.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Do I really have to explain how you are working with a skewed sample, the kids who could have benefitted have already dropped out or didn't have the marks to get into UVA, not to mention my views on Anglo-infused worthlessness of popular philosophy pedagogy.
So you think black high school dropouts are MORE likely to prefer liberal arts over business than black university students? I think you are really stretching the truth to make your argument on this point...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*laugh* I edited my earlier post above to be MUCH longer, and Mabus wound up saying it better than I did.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Thanks, Tom, and you might be interested to know that self-sufficiency as a value is far from dead, though it may be on its way out. It's part of the reason working-class whites vote Republican so much--we don't feel we deserve government handouts. (Repubs can get some traction with tax cuts because that casts the issue as our own money given back to us instead of spent.) It's allowable to accept money if that's the only way to stay alive, but anyone who can work for a living, ought to. We don't like being treated like children, perpetual wards of the state who can't take care of ourselves.
I hope that didn't derail the thread, but it's already come a long way from where it started.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Mabus,
But you have to understand that it's a sophisticated understanding of self-sufficiency. Capital from family, tips from friends, "networking," even using good credit, are all more or less allowable.
Truthfully, and this definitely puts me at odds with Booker T. Washington, I'd rather jettison that term look more closely at the essential mutuality that more appropriately explains our time on this planet with each other.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
As a side note, the Protestant work ethic is problematic because hard work and self-sufficiency aren't always very good values to have when valued for their own sake. Self-sufficiency for it's own sake tends to lead to foolishness when people are unable to be self-sufficient, ranging from refusing to ask for directions to refusing charity when one's family needs it. And hard work for it's own sake tends to encourage inefficiency - doing things the hard way when a smarter, easier way is available.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Capital from family, tips from friends, "networking," even using good credit, are all more or less allowable.
Well, no. Nepotism and inheritances ARE seen as "lesser" ways to become successful; we still prize a "self-made man." People who are lauded for their success despite having benefited from those other elements on the way up are praised despite those bits, and generally try to downplay them when telling their personal story.
That said, Tres is right: the "Protestant" work ethic is flawed in many ways.
But I'm not sure how that's related to this conversation in any meaningful way.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Irami, good points.
I should note that the things you mention are voluntarily given--not confiscated by the state. It's hard to believe it's right to give to others, but never to accept from them. But you're right that it's too simple to just say "self-sufficiency" and leave it at that.
As for "essential mutuality", I don't mind trading with another person on equal terms--I don't insist on building and programming my own computer, and so on. But when I think of being dependent on someone else without giving them something specific in return, I can't help but feel that I'm cheating them--I feel guilt. I have trouble imagining that that's wrong, because it's quite thoroughly bound up with more conventional kinds of theft.
That said, I think I've said a good deal more that had more to do with the topic than my last post, and I'd rather discuss that. If you need more time to think about it, no problem, but I hope you're not ignoring it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*nod* I'm with Mabus. I don't want the questions of, for example, what Irami thinks "black people" are like -- or why he believes young blacks are more likely to appreciate liberal arts education -- to get lost in the mix.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
A job is a job. Most jobs lower paying jobs are morally arbitrary, and a whole lot of better paying jobs are even shameful, and some are glorious. Tom was wrong when he said that I conflate what I do for a living with who I am. I install and maintain computer stations. *shrugs* Most people don't know that that's what I do to pay rent. It never comes up in conversation because I just don't care that much about it. I take a little bit of pride in the business, but not much. I'm good at it. Whatever. I was a very good Union organizer and a middling writer, and I'm much more proud of those endeavors.
There is the issue that many students are being told to stay in school so that they can get a better job. I think that this is a poor argument to a people who seperate their job from their sense of dignity.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:But I'm not sure how that's related to this conversation in any meaningful way.
Psssh... things have to be related on Hatrack now? Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
It's related because that ethic pervades our politics and priorities, including how and why we administer public education. Also, it does work in explaining why some people are estranged from those same politics and priorities.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
All of the highschool dropouts I've spoken to (regardless of race) were lured by a chance at immediate income rather than deferred. Just my experience.
Also from my experience, I cannot see children of any race thinking "Faugh! Wherefore shouldst I remain in the educational system! My moral field remains fallow, and I refuse to be a lamb led to the slaughter that is material wealth!" Dare I say, I feel that your view of kids and teenagers is a bit too noble.
Listen, I despise the race for material goods that seems so common in America. It seems to me that the only way to NOT be ivestock to my employer is to be a skilled worker, and make a conscious choice to avoid positions where I'm expected to work a ton of hours a week. This, of course, does serve to limit my income.
quote: Maybe I'll put it in a way you guys can understand, whether true or not, I believe that the most practical skill a young black male can have is nimble mind and a solid sense of dignity.
I believe this is true for any young males. I also believe that neither of things things necessarily come from education.
Thing is, I don't think we can or should change the education system to "reflect the unique concerns of being a black citizen in America." I'm all for generic, non-targeted public education. In my opinion, that kind of direct, targeted education needs to come from at home or within the community.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Irami,
Suppose I take your idea as a starting point: blacks are estranged from American policies and priorities; they value intellectual and moral development more than making money.
Does it then make sense that they would complain, "American society discriminates against me. I can't get a good job/make money/get people to not look down on me because I don't follow The System"? If we suppose that it does make sense, is it ethically consistent? And finally, if this is the root of the problem, what does it have to do with race? (Weren't white hippies treated the same way?)
If I'm not following you, correct at will.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Suppose I take your idea as a starting point: blacks are estranged from American policies and priorities; they value intellectual and moral development more than making money.
It's not a matter of what they conciously value, it's a matter of what is required.
quote:I'm all for generic, non-targeted public education.
Let's pretend there was an elvish requirement. Everybody has to go to school and take two years of elvish of because the architects of public education happened to be Tolkien fans. (We are going to forget the anachronism). You, while thinking Tolkien is nice, for the most part believe that the elvish language req is stupid, and even though you know that shutting up and putting up with the elvish requirement will get you through the system, you simply dread going to class. Also, you have a bad history with elves.
Now you notice that the other people, either really like elvish language like Tolkien or don't care either way, but put their head down and do the work, because they want the grades and the job. It's only a short hop from being anti-elvish to anti-education because elvish is required by the educational institution. Resentment starts going both ways because those who are happy with the requirement say, "Look, just do it. The language cool, and either way, in a few years, you won't have to worry about it," and you are saying, "You all are just pawns of the system." The pro-elvish education people are self-satisfied with the current flawed curriculum, the anti-elvish people throw out the entire institution, elvish, english, history, science. Now the immigrants, god bless them, don't give a hoot either way. They'll learn elvish, Tasmanian, Gaelic, whatever morally ridiculous practice it takes to enjoy the picture of the successful American, and now we have the situation that we are in today.
Swampjedi,
quote:"Faugh! Wherefore shouldst I remain in the educational system! My moral field remains fallow, and I refuse to be a lamb led to the slaughter that is material wealth!"
Now it usually comes closer to, "F___ this s___. If all this B__s__ is about the paper chase, I can make alls I need doing it my way."
[ March 23, 2006, 11:30 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Irami.
That's not a black-only sentiment. Lots of my family has it as well.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
But Irami, it seems to me that you're the one proposing the elvish requirement. You've said yourself that current school curricula are targeted at getting people employed and nothing more. If anything, it's the liberal arts elements of school that equate to "elvish", and that seems to be what you want to emphasize.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Mabus, we are talking past each other. I have to go now.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
I guess we are, Irami. I don't understand at all.
I also have to go.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
quote: Maybe I'll put it in a way you guys can understand, whether true or not, I believe that the most practical skill a young black male can have is nimble mind and a solid sense of dignity.
****************
I believe this is true for any young males.
I belive this is true for any person at all.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Why don't the two of you sort out your difficulties on the walk to the potty, then?
Geez, no need to announce it.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Revisiting something on the last page....
quote: The Summerhill school looks a bit hippy for me. I don't have a problem with lesson plans or curriculum, and I think that, for the most part, the teacher should design them with an eye towards the student's moral development.
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What I got out of the story of the Boy who Called Wolf was that people were easily fooled and dumb sheep most of the time, and that the person who wrote the fable didn't know much about wolves. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's possible that I had a superior grade school teacher.
A few comments. Summerhill THE BOOK is about educational philosophy and is quite deep and it's main point is children's desire to learn and how it correllates with moral development. Don't brush it off as hippy-dipish, the school started in 1920, long before hippies existed.
And, read the dang book before you judge it by its cover. In fact, I'll make you a deal, if you read this book (which I was able to obtain at a public library in CA) I will read one equivalent book of your choice Irami, to help me understand your perspective on children's education, or the perspective of minorities in the USA.
As far as the teacher and AEsop's fable... isn't the whole point for the teacher to present the story, and let the children draw their own moral conclusions? Of course I knew what conclusion I was *supposed* to draw. But somehow it didn't work for me and the whole thing seemed like a trite over-simplification of the wide range human responses to a given incident.
(I think I read it when I was 4 or so, btw. And I read it from a 3rd or 4th grade public school (I believe Hardcourt, Brace and Jovanavich) textbook. No one told me what to think about it at all. The instant you get a teacher trying to steer a kid to a particular conclusion, you've got moral interpretations going on.)
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
the following fable (in the textbook) was about the crow that dropped pebbles in a glass of water so he could get a drink, and there was also the lion caught in a net fable too.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I just can't figure out which lesson being taught to black men -- or women -- in schools is so objectionable that, by Irami's lights, they are rejecting education altogether in disgust. When I was teaching English to an at-risk class in Cleveland, most of the students there who wanted to drop out wanted to do so because they thought English was useless and they felt they needed more vocational education -- not the reverse.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Yeah, I have to admit that I find the thought of young men, black or otherwise, quitting school because it doesn't have enough literature in the curriculum to be laughable.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
See, that's what I think, Tom.
-pH
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
And I think it's something that ALL students encounter at one point or another. You're in school, and you're taking a subject that you think is hard or boring or whatever, and you think to yourself, "Why do I have to know this? I'm never going to use this in real life." I had that problem when I was learning algebra in seventh grade. But it seems like the kind of thing that you either get over, and you learn to appreciate the subject for the sake of learning or because you become interested, or you drop out or drag through it doing the bare minimum. I love math now. I looooove it. Calculus and statistics and all kinds of things. I even took a college course on the history of math. But at that point in seventh grade, if anyone had told me that I'd feel this way, I'd have thought they were absolutely insane.
-pH
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
I can't figure it out either. Unfortunately, I don't have any real experience to back me up as you two do (though as I see it the answer is fairly obvious). I don't recall meeting anyone in my high school who wanted to drop out, or who did drop out (it's possible they were just not in my social circle, and/or that I mistakenly thought they had moved away). Moreover, even if I did it would tell me nothing about black experience because my home county is a hotbed of _real_ racism--African-Americans are virtually unknown there, and many people want to keep it that way. (Not as many as once did--things are slowly improving.)
Irami is a real unknown to me. He's clearly not another aspectre, but I find it utterly difficult to comprehend where he's coming from or what he wants. It looks like the rest of you are having the same problems, so it's not just me.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Oh, I never wanted to drop out.
I'm just saying that I think everyone experiences the thought that X subject is useless in real life, why do I have to learn it anyway.
I didn't even know that you COULD drop out of school until I was in high school. Actually, I didn't know that you had an option NOT to go to a four-year college until high school, either.
-pH
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: What I got out of the story of the Boy who Called Wolf was that people were easily fooled and dumb sheep most of the time, and that the person who wrote the fable didn't know much about wolves.
What I got out of the story of the Boy who Cried Wolf was that in the end, probably all the townspeople got eaten, because they'd decided that a liar is a liar and can never tell the truth.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:It may even be a profitable society. But I think I'd rather live in a ghetto.
The funny thing is...ask people in a ghetto.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Yeah, I have to admit that I find the thought of young men, black or otherwise, quitting school because it doesn't have enough literature in the curriculum to be laughable.
I do as well.
However, I don't think that Irami is quite saying that directly. He seems to be saying that:
Blacks need to be taught dignity and self-respect. It is the school's responsibility to do so. The best way to do so is to teach and emphasize literature more. The reason blacks don't stay in school is because they don't feel they are being taught what they subconciously need (self dignity and respect).
So I think he's saying that they're not staying because they are not learning dignity and self respect. Literature was just what Irami sees as the best way to approach that.
I agree more with Tom's view of teach them what and how, and then why (the whole service as utility discussion). This is probably just cause I'm Mormon (a product of a white American religion as Irami once put it), but I think back to what I learned about love.
I think you can read every love poem ever written. Study every piece of literature on love. Listen to what the philosophers have to say. However, if instead of that, you spend 1 year of your life loving someone with all your heart, serving them, sacrificing for them, etc, I contend that you will learn more in that 1 year of doing than if you spent a lifetime of reading.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Blacks need to be taught dignity and self-respect. It is the school's responsibility to do so.
And this is where many of us disagree with him, because we don't think it is the school's responsibility or should be. It should be the parents' responsibility.
Schools can help, but they are no substitute for good parenting.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
No, but they can sometimes be an antidote for bad parenting. Especially helping kids break out of a cycle of generations of bad parenting.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
I'm not supporting his assertations. In fact, I disagree with most of them on a point-by-point basis. I'm just merely trying to clear up what I felt was a slightly unfair characterization of his argument. Although what Xavier said does follow from what Irami has said, it just seemed over simplistic. Then again, I'm sure my summary of his arguments was oversimplistic is well. So I apologize to those whom I've offended.
As for your point Belle, I completely agree with what you said. I don't want schools teaching my (future) children what morality is.
I think what Irami sees is the incredible number of black children whose parents have abrogated this responsibility. He also recognizes that this is not a good thing for the children or for society. Part of what he's been presenting has been his solution for this. In the interest of discussion, what is your solution for this Belle?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:what is your solution for this Belle?
*bitter laugh* I wish I had one.
My husband knows a pair of twins who are seniors in high school. They were raised by a single mom who wasn't home half the time and live in the projects in an area where they average a couple of shootings and stabbings per week. The kids joined a program that allowed them to go on ride-alongs at the fire station, so they got to know the firemen like my husband well.
Good kids. We've had them over to the house before. Not long ago, they helped us put up a fence when we got our puppies. Wes paid them at the end of the day and we fed them, and they fell over themselves thanking us because they didn't expect to be paid - they had volunteered to come help out of appreciation for everything Wes had done for them. What had he done for them?
He taught them geometry. He was helping them with their math homework one night and they mentioned they wished they could take geometry and learn more math than they were being taught. When he asked them why they weren't, the kids said they were "stupid black kids" and the school had encouraged them to take remedial math instead.
So I'm not living in a dream world where I believe that these kids have every opportunity that say, my kids have. I know they don't. They don't have good parents, they don't have a father figure in their lives at all unless you count the fifteen firefighters that they spend so much time with. And they had bought into the idea that they were poor, stupid, and black and teaching them geometry was a waste of time.
dkw is right - there are generations of bad parenting to overcome. But I don't think the schools are the solution, necessarily. In this case, the schools were just part of the problem. Think about the teachers in those schools. I can tell you, when I investigated becoming a secondary school teacher myself, the inner city schools were offering all kinds of incentives to get teachers to come teach there, but they are still always understaffed. Most teachers don't want to work there. They'd rather work in the suburbs where there are no metal detectors on the door, no full-time police officers patroling the halls keeping the peace and kids that aren't "too stupid to teach geometry." So the vicious cycle isn't only in the parenting, it's in the schools too. Not that there aren't wonderful teachers in the inner city schools, in some cases there are, but they're too few. Sadly, just too few.
How do we make a difference and break the cycle? I wish I knew. I freely admit I don't have the answers, but I don't think teaching them more literature is really going to make the difference. The things that need to be changed aren't curriculum, but attitudes. The attitudes of the parents, the kids themselves, and the teachers too. And we all know attitudes don't change overnight.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Belle, one of my teachers in middle school had taken a pay cut to teach there (a private prep school) after a student in one of his public school classes tried to stab him.
What kinds of incentives do the inner-city schools offer, anyway? Because money probably isn't too effective for teachers who really love teaching. As far as I know, my school offered lower starting pay than the public schools, but teachers chose to teach there anyway. I think the school might've offered more benefits, though...
-pH
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
I was hoping you had the answer, cause I don't see it either. As Tom pointed out, similar programs were tried in the public school systems in the past, without success. Although Irami's suggestion is different in details, it is similar in approach and philosophy.
I just don't see any fix able to take the place of having good parents, and I don't see any way to make people be good parents.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
I admit that my statement was over-simplistic, and like I said, I don't even really disagree with Irami on his high level points.
I also agree with him on his "elvish" analogy of why a lot of students think about quitting high school.
But like someone else mentioned, as often as not, the "elvish" classes were the history and english classes among my fellow students. I seriously doubt that black students are any different in this regard.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
I appreciate Tom's suggestion that teaching utility and service would be ways of changing attitudes and creating self-respect. I am not certain though how you would apply this to a typical education. How does somebody feel useful while learning any core subject? Learning itself is not a productive activity. Applying that learning is. And where does service fit into normal curriculums? Or do you perhaps mean adding on these two things to the existing curriculums? I am intrigued by your suggestion and wondering what you had in mind. Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:What kinds of incentives do the inner-city schools offer, anyway?
It's been a while since I looked into teaching, so things may be different. I do remember there were housing allowances for people who would agree to both teach and live in the area, and I think there was a program that would pay off your student loans if you taught in a low-performing public school.
I know some of them aren't available anymore, because my cousin is trying to get her degree in math and education - she wants to be a high school math teacher - and the state dept. of education told her many incentive programs have been suspended due to lack of funds, including the incentive for math and science teachers which was the one she was hoping she could take advantage of.
Still, there are so many teaching vacancies around, most teachers can find jobs in the school system they want to teach in. So, it's very difficult for these inner city schools to recruit teachers.
As for me, I intended to teach high school English and wanted to work close to home and to my kids, so that would have put me here in St. Clair County. I would have been eligible for some of the incentives because there are some very poor, very rural schools in this county that are not performing up to standards. I still may do it - I haven't ruled it out entirely, though now I'm leaning toward getting my master's degree and teaching in the community college system instead.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
I think we all see the problem from a different perspective and this colors what we see as solutions. Irami's biases make the problem appear to be that system, controlled by whites. His solution is to change the system. As a member of the LDS faith, my biases make this appear to be a family problem, caused by poor or nonexistant parenting. My solution would be along the lines of changing the parenting. Once you add the complexity of different ways of reaching our solutions, you could have a myriad of approaches off just two ways of looking at the problem. Add even more perspectives and it's amazing we can even communicate to be honest.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
quote: Learning itself is not a productive activity
It isn't? Learning exercises your brain. Excercising your brain is good for it, even if the information learned may not have any practical application at that given moment in time.
In fact I believe learning for the fun of learning itself, is one of the most productive activities one can engage in. Particularly when a child. (Again I reference Summerhill, The Book)
(Note: people with Ivory Tower complexes aren't learning for the fun, and sheer enjoyment of learning itself so don't say that I meant this.)
In my case, the knowledge I learned for the fun of it, has probably been more useful to me overall in my life, than the knowledge I had to learn in order to be a productive member of Society.
I love learning new things, whether or not they have any direct immediate application in my life.
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Question, do any of you know who is considered the founder of [modern] public education in the USA?
*grin* here's a quote from that person.
quote:If we are willing to conceive education as the process of forming fundamental disposition, intellectual and emotional, toward nature and fellow-men, philosophy may even be defined as the general theory of education. Unless a philosophy is to remain symbolic—or verbal-or a sentimental indulgence for a few, or else mere arbitrary dogma, its auditing of past experience and its program of values must take effect in conduct
Remind you of anyone? AJ
[ March 23, 2006, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
BannaOJ,
I wonder if we have different definitions of productive. I also love learning for the sheer joy of it. However, I do not feel like I have produced anything from it. When all I do is learn, I do not feel like I am contributing anything to the world outside of myself. Learning is mostly a passive activity. I read a book, listen to a lecture, etc. I don't feel like I DO things when I'm learning. I'm not trying to devalue learning. But for me at least, I feel much productive when I am actively doing.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Ahhh, there is definitely a difference in our definition of "learning" for sure. Learning, to me, is inherently *not* a passive activity.
Something that engages and challenges the brain is not passive. Simply reading a book isn't really learning. You have to be mentally engaged with the book beyond passivity. You have to not just be absorbing what is said but creating your own thoughts as well on the topic, and have them resonate out into the world you see around you beyond just sitting and listening to a lecture, (although the same thing can happen while sitting and listening to a lecture as well.)
Maybe it's the methods by which I was taught.
For example: I learned the organs of the body, first, having my outline traced onto a sheet of butcher paper, and then sketching the organs all in, then cutting out colored pieces of fabric based on the patterns of the sketched, and sewing an apron that had the layout of my main organs and digestive system on it that you could look down and see whenever you wore the apron.
I learned about the parts of a flower, partially from a picture book, but from going out and picking flowers, looking at them under magnifying glasses and carefully peeling the layers off. The same with leaves, stripping them down to their veins. Watching them as they turned colors and crumbling them in my hands as they dried out, and seeing how the veins remained the longest.
I learned about gears by tearing an old mechanical alarm clock apart with a friend, a screwdriver and a hammer. My first understandings of force and moment applications came from asking the question of "Why when you swing your knees does the swing move?" And I learned the Robert Louis Stevenson poem too, to say while I swang because it had a lovely rythmn for it.
I learned about skeletons and mammals by climbing on a blue whale skeleton.
I learned about metabolism and thermoregulation of both plants and animals, because I wanted to find out why goose bumps happened.
I learned chemistry because I wanted to know how atoms and molecules stuck together. Why solids were solid and Jello was an exception.
I didn't truly "learn" algebra, though, until I excuted the steps several hundred times. I wanted to understand, I could manipulate the numbers correctly but only after the umpteenth time did I understand the "why". (If they would only teach calculus and physics before algebra, life and math would make more sense to the people that claim advanced math is useless for most people.) But even then, the mental excercise of learning and executing complicated steps correctly is a good habit, for disciplining the brain, and one that can pay off in a multitude of ways in real life.
Methodical step-wise thinking enables you to clearly explain concepts to others, even if you've already made an intuitive leap and know the answer. And without truly knowing and understanding the methodical underpinnings of logical thought the intuitive leaps don't work.
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Oh and to me, also all of the above are productive. If your brain has been tuned up and is functioning well, it can't but help all of your external interactions with society. Not to mention that they've done studies that show that choosing to remain mentally engaged and learning new things later in life, can often contributed to improved function in your geriatric years, and if you have improved brain functions then you will be less of a drain on society.
AJ
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
A couple of thoughts on the notion of moral education at an early age.
Any program of school-sponsored moral education ought to have as its goal not just instilling correct moral beliefs in kids, but instilling the beliefs for the right reasons. You want them to believe that something is right because it is right, and not just because they've been indoctrinated.
But this creates problems for the notion of moral education in second or third grade, because kids that age just aren't prepared to do moral reasoning. Their brains aren't wired that way yet. The old Kohlberg study on moral psychology was flawed because of some of its presuppositions about what counts as "advanced" moral thought, but the empirical results were good. And they indicated that young children aren't really reasoning about right and wrong -- they're giving conditioned responses to stimulus. It's only later in life that people become capable of thinking and arguing about ethics.
Maybe you could find some way of accelerating the development process, but without doing that first, trying to educate young children about the foundations of ethical right and wrong will be a doomed endeavor. There's a reason we wait until high school to teach serious classes in government. It's only at that point that children are able to grasp what's at stake in ethical discourse.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote: Students like the Zoghbis would get an education more tailored to their career plans under a proposal from Gov. Jeb Bush that education experts say would make Florida the first state to require incoming high school freshmen to declare a major, just like college students. The Florida House passed the Republican-sponsored bill Thursday 85-35 on a straight party-line vote. It faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
Bush said the plan would help prepare students better for the real world and reduce the dropout rate by making school more interesting. Last year, nearly 3 percent of Florida's 800,000 high school students dropped out.
quote: Under Florida's plan, high school students would be able to major in such subjects as humanities, English, communications, math, science, history, social studies, arts, foreign languages and vocational skills. They would also have to declare a minor.
For example, to prepare for her career, Lila would have to earn four credits in major courses like engineering, space technology and physics, 15 core credits in courses like math, science and English and 5 minor credits in elective courses like drama, zoology and Spanish.
quote:Mary Exum, a Pensacola area science teacher, warned that most high school freshmen may not be mature enough to decide which track they will follow for four years. Most college students change their majors several times, she said.
Maybe we should just let black students choose for themselves.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
What a weird...
Would students still be guaranteed to get all of their requirements in if they decided to go to college? I mean, what if they "majored" in science and didn't take enough language classes, or something?
-pH
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Well, informally that was kind of how my high school was. There were some agricultural sciences & business classes (also FFA, Rodeo club, etc) for people who were interested in that route. There was welding and engine classes for people that might want to go to a votec school. You could do sciences and math if that was your thing. We also had a great orchestra and band program, as well as choir, drama, etc. It's just that people weren't forced to commit to anything. I could see both advantages and disadvantages in requiring them to do so.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
My school just offered tons of APs.
But we didn't have the option not to go to college. They're really big on their 100% of graduates going straight on to a four-year college.
-pH
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
That Florida program would just lead to stratification, like the European equivalents now in existence. One major would end up being most advantageous for college-bound kids, and everyone who wants to go to college would pick it. The kids who chose other majors would be funnelled into blue-collar work.
My opinion: high school students aren't ready to specialize. They're not scholars yet, they're just beginning to form a background of skills and knowledge.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'd agree to a compromise. Force them to do a little bit of everything for their first two years, and then allow them to choose half their classes for their junior and senior years. I don't think they necessarily realize all their options going into high school, and that's what the first couple of years are for. But once they realize that they hate math, or hate history (pfft, as if anyone could), they shouldn't be forced to take superflous amounts of it, just enough to have a basic understanding to make them functional citizens and human beings. After that let them specialize. I took three years of math in high school, which was a year or two more than I think I needed. I dropped pre-calc my senior year to take AP Bio, which was more rewarding, and which I was a hundred times more suited for.
We aren't talking about kids dropping basic arithmatic for other classes, but face facts. A 16 year old usually has a fairly decent idea about what direction he wants to take his life in. Enough anyway, to know whether or not he needs that extra English or extra chemistry class. I know, for a fact, that I'll never need a majority of what I learned in high school regarding math. I'm going to be a history teacher. I know how to balance my checkbook and do percentages in my head, and I have my accountant do my taxes for me. If I had been given the option of not taking two of those years of math, I would have gladly opted out either in favor of more biological science classes or history classes. And I think it would have prepared me better for college, and life in general.
Give the kids the BASIC tools they need, then give them some personal responsibility and choice. One size does NOT fit all.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Lyrhawn, when I was sixteen, I was still considering becoming a doctor. So no, sixteen-year-olds have no idea in what direction they want their lives to go.
I ended up taking...*counts* If you count pre-algebra, I took 7 math courses, 5 or 6 sciences (one of them counted as one class but was really a semester of genetics and a semester of organic chemistry), 4 foreign language, 2-3 fine arts, 4 English Lit, 3-4 history (again, one class with a semester each of a different subject)..uh....some PE....
I would've been pretty pissed if someone had made me focus. I think having a CHOICE in classes is good, but having to choose a "major" just seems silly.
-pH
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I defnitely don't think 16-17 year olds are old enough to choose a major. Heck, I'm 34 and about to change mine again.
Some kids know exactly what they want to do in high school and go on to college with that goal firmly in mind and never waver, but I think they are a small minority.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I think the Florida plan could be a great idea. One of the big problems with high school is that most of what you are studying is usually not related to your interests. By high school, kids are developing well-defined interest areas - just ask them and they will tell you what they care about. Education should be providing them the tools to explore those interests, rather than trying to turn out a bunch of identical graduates with a standard set of knowledge. Students are not interested in being the products of a factory system. They are interested in what they are interested in - and will be far more willing to study if what they are learning seems attached to those interests. By giving them a major to focus on, I think this has the capacity to really help motivate them.
However, it would be mistake to use high school majors as an excuse to let them out of important high school requirements. No student should skip chemistry on the grounds that they are "majoring" in business, or skip calculus because they are interested in art. The reason for this, I think, is simple - interests change! We don't want to be restricting their future career choices in high school, just because as a freshman they think they want to be an astronaut. They may want to be a doctor three years later. So, we need to continue to ensure that students get the basic foundation they need. A major should serve as a focus to make use of that foundation, rather than a specialization.
Incidently, I feel the same way about college. Even in and after college, interests change. I think you are making a mistake if you specialize solely in one area in college, and fail to take coursework in other areas. That doesn't mean college majors are bad - it just means that one needs to be more well-rounded than just what their major would require.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by pH: Lyrhawn, when I was sixteen, I was still considering becoming a doctor. So no, sixteen-year-olds have no idea in what direction they want their lives to go.
You'll forgive me if I don't take your personal anecdotal evidence as fact. Treso said it better perhaps, by the time you are 16, you have a really good idea as to what you do and don't like. Kids may or may not know what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but they know which subjects they look forward to and not, and should be given the option to pursue them and leave behind extra classes that they know for a fact they can't stand.
I don't think it should rule all four years of high school, I think they should be made to take a full spectrum of classes for the first two years, and after that they should take stock of what they like and don't like, and focus the last two years before they go into college (or tradeschool). If some kids don't know what they want to do, then fine, those kids can have a more general curriculum. But there are kids, a LOT of kids, who really do know or have a good idea as to what they want to do. Give em a leg up.
Besides, when it really comes down to it, how far back are you really setting a kid if he changes his major in college? Let's say he drops history classes his last two years to take more math classes, but later decides he actually wants to pursue history. Most history majors in college have to take core classes that cover world and US history anyway, so it's not like they really missed out on anything, they still have to take it. Likewise, if it was reversed, it might take them a year of math classes to catch up, but it's not the end of the world. The kids who change their mind during college have to do the same thing anyway.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I forgot to mention two issues on this thread:
1) There is a frightening number of inmates in jail because, at some point in time, they chose thoughtlessly in criminal situation. Not because they were malicious as much as because they were unaware or unengaged. To make it the case that these people do not go to prison, we could actively reduce the number of potential criminal situations. It's the moving to the suburbs approach. Which is laudable to a degree, but I really think that in many cases, it pushes the problems to later in life, so instead stealing candy bars from the corner store or bullying at school, they are pilfering money from a work or the public trust or become hyper-aggressive or subservient in the workplace or public sphere.
2) A second reason why character education belongs in the public curriculum is because when someone breaks a law, we throw them in a public jail. We do not send them to their parent's house, nor do the parents have an inordinate sway as to the punishment or lawfulness of the offender's action. The law doesn't enforce the parents rules, the law enforces the people's rules, and that's why, to some degreee, the people are obliged to state their case in the classroom before the crime is committed.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Didn't somebody already bring up that the average college student changes his/her major like three times?
-pH
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: I forgot to mention two issues on this thread:
1) There is a frightening number of inmates in jail because, at some point in time, they chose thoughtlessly in criminal situation.
The way you say it, it sounds like they were just standing around, and *zip* they found themselves in a criminal situation.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Not because they were malicious as much as because they were unaware or unengaged.
Because they made bad choices. And they own those choices, just like I own mine. Why do you want to exempt them from responsibility for their choices?
I have a cousin -- well, my Mom's cousin, anyway. She wants to claim the kinship, while I'm not at all interested in doing so. He was a federal judge. As I understand it, he got stung in a sting, and got busted for being willing to give up the names of people in witness protection for money. I don't know all the details, and I don't want to. He's been in jail for 13 years, and unfortunately, he's going to be let out in the next few years. I'd let him rot.
He did exactly what the people you're talking about did. He made a bad choice, because he wanted something, and he felt that his wants were more important than the rights of others.
I don't care what his excuses are. And I don't care what the excuses are of the people you claim just blinked and were magically transported into the middle of a criminal situation. And if you were one of the victims, I don't think you'd care very much either.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: To make it the case that these people do not go to prison, we could actively reduce the number of potential criminal situations.
I don't understand. Where do you think these criminal situations come from? If someone goes to rob a liquor store, he has created the criminal situation. He hasn't just found himself in one.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: It's the moving to the suburbs approach. Which is laudable to a degree, but I really think that in many cases, it pushes the problems to later in life, so instead stealing candy bars from the corner store or bullying at school, they are pilfering money from a work or the public trust or become hyper-aggressive or subservient in the workplace or public sphere.
So if I understand correctly, you're against people trying to acculturate. You want them to be able to keep acting the same way they do in, say, the inner city, but do it in the suburbs. And in this way, those pesky "criminal situations" will stay away, and the innocent people who keep getting tripped up in said criminal situations will stay out of jail. Is that accurate? If not, do please correct me.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: 2) A second reason why character education belongs in the public curriculum is because when someone breaks a law, we throw them in a public jail. We do not send them to their parent's house, nor do the parents have an inordinate sway as to the punishment or lawfulness of the offender's action. The law doesn't enforce the parents rules, the law enforces the people's rules, and that's why, to some degreee, the people are obliged to state their case in the classroom before the crime is committed.
"State their case"? You're joking, right? There's a case to state that you're not supposed to stick a gun in someone's face and demand that they empty the cash register?
And if the law enforces the people's rules rather than the parents' rules, that implies that the parents aren't teaching their children the people's rules. Maybe they ought to reconsider that, you know? Maybe it's their responsibility to teach their children to respect the law.
Honestly Irami, if you have children and you're constantly talking in your house about how the white man is holding you down and how the laws are the white man's laws, and the like, then your kids are going to be pretty likely to not give a hoot about those laws. And then you can blame whitey when they wind up in jail.
But note that the initial failing was in the parenting.
Have you been reading the other racism thread? What do you think about students who tell a teacher in the middle of class, "I hate white people", and a black teacher who stands by and says nothing in response? Maybe it's the fault of the white teacher for daring to be a minority in a black school.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The way you say it, it sounds like they were just standing around, and *zip* they found themselves in a criminal situation.
...
Because they made bad choices. And they own those choices, just like I own mine. Why do you want to exempt them from responsibility for their choices?
This does happen - three people are in a car, two start sharing a joint, all three get busted. Unless the two stand up in court and take the blame, the one who wasn't smoking will likely get convicted.
I do think such a person made a bad choice, either in choice of friends or not getting out of the car immediately.
In Virginia, assuming nothing else is found in the car, typical first-time offender status is $100 fine, 12 months unsupervised probation or diversion into a rehab/community service program that results in no actual conviction.
I think this is the most common type of situation, but it can happen with more serious crimes. Some people are hanging out, two start fighting, a gun is drawn, and someone get shot. The non-involved friend leaves with the shooter - he's scare of the police, or retaliation, or something. Suddenly he's involved in some prety serious potential jail time, and the only one who can save him (assuming witnesses saw them leave) is the shooter.
Again, bad choices for sure. But I think it accurately fits Irami's description that "they chose thoughtlessly in criminal situation."
I don't know what Irami meant by a "frightening number," but it does happen.
Where education can help is by making what to do in such situations clear and working to engender trust that the police won't just pin something like this on whomever is convenient. I think the vast, vast majority of officers and prosecuters would not want to do so, but I don't blame people for suspecting otherwise.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Which is not New Orleans.![[Frown]](frown.gif)
But I am in favor of the free market, so maybe that makes up for it.![[No No]](graemlins/nono.gif)
"