From:

The black and white of uncivil 'culture' in classroom
By KATHLEEN PARKER
The Washington Post




Later in the same article




Questions:

How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?

Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst.

Deng,

I don't wish to comment on your thread at this time, but ...

Since you didn't include a link, I'll do it for you so that those so inclined can read the whole article in context.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editor...ok/4818116.html

Ooh.. let me!

If the columnist has her facts straight, well there's no excuse.

That said this isolated incident reflects not at all on the overall stance of the education system and is simply outlandish.

So the answer is...
How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?
They can't and thank God they don't have to.

Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst.
Well there are lynchings, genocide, and segregation to consider, but as second-tier racism goes that's pretty bad.

Edited to Add:
Oh and guess who helped her out apparently.

The EEOC.

Fancy that the Fed aren't giving the blacks a pass on racism, like I always hear they're doing.

I don't see the issue here- a complaint made to the EEOC, appropriate action being taken?

However- the point the article made about damages I think is true Turnea- and the outrage of the nation had this gone the other direction- had these been white students picking on a black teacher- all hell would have broke loose.

I do think that is part of the "acceptable to be racist against whites" culture that some are complaining about- though WAY less than racism against blacks- like, oh, us white fellas don't really have to worry about being stopped for "driving while white" - it is quite clear that the outrage would have stormed the nation.

The fact that they retaliated against her, well, that was horrible- what the heck where they thinking? :'(

I understand that the specter of reverse racism was a factor here, but it wasn't really referenced in the questions. In any case I don't think racism against whites is more acceptable to the nation, perspective simply dictates that as since is has no few powerful adherents its not as big a threat.

There's a reason why neo-nazis raise more hackles in Berlin than Boston.

history matters.

I don't have any interest in the particular questions posed here. I'm sure some of the members with a background in education such as BoF are better qualified to speak to the issue of educating Black students. But this thread is just the latest installment in the neverending saga of The Negro Problem as hashed out on America's Debate. A few times the intent is serious and thoughtful with an intentt to facilitate serious debate.

The rest of the time it's nothing but flame bait like Vampiel's "Where's Al Shartpon thread?" where a single heinous crime is skewed as a media conspiracy to cover up and protect Black criminal behavior. Here we go again with another question posed by Deng that starts with a generalization and becomes a sweeping indictment of ALL Black people.

Why are there are no such threads about what's wrong with White kids when a Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill their teachers and classmates at Columbine? Why is it when a Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling pull off a scam like Enron nobody wonders how bad it makes White CEO's look? When a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy butcher innocents, why aren't there columnists clucking their tongues with reproach about predatory and dangerous White men?

Perhaps because Black dysfunctional behavior is seen as something that reflects poorly upon all Blacks, while White dysfunctional behavior is chalked up to one lone nut and there's no great implication of all Whites. It's easy to see Blacks as "acting out" in ways that are criminal, dangerous, and problematic, while similar acts by Whites are confined only to the specific offender. There is no group stigma for Whites. They are never embarassed by other Whites "acting out." Only Blacks and other racial groups are so stigmatized.

Discussions of crime have become increasingly racialized and our dialogue on race has become increasingly criminalized, such that deviance is now seen by many as synonymous with melanin or black culture. Meanwhile whites—no matter how criminal or "deviant" our behaviors may be—are allowed the privilege of individualization. We're allowed to be "just bad persons," unlike non-whites who come to be seen collectively as "bad people."

Of course this kind of vision defect is typical. After all, we hear a lot about "black crime," but nothing about "white crime" as such, only "white-collar crime," although usually the collar isn't the only thing that's white. We hear of "black-on-black" violence in American cities or African nations, but nothing of "white-on-white violence," even in Bosnia where the practice has become routine. In fact, I recently did a Yahoo internet search, finding only 217 entries for "white crime," (most all of them dealing with the pale collar variety), while finding 973 entries under "black crime"—interesting, considering that the majority of crimes are committed by the majority of the population, which in the U.S. is still Caucasian. Similarly, "black-on-black crime" netted 559 entries, compared to only 17 for "white-on-white crime."

It's amazing how many crazy white people there are out there, none of whom feel the wrath of the racial pathology police as a result of their depravity. Killing parents is one of our specialties. So in 1994, a white guy in New York killed his mom for serving the wrong pizza; in 1997, a white 17 year-old in Alabama killed his parents with an axe and sledgehammer; and in 1996, Rod Ferrell, leader of a "vampire cult" in Murray, Kentucky, bludgeoned another member's parents to death, and along with the victims' daughter, drank their blood so as to "cross over to the gates of hell." Which brings me to rule number one for identifying the race of criminals you hear about. If the crime involved vampirism, Satan worship, or cannibalism, you can bet your a** the perpetrator was white. Never fails. Every damned time. But you'll never hear anyone ask what in the hell it is about white parents that makes their children want to cut off their heads and boil them in soup pots.

Ditto for infanticide. When Susan Smith drowned her boys in South Carolina, she had hundreds of people looking for a mythical black male carjacker, because that's what danger is supposed to look like. We should have known better, especially when you consider how many white folks off their kids: like Brian Peterson and Amy Grossberg, in Delaware, who dumped their newborn in the garbage; or the New Jersey girl at her prom who did the same in the school bathroom; or Brian Stewart, the white guy from St. Louis who injected his son with the AIDS virus to avoid paying child support; or the Pittsburgh father who bludgeoned his 5-year old twins to death when they couldn't find their Power Ranger masks, and were late for daycare; or the white babysitter outside Chicago who bound two kids with duct tape before shooting them and turning the gun on himself.

Or consider thrill killing, spree killing, and animal mutilation: three other white favorites which occur frequently but without racial identification of the persons involved. In October, 1997, a white male teen obsessed with Jeffrey Dahmer killed a 13 year-old to "see what it feels like." In New Jersey, a 15 year-old white male killed an 11 year-old selling candy door-to-door, but only after sexually assaulting him. In late 1997, a white couple in California was arrested for "hunting women," and torturing and mutilating them in the back of their van. At Indiana University, a white male burned four cats alive in a lab, while in Martin, Tennessee, two white teens set a duck on fire at the city's recreational complex, and in Missouri, two white teens killed 23 cats for fun, prompting their white neighbors not to say that there's something wrong with white kids today, but rather, that "boys will be boys."

None of these folks' race was offered as a possible factor in their crimes. No one is writing books about the genetic or white cultural causes of such behavior. In 1995, when a poor Latina killed her daughter in New York by smashing her head against a wall, every major news source in America covered the tragedy, and asked questions about her background, focusing on her "underclass" status, but when a white Arizona man the same month decapitated his youngest son in the desert because he was convinced the child was possessed by the devil, coverage was sparse, and mention of race or cultural background was nowhere to be found. Link

I've seen way too many threads like this one. Threads that wonder why Black folks commit so many crimes, question whether or not they want to assimilate or isolate, have too many kids, doubts if they value education, can speak proper English,value a work ethic, are patriotic, are destined to remain permanent wards of the welfare state, have the common sense to get out of the way of a hurricane or aren't as genetically and intellecutally inferior as The Bell Curve suggested.

White people engage in acts of criminality, immoraltiy and pathology just as bad as Black people, but those acts are seen as only damning the individual, never the group. A different and double standard applies when it comes to Black people behaving badly. The actions of the few or the one are exploited, exaggerated and ued as a club to wield against the many.

Examining the pathology of Black people is a year-round sport here on It's NOT a Black thing. Despite the hype to the contrary.

How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?

Obviously they can't.

Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst.

Maybe not "at its worst," as has already been noted, but it's certainly a bad thing.

The problem with the questions for debate is that there is little room for discussion. I would like to cast my net a little more broadly in order to deal with some other issues.

First of all, let's set aside the issue of race. The kind of behavior reported in this editorial (I'm assuming it is accurate) is clearly unacceptable by any student. This is nothing new. (Read Blackboard Jungle if you doubt me.) It's a very serious problem, with no easy answers. What do you do with genuinely disruptive students? You cannot tolerate their behavior; you cannot simply throw them out into the street. Some will require much more structured environments; but what if those environments are not available? Although this situation may not apply to the apparently cavalier attitude of this school to its disruptive students, it might apply to many schools which do not have the resources to provide a safe environment for its students and teachers.

Which brings me to my second point. The school failed to provide the proper working environment for one of its employees. The employee goes through the proper legal channels to deal with the situation. The employer's response is to fire the employee, instead of cleaning up its act. This is typical, it seems to me, of the modern American situation that the employer is not an equal partner in a contract with the employee, but an overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood.*

The third subject to take note of is the apparent willingness of the school to consider disruptive behavior as somehow a "normal" part of a certain "culture." This is not a matter of any particular ethnic group. Here in the former Confederacy, there are certain rural areas, generally those with poor education and low income, where a willingness to come to blows over some imagined slight is not uncommon. (The cliched excuse is "He gave me a funny look.") The persons involved in these forms of unacceptable behavior are likely to be, for historical reasons, pale of skin and eye. There are other areas, such as the school under discussion, where such behavior is likely, for historical reasons, to be associated with persons who are darker. The ethnicity of the persons involved is not relevant, and cannot be used as an excuse for unacceptable behavior. The school, by attempting to excuse its inability to provide the proper environment for learning, makes itself look foolish, and insults all its students and their community.


(*courtesy of David Gerrold, from his script for "The Trouble With Tribbles.")

Thank God they don't have to thrive? I'm not sure I understand your response here.

This is a real problem in the Chicago school system as well. I wouldn't say it's strictly racial, but the language that the (mostly black) kids get away with is absolutely shocking. I would have been expelled from my public school for saying some of these things.

The fact that it is featured in the music that they hear on the street and at home every day obviously doesn't help. We need a real way to introduce appropriate behaviors in schools amongst kids who just don't know how to act. I wish I had a solution. I cringe every time I hear these knuckleheads on the bus or on the street.

That God they don't have to...


The bus and the street are not the classroom.

Betwixt thee and me, kids of all races have been swearing for a long, long time.

I know it is anecdotal, ESPECIALLY up here in Alaska- but I see white kids, and wierdly enough, alaskan native kids, using this language all the time. Now, as I have said before, I live in a mostly black/somoan middle class nieghborhood- and when kids in my neighborhood, no matter what color they are, use this language- there is some consequences- and I see black parents a bit more willing to come down hard on this behavior than white parents, in my neighborhood. Lack of respect is not tolerated at all in the Somoan section, and I don't hear them using this language at all.

Just last week, I hear my significant other saying "That language IS NOT okay on this street, where is your mama?"- he started to lip off- and one of his friends ratted him out IMMEDIATELY- and he got told on - didn't see that kid for a bout a week.

We have a common thread here, that is as old as teime I think-

"These kids today"

and "It's a black thing"

I believe both to be inaccurate- just like you don't notice good teenagers too often- only when they are acting out.

I believe the only thing that could REMOTELY be a 'double standard" is the small nature of the award for the harm done to the young teacher. I do believe the award would have been bigger had she been a black victim of white racist comments.

But that is overall so minor that I just can't muster the emotion to give a rat's fanny

The woman got 200g's. That kind of money can buy allot of future- if she is smart!

Though, I am sure NT, Turnea and VS would all agree, what the heck is that school thinking in calling this "normal cultural behavior"- I am sure NT and Turnea would have something negative to say about calling that behavior "part of thier culture" ???

Good point. Holdnen Morrrisy Caulfield in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye was but a fictional character. I think, however, he represents how children and adolescents approach cussing pretty accurately. When I was in elementary and junior high school, cussing, except for an occasionally devout church kid, was almost a rite of passage. I played baseball on a sand lot with a bunch of rowdy kids for five or so years. We were not organized by adults Being left to our own devices language wasn't always pretty. If I had just a dime for every cuss word screamed on that field ...This was not a time of helicopter parents.

Having taught for a long while, I'm not blaming the teacher for what happened in this story, but kids will and do push the envelope. They are not little adults. If a teacher has a button they are likely to push it. If they find out a teacher doesn't like cussing, then they are going to be more apt to cuss.

My first teaching experience, in the late 60s to early 70s, was in a mid-size town south of Fort Worth - Cleburne, Texas. My first year was the first year Cleburne had integrated. I taught government then. My real career in special education came later. I had mixed classes. Because I was the new guy, I got students the older, established government teacher - a long deceased wife of a bank president - didn't want. I don't remember Black kids setting off the cuss-o-meter any more often than the white kids.

I had one incident with a Black kid that I still laugh about. One day in one of the afternoon classes, I noticed that this kid was giving me the finger. My first line of defense was to ignore such behavior. You can't always do that, but ignoring inappropriate behavior doesn't reinforce it. It didn't work in this case. Soon the other kids were informing me that ____ was shooting me the bird. Remember, this was the era of Vietnam protests. Kids also shot each other the peace sign on a regular basis. I looked the kid and said, "no, ____ isn't doing that. He's trying to shoot me the peace sign and he just hasn't learned the other half of it yet." The other kids then turned around and almost in unison laughed at the kid who flipped me off. All he could think to do was continue shooting me the finger.

The beauty of this was that I didn't yell at him, didn't send him to the office, didn't have him suspended, didn't have the principal paddle his butt or spend an hour of my time keeping him in detention. He came back the next day and there was no carry over hostility on his part or mine. Maybe I was just a convenient target. Maybe he was frustrated about something going on with him and I was just there and this was his way of dealing with it. Maybe he had had an argument with his girfriend in the hall during passing period and she wasn't there to receive his wrath. I don't know. Again remember, kids are not little adults. They don't always reason like adults. If any other Cleburne kid flipped me off, I didn't know about it.

Edited to add:



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editor...ok/4818116.html

Nostalgia is the about the only value a "magic paddle" has.

Isolated incidents, like I've wrote about above, are fairly easy to deal with.

A couple of things can happen that are much more difficult to handle. First, a teacher can loose control of a class. I saw this happen in an all white junior high I attended in the mid-late 50s. We had a new math teacher, fresh out of college. She lost control of the class and never regained it. The vice principal was down there nearly every day. The school board did not renew her contact. Once a teacher has lost control of a class, it's difficult if not impossible, to get it back.

Second, administrators can lose control of a whole school. In this case it sounds as if the whole school is out of control. If this be the case, then the fault lies at the "authority" figures, the administration. Like the classroom, it's hard to get a shool back under control if it has gotten out of control.

How many of you have seen Lean on Me. In it Morgan Freeman plays the part of a principal (Joe Clark- a non-fictional character) who got an out of control school under control.

http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Me-Morgan-Freem...1553&sr=1-1

How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?

They can't be expected to thrive. The funny thing about lowering expectations to meet the performance of the lowest common denominator is that those expectations are usually met. Why do the best institutions (business, education, private organizations), the ones that set high standards, usually outperform similar institutions with lower standards?

Should the NFL or NBA allow bad behavior away from the field of play simply stating that when a player steps out of line he is simply conforming to the expected behaviors of his peers?

If you forgive low standards of conduct you get low standards of conduct. It is absolutely sickening that a school administrator would not only look the other way when this behavior is not only present but pervasive.



Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst.

To me, it is among the worst forms of soft racism to simply say that these kids can't act any better simply because of their race or their racial culture. The culture of making excuses for bad behavior or lower performance simply does no one any good. It is reminiscent of The Bell Curve.

We can and should expect civil behavior from public school students. If they cannot be civil to authority figures in school, what are their chances of being civil to authority figures in their lives outside of school. Allowing this crude behavior would seem to lead to many other barriers down the road as the students cannot effectively deal with people in authority: the police, their parents, or their boss.

Questions:

How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?They can’t and this is one major problem with our schools today and is surely not limited to schools dominated by minorities. The lack of discipline and tolerance for this type of behavior is disgraceful. We have yet to deal with this issue and it is killing our school systems esp. in the inner city.

Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst.

The standard has been lowered across the board – blacks just might get a even lower standard. It must stop. And this goes well beyond “civility” in many schools to outright violence against students AND teachers.

As I noted, it's a problem in the Chicago Public Schools, not just on the street. I've been in the classroom for volunteer work, and they let these kids speak in a manner that is unacceptable. At least in the schools I've visited, they don't seem to discipline them for language anymore. The words I heard kids use in a classroom would have had my public school teachers reaching for the magic paddle. We used to get "swats" for that.


You are right of course, but "these kids today" seem a lot bolder on the bus and in public than I remember. I also remember my black friendsusing standard English in situations like a classroom or with authority figures, where I don't see it as much today. If a student of any color in my school "axed" a question, the teacher would correct them. I know, I'm old.

A little cussing on the ball field is one thing buy not in the classroom.

In my day (early 60s) you could be in a room with 50 kids (baby boom days) and have a 70 year old English teacher reading and not hear a single sound. If you even dropped a pencil and old Ms. Sullivan looked up at you it froze you solid with fear.

Now today kids not only are disruptive ay will but feel its ok to use the f word with other students or teachers. Teachers are even threatened and assaulted! This nonsense is the reason IMO our system is so bad – esp. in the inner city where the problems are the worst.

Until we get past the silly notion that this is somehow acceptable and that we need to “keep” the kids and try to “reform” them we are doomed and the kids who do want to learn pay the price of our failure.

Yes a good teacher (as I am sure you were) can control some kids where others may not have the skill but IMO teachers are there to teach and are not social workers – I am sure some good teachers just quit the field because they just cannot put up with the crap from students – and IMO they should NOT have to.

I'll answer you in a very easy to understand statement.

Jeffrey Dahmer and Ken Lay were criminals and nut jobs, but didn't make racist remarks.

This is interesting enough that it didn't make the Channel 5 news. I would state unequivocally that had it been a black teacher that had been called "n-g-er", we all would've seen this as a Dateline exclusive.

You're absolutely right NT about white people being the ones that ordinarily perpetuate mass killings... in the US. What about Rwanda? Come on. I don't see the acting up of these kids as a "black problem", but moreover an acceptance of a double standard by our society. It's not a genetic thing to act poorly (well, not based upon race anyway). However, at times our society DOES accept acting poorly from one group and not another.

This thread isn't about genetic defects, but rather how our society views certain actions.

I'm really not surprised that you bring up Ted Bundy when we're talking about some kids with potty mouths... ugh...

Above quotation edited by BoF.

Whoa hoss! This is one of the more curious statements you have ever made aevans176. Jeffrey Dahmer's victims were predominately black. Are not murder, mutilation and mayhem the ultimate racist statements?

Jeffrey Dahmer's Victims

How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?

When uncivil behavior is written off for any reason a student's ability to thrive will be affected accordingly. I think we have always known this, no? If it is being written off then shame on those who do so.

Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst?

Lowering the civil behavioral standards for any student is an injustice to the student. In this case, the incident seems to have involved a group of black students. The problem is that this should not be about "black" students but rather any group of students who behave in a way that would detract from receiving an education. These kinds of behaviors should be eliminated as soon as possible.

Anyone who would argue that these behaviors are culturally-based (or otherwise) and therefore permissable do their own part in underminning public education (you know, kinduva collusion between students and adult enablers). That there may be a cultural link is irrelevant. Any "cultural" behavior that would have students using hard profanity directed at anyone else is no culture that belongs in the public schools. In this instance, those who would suggest that it is about the "black culture" miss the point. IMO, hardened, public displays of profanity in the schools are about street culture regardless of color and it is this mentality that has no place at school.

I think Bof beat me too it- but, um, ya, Dahmer was pretty obsessed, needless to say- with boys other than white.

How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?

Students will not thrive in a hostile environment. A classroom with students who do not respect the institution of education and the teachers who are there to help students learn, will fail. The minute the teacher loses respect is when learning stops. And unfortunately we are in an era where adminstrative hands are tied for fear of law suits or other problems. It starts at home with the parents. My mother, who was a teacher, instilled the importance of respecting my teachers. It is unfortunate that the already broken system of public education is further strained by lack of student interest and respect for the value in learning.

Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst.

I do not think it is racist. It is fear (of lawsuits, of personal injury, etc.) that has caused the civil behavior standards to drop. Lowering the civil behavior standards for any individual, regardless of the ethnic group he falls into not only hurts him but it hurts those around him who actually want to learn but are forced to endure the distractions of those who do not respect the institution of education.

I think you miss the point of the thread. Certainly there are plenty of disruptive “white” kids in city schools. The issue here is should we allow black kids more slack in dealing with this behavior because they are black or because some dope perceives it is part of their “culture” ot any other stupid reason. And this is a widespread practice. Why???

Bad behavior is just that and no one can or should be allowed to interrupt the education process. Violent or disruptive kids should be removed – period, black or white. To do otherwise is to punish the kids of all races who want to learn.

WHOA HOSS.... this is one of the most non-objective statements YOU'VE ever made.

Did you read my post?

The point I made, unequivocally, was that race doesn't necessarily make someone a fruit cake. It doesn't. It doesn't cause or even really encourage bad behavior.

As I said... the point of this debate is whether or not our society accepts certain behavior from certain people, while not others.

Read my post again. Argue that instead of an inane mistake about Dahmer. Remember- NT's post was about white people behaving badly, not a fruitcake who preferred to eat people of a darker skin tone.

It's not that ever, regardless of who someone is murdering or "eating" that anyone accepts the behavior. My point is that if white kids even ever uttered the "N" word towards a black teacher and the school system did nothing, you better believe it would be a dateline exclusive. 5:00 news... definitely.

That's all I'm saying. For someone to state that swearing and calling a teacher those names is "acceptable" due to race is indicative of our society's acceptance or perceived acceptance of such actions from a certain demographic.

Apart from being utterly and bizarrely irrelevant, this is also in error. i think if you studied your history you would find that the massacres in Rwanda perpetrated by the white man Dwarf even the Hutu/ Tutsi genocide. I recommend reading 'King Leopold's Ghosts' regarding the colonial policies of the Belgians in their African empire, AND the legacy of their rule (The Rwandan Genocide stems directly from the WHITE policy of division and segregation of tribes, artificially placing one above the other in heirarchy and setting them against each other)

And even if your facts were right, what on earth does that have to do with anything? Are you trying to make the Rwandan genocide out to be some kind of 'black' thing? If so, I see your Rwandan genocide and raise you world war One and World war Two. Those were 'white' things, right?

I can't possibly imagine what point you were trying to make with that bizarre comment.



This kind of exaggeration doesn't really help your point, The answer is, no it wouldn't. In fact, of course it wouldn't.

However if we scale back your rhetoric, if the point you are making is that American society tends to be slightly MORE sensetive when faced with anti-Black racist speech then with other forms, then yes you are probably correct. And given the history of the United States, both ancient and recent, are you even remotely surprised by that? Germany is extremely sensetive about anti-Jewish sentiment nowadays as well, more sensetive then against many other kinds of racist speech. Is that surprising? is it wrong? Of course not.


Frankly I don't think this has ANYTHING to do with race at all, and everything to do with school discipline.

Vermillion... seriously dude

I'm in a great mood, so I won't be cynical. But you're really way off base here.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=racist+remarks

Take a peek at my link. I simply typed in "racist remarks" into Google. The press picked up a TON!!!

How many were black racist remarks? none on the first page.

The truth is, Vermillion, you live in Canada. It's a different world sir. I don't fault you, but surely you can't understand what a man in the South (particularly) understands about race relations. You don't live here, nor do you have personal experience in a society mixed with black Americans. It's something I never understand why you post about.

The Rwanda remark was simply in response to NT's remarks about Dahmer, Columbine, and whomever... just that people are involved in mass killings regardless of how dark or light their skin is. (Man... everyone else seemed to get that... it seems that sometimes you shoot off the cuff just to disagree with me)

Please... please try to show me how "black racist remarks" are taken more seriously than white (or other) racist remarks.

In our society (and even as my Google post states), the notion of racist remarks are almost completely relegated to white people making the statements.

Too bad your mood did not lead you to actually read what I posted, as you seem to have either ignored, misread or just completely misinterpreted it.



EVERY SINGLE ONE on your google page was an anti-black racist remark, EVERY ONE. Since I declared in my previous post that (quoting myself verbatum):[i]"if the point you are making is that American society tends to be slightly MORE sensitive when faced with anti-Black racist speech then with other forms, then yes you are probably correct." You even quoted that sentence for heaven's sake, but apparently were too busy attacking to bother reading.

It would seem that your 'proof' went and proved me absolutely 100% correct. Lord knows what point you were trying to make here. (again)




God, I though this pedantic nationality-baiting vanished when Lordhelmet was banned. Apparently not.

Thank you SO much for telling me what I know, what I understand, what I have experienced and what I can see. Thank you for educating me about the things I can and cannot speak intelligently about. I do not know WHAT I would have done if I didn't have you explaining to me the things I know and don't know, and the things I understand and do not understand. Your statement is as absurd as it is patronising. Ironic considering how badly you bungled the previous point.

Oh, and I don't live in Canada by the way. Even the basic assumptions upon which you based that silly comment are factually wrong.



Given that the situation was discussing murder in the United States, and not tribal warfare in Africa, how on EARTH could your point be considered in any way relevant? And I don't 'shoot off the cuff' sir, I READ what you post and respond to correct your errors.

Okay Aevens- I will grant you, blacks are more sensitive to racist remarks than whites- simply because, well, there is no word with the impact of "nigger" that can be used against whites- there is no word like that I can think of- can you?

IF that is so- there is also no white analogy of being "stopped for driving while black". Black poeple are most likely to be abused by the justice system, and more likely to be wrongly convicted in a crime. There is a 4 tiered justice system in our county= black males get the worst of it, white females get the best of it, with black females and white males filling in the middle, and the amount of money you make also has alot of how you are treated by the justice system as well.

That being said- Amlord is right- it serves no person, ESPECIALLY black inner city kids, to be allowed to perform this kind of disruptive and nasty behavior.

I do believe that all the kids should be severely disciplined and NOT with being kicked out of school- but rather, forced into some kind of boot camp for way-ward teens.

1) The question is about two things. First, is the associating of the uncivil behavior with a particular culture and the second is tolerating this type of behavior in schools.

As for the first part, I agree that this type of behavior is endemic to a particular culture: street culture. So I don't have a problem with administrators or whomever associating this behavior with street culture, and I fail to see how that association in and of itself presents a barrier to a student's success. I begin to take issue when street culture is taken to equal black culture, which is something that happens far too frequently and is problematic.

I think that tolerating that type of behavior in schools reinforces the behavior and leads to a whole host of problems.

2) Lowering civility standards for black students is not the worst kind of racism. I tend to consider mass genocide as the worst kind of racism. Lowering civility standards for any students is a problem, though.

I have something to add. I object to the implications that this situation somehow counts for evidence of a larger, national trend of people accepting poorer behavior from black students than other students, because this simply isn't true. Take Florida for example. Over the past year I've seen stories of two black kindergarteners, a five year old and a six year old, handcuffed and carted off by police for misbehaving in class. Unless there are some non-black kindergarteners being captured by s.w.a.t. teams that I haven't heard about, these examples clearly fly in the face of an alleged national trend in accepting more uncivil behavior from black students.

Furthermore, national crime data shows that black perpetrators are arrested at higher rates for the same crimes as white perpetrators and are put to death at higher rates for convictions of the same crimes, I find it hard to believe that this trend of less acceptance of uncivil behavior for blacks is somehow reversed for school students.

How can students be expected to thrive in an environment where uncivil behavior is written off as endemic to the culture and something that has to be tolerated?

I don't see how students can be expected to thrive in an abusive and disrespectful and confrontational environment.

Is not lowering the civil behavior standards for blacks racism at its worst.

I would like to see better proof of the lowering of civil behavior standards specifically for blacks. My first assumption is that the publishing of this editorial by the Washington Post was a poor editorial decision and the op-ed is sloppy and wild. It has too few facts and has the feel of one of those too astonishing to believe e-mails. This type of situation needs accurate reporting not a bad blog post as editorial.


link

We don't know that this would have gotten more play if it was a majority white students. And it doesn't seem like this issue is being exactly swept under the rug. But as it is getting exposed it is being presented as proof that black on white racism gets ignored.


This seems like a sad story. Too many school districts and too many administrations have stepped back from strong discipline in the schools, and I am not talking about magic paddles. I am talking about basic rules and basic enforcement. Cussing at a teacher is not acceptable. Not holding students accountable to that basic rule is not acceptable.

A classroom is either a place of learning or it is not. Respect for the learning environment needs to be controlled by school administrators.

This is a story about a failed or failing educational system. It is also a story about the dangers that face whistle blowers in today's society. Another person spoke out against improper behavior and was the one who was punished.

Lower standards for behavior in classrooms is the problem. Allowing racial harassment to go on in classrooms against school personnel is lowering standards almost as far as you can go.

Thank You Sir... some people are seemingly willing to argue for no real reason.

My opinion is that realistically our society perpetuates this idea. I seriously come from one of the "most black" cities in the US, and have known probably more black people in my childhood than most people on this board will ever. The incidents of "being stopped while black", while they probably did happen, might've also happened because of ... "driving with very loud stereo and super dark windows", or "driving fast and not using blinkers", etc, etc. It's impossible to tell, to quantify, or to objectify how many of these were racist issues or just black people being sensitive.

I was stopped ALOT when I was young. I had a loud truck and my parents lived in the last subdivision in city limits (on the skirt of the country). Old Country Sheriff's loved to stop kids that drove too fast, etc and "teach them a lesson". Was it because I was black??? Well... I'm not. So obviously that's not the case. How much of this happens? I dunno. Who does?

I'm not negating that there are and were racist police officers, or racist Americans of all shapes and colors. What I'm saying is that maybe we've allowed the pendulum to swing a bit. Maybe we've become sooooo sensitive to anything that might happen to someone of color, particularly of dark brown/black color, that we've created an atmosphere where we can't discipline kids who swear and treat teachers poorly.

Maybe we're at a point where anyone stopped who happens to be black, but isn't 100% in the wrong, will automatically assume it's due to their race. Anyone who doesn't get a job might think it's because of their race, etc, etc, etc.

Many of us don't have that "excuse" or maybe even "problem". However, I'd say that this case shows that this is also definitely an issue. This enumerates that notion that our society now "tip toes" around anyone a little darker than we are.

A stat that is hard to manipulate, from www.vpc.org/studies/blackhomicide.pdf

According to the FBI SHR data, in 2004 there were 6,644 black homicide
victims in the United States. The homicide rate among black victims in the United
States was 18.71 per 100,000. For that year, the overall national homicide rate was
4.86 per 100,000. For whites, the national homicide rate was 2.97 per 100,000.


The ultimate disrespect for others is to take a human life. Victims tend to be the same race as their killers. Blacks are 6 times more likely to die of homicide. It isn't just teachers being dissed.

Thomas Sowell: