Full Version: High School Caucasian Club
I also wanted to ask if there are any existing "white" clubs in the US? Just would like to know. Thank you.
QUOTE(CKYou @ Oct 29 2003, 08:27 PM)
Well my friend and I have started the paperwork to establish the Caucasian American Student Union. We have a purpose for starting this club and it is to educate our community (which is almost 80% hispanic) about the American culture and values.
CKYou... the last time I checked, "caucasian culture and values" wasn't synonymous with "American culture and values"...
Three concerns for white people
1) affirmative action
2) skin cancer
3) white guilt
1) affirmative action
2) skin cancer
3) white guilt
Fine, then the white part of American culture. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
QUOTE(Hugo @ Oct 29 2003, 05:46 PM)
Three concerns for white people
1) affirmative action
2) skin cancer
3) white guilt
1) affirmative action
2) skin cancer
3) white guilt
I've said it before, and I'll likely say it again: far and away the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action policies have been white females.
Oh, and you left off 4) learning to dance
Do you (CKyou) feel that these non-white people are not getting enough caucasian-education from the euro-centric history books?
I would be curious to here what you will be "educating" them about...
QUOTE(quarkhead @ Oct 30 2003, 12:53 AM)
QUOTE(Hugo @ Oct 29 2003, 05:46 PM)
Three concerns for white people
1) affirmative action
2) skin cancer
3) white guilt
1) affirmative action
2) skin cancer
3) white guilt
I've said it before, and I'll likely say it again: far and away the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action policies have been white females.
Oh, and you left off 4) learning to dance
Do you (CKyou) feel that these non-white people are not getting enough caucasian-education from the euro-centric history books?
I would be curious to here what you will be "educating" them about... I guess AA could be debated between the oppressed white males and the major benefactors of their oppression. Just because all members of a race don't agree does not make it a non-issue.
We will be educating everybody about all of America's past times. For example, baseball, basketball, a majority of the holidays originated in America or are only celebrated in America. And also we were forced to totally change the whole name of our club to something around the "Culture Club" or something like that.
What an interesting topic. How about a quick History lesson.
First of all history did not begin with America and slavery. Every major civilzation known to man has had it's share of slavery. Our first major world civilization Egypt, had slaves. Guess what Egypt ( which is located in Africa) was predominatley filled with people of color. That means some black people had slaves. Know what else. They didn't always treat their slaves good either. You can continue to go down throughout history and you will find that at one time or other each person on this earth has had an ancestor who was a slave. So when it comes to opression "man dominates man to his own injury". What we need to understand as people is that there is only one race on this planet and that is the Human race. There are all different kinds of cultures and nationalities. Nothing is wrong with being proud of one's heritage. Where we go wrong is when we begin to think that our heritage is better than someone else's. As long as this group promotes equality and freedom, what's wrong? Do they lose their identity as human because they've joined a special interests group? No they do not. There are plenty of examples of this for those who are not white. We need to use these groups to unite us. Anyone can be a card carrying member of the NAACP. Black or white. The question isn't the name of the club, but what is its purpose and who is excluded.
First of all history did not begin with America and slavery. Every major civilzation known to man has had it's share of slavery. Our first major world civilization Egypt, had slaves. Guess what Egypt ( which is located in Africa) was predominatley filled with people of color. That means some black people had slaves. Know what else. They didn't always treat their slaves good either. You can continue to go down throughout history and you will find that at one time or other each person on this earth has had an ancestor who was a slave. So when it comes to opression "man dominates man to his own injury". What we need to understand as people is that there is only one race on this planet and that is the Human race. There are all different kinds of cultures and nationalities. Nothing is wrong with being proud of one's heritage. Where we go wrong is when we begin to think that our heritage is better than someone else's. As long as this group promotes equality and freedom, what's wrong? Do they lose their identity as human because they've joined a special interests group? No they do not. There are plenty of examples of this for those who are not white. We need to use these groups to unite us. Anyone can be a card carrying member of the NAACP. Black or white. The question isn't the name of the club, but what is its purpose and who is excluded.
QUOTE(avanestia @ Oct 31 2003, 02:42 AM)
There are all different kinds of cultures and nationalities. Nothing is wrong with being proud of one's heritage. Where we go wrong is when we begin to think that our heritage is better than someone else's. As long as this group promotes equality and freedom, what's wrong? Do they lose their identity as human because they've joined a special interests group? No they do not. There are plenty of examples of this for those who are not white. We need to use these groups to unite us. Anyone can be a card carrying member of the NAACP. Black or white. The question isn't the name of the club, but what is its purpose and who is excluded.
Thank you.
Nicely put.
CKYou - Do not post one-liners like that. Be constructive when you debate here. If you want to tell someone "good job" PM them.
As a side note, and an interesting anecdote concerning race and affirmative action:
A friend of mine has recently started searching for banking jobs. Through this process he got in touch with a friend of a friend who is an upper level executive in the HR department of a large bank mostly located in the southern U.S. He started a conversation about this bank's college recruiting practices. Turns out the HR department at this bank had dropped two southern colleges from its recruitment schedule because they are 'not diverse enough'. One of these schools is consistently ranked in the top 25 among universities (it is similar to Harvard, or Stanford, or Yale in quality); the other school is ranked in the top 15 liberal arts college every year. I bet they haven't dropped any historically black colleges from the recruiting list because of a 'lack of diversity'.
This is the effect affirmative action has. While it is utopian and idealistic to have a society where race doesn't matter, and many people hold up affirmative action as the pathway to that goal, affirmative action is an idea that amounts to little more than government sanctioned racism against qualified white people.
His idea stems from the same though process that leads to the belief that minorities can have minority race focused groups, while white people cannot.
A friend of mine has recently started searching for banking jobs. Through this process he got in touch with a friend of a friend who is an upper level executive in the HR department of a large bank mostly located in the southern U.S. He started a conversation about this bank's college recruiting practices. Turns out the HR department at this bank had dropped two southern colleges from its recruitment schedule because they are 'not diverse enough'. One of these schools is consistently ranked in the top 25 among universities (it is similar to Harvard, or Stanford, or Yale in quality); the other school is ranked in the top 15 liberal arts college every year. I bet they haven't dropped any historically black colleges from the recruiting list because of a 'lack of diversity'.
This is the effect affirmative action has. While it is utopian and idealistic to have a society where race doesn't matter, and many people hold up affirmative action as the pathway to that goal, affirmative action is an idea that amounts to little more than government sanctioned racism against qualified white people.
His idea stems from the same though process that leads to the belief that minorities can have minority race focused groups, while white people cannot.
She is definitely legally right to start her own Caucasain club. Nothing said against that...
However, I do have some things to address. My high school dwelled on diversity. Not saying teachers said, you must hang out with another student, but rather we were a small school and so we were a close knit school. The purpose of high school is to TEACH. I am in college now, and there are fraternities, sororities, and ethnic clubs. Tell me: why oh why would these be needed in HIGH school?
The purpose of the faculty is not to get a paycheck, but to prepare students for that next step. Maybe this is the disparity that continue to bring about not only racism, but alsoracial stratification. To allow any clubs featuring racial stratification in high school lacks the (in my lay opinion of course) point of high school. Private schools I can understand, but public?I know I am speaking for myself only, but we as a school learned more about the similarities between each other through communication than we ever could have through a meeting of different ethnic organizations.
I don't know, maybe I am naive. But I do believe it is time to make this entire schhool sit down in front of a big movie screen, hold hands and watch "Remember the Titans".
However, I do have some things to address. My high school dwelled on diversity. Not saying teachers said, you must hang out with another student, but rather we were a small school and so we were a close knit school. The purpose of high school is to TEACH. I am in college now, and there are fraternities, sororities, and ethnic clubs. Tell me: why oh why would these be needed in HIGH school?
The purpose of the faculty is not to get a paycheck, but to prepare students for that next step. Maybe this is the disparity that continue to bring about not only racism, but alsoracial stratification. To allow any clubs featuring racial stratification in high school lacks the (in my lay opinion of course) point of high school. Private schools I can understand, but public?I know I am speaking for myself only, but we as a school learned more about the similarities between each other through communication than we ever could have through a meeting of different ethnic organizations.
I don't know, maybe I am naive. But I do believe it is time to make this entire schhool sit down in front of a big movie screen, hold hands and watch "Remember the Titans".
Also, another quick point:
Everyone keeps saying "Africa had slaves, Egypt has slaves, everybody had slaves". First of all, yes people have been subject to unpaid labor for many years. However - and in particular Africa (and this was actually how slavery began in the US) - slavery was what we today call an indentured servant. People who worked off their debts were freed from their "bondage".
However, this is off topic so I wanted to address another quote:
ckyou said she wanted to address American values and culture while calling it a Caucasian club. She later recanted, but THIS is the reason why there are ethnic organization. Too many times, America is seen as a "white" culture, and by this culture many others are rejected. Should the club exist? Is there a right to the club's existence? I already answered that. What's wrong with the club? Nothing. It blatant expresses what has been implied: white and american culture are intertwined. We as minorities are just in a race to achieve white status.
Everyone keeps saying "Africa had slaves, Egypt has slaves, everybody had slaves". First of all, yes people have been subject to unpaid labor for many years. However - and in particular Africa (and this was actually how slavery began in the US) - slavery was what we today call an indentured servant. People who worked off their debts were freed from their "bondage".
However, this is off topic so I wanted to address another quote:
ckyou said she wanted to address American values and culture while calling it a Caucasian club. She later recanted, but THIS is the reason why there are ethnic organization. Too many times, America is seen as a "white" culture, and by this culture many others are rejected. Should the club exist? Is there a right to the club's existence? I already answered that. What's wrong with the club? Nothing. It blatant expresses what has been implied: white and american culture are intertwined. We as minorities are just in a race to achieve white status.
This isn't an addition to the debate so much as an addition of information about the situation that I know is not widely released throughout popular media.
I'm the editor-in-chief of the newspaper at Freedom High School and, personally, I would not join such a club but believe she should be free to create it- which she is. At Freedom, on top of the aforementioned BSU, Latinos Unidos, and Aloha (asian) Clubs, we have the GSA, and, most importantly, the International Power of Unity. Of course, we have the French and German clubs as well, but those are mostly language-study clubs which only briefly touch on the culture of the countries in which those languages are spoken.
Now, we are a relatively small school and live in a town only recently incorporated (I don't know the exact date, but I believe it was around 6 or 7 years ago). We were primarily a farm and ranch community, and just like anywhere in the world I'm sure we have our fair share of bigot-minded people, illegal and legal immagrants, and any number of other morally, politically, and socially oriented people I'm sure I can't begin to list.
But, outside of the whole debate over if the club itself is morally right and should be given the right to exist, I'm here to say our school would never pass judgement on a club through racist eyes.
The only reason the club was not allowed to exist is because Lisa McClelland did not follow proper procedure to create the club. At Freedom you only need two things to start a club- a written constitution stating the goals and priorities of the club and, a teacher to advise the club. McClelland had neither of these, only a list of names and the numbing force of a frenzied media bitting at the bit for a hint of racism in small-town-California.
It must had been a slow day in the news room when this story broke.
I know for a fact that many students transfer to Freedom to escape racism, violence, and any other number of unsavory situations at other high schools in the bay area- I myself am I transfer student. Why? Because, before this student (who, by the way has now transfered as a freshman to La Paloma, a local continuation school and abandoned the club all together) turned the harsh limelight of the media, fueled by the buzz word of racism upon us, we were known as an accepting, more importantly safe, school.
I'm the editor-in-chief of the newspaper at Freedom High School and, personally, I would not join such a club but believe she should be free to create it- which she is. At Freedom, on top of the aforementioned BSU, Latinos Unidos, and Aloha (asian) Clubs, we have the GSA, and, most importantly, the International Power of Unity. Of course, we have the French and German clubs as well, but those are mostly language-study clubs which only briefly touch on the culture of the countries in which those languages are spoken.
Now, we are a relatively small school and live in a town only recently incorporated (I don't know the exact date, but I believe it was around 6 or 7 years ago). We were primarily a farm and ranch community, and just like anywhere in the world I'm sure we have our fair share of bigot-minded people, illegal and legal immagrants, and any number of other morally, politically, and socially oriented people I'm sure I can't begin to list.
But, outside of the whole debate over if the club itself is morally right and should be given the right to exist, I'm here to say our school would never pass judgement on a club through racist eyes.
The only reason the club was not allowed to exist is because Lisa McClelland did not follow proper procedure to create the club. At Freedom you only need two things to start a club- a written constitution stating the goals and priorities of the club and, a teacher to advise the club. McClelland had neither of these, only a list of names and the numbing force of a frenzied media bitting at the bit for a hint of racism in small-town-California.
It must had been a slow day in the news room when this story broke.
I know for a fact that many students transfer to Freedom to escape racism, violence, and any other number of unsavory situations at other high schools in the bay area- I myself am I transfer student. Why? Because, before this student (who, by the way has now transfered as a freshman to La Paloma, a local continuation school and abandoned the club all together) turned the harsh limelight of the media, fueled by the buzz word of racism upon us, we were known as an accepting, more importantly safe, school.
This is a simplified version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.