LTE Forum TH 08/30/12 Racism

OT, I set up this blog page for my response to you in order to avoid space limitations.

I would say that Word Watch candidate "You just don't get it" should be augmented by "You don't get all of it."

I do not dispute the history you recite. It is correct, and that is to our shame. But, to respond to your question "What personal harm have Walter Marshall and Louis Farrakhan brought to you and yours?", manipulation and pandering on the part of Marshall et al bring harm to all, and Farrakhan's bile is simply poisonous, made more so by the supine response to that poison by folks of your mindset. What you and your friends who laugh at my "whining" refuse to see is that pols like him and mouths like Jackson and Sharpton encourage and thrive on the marginalization pointed out by Arthur.

Have I been personally affected by the above worthies? No,  not physically, as the Klan and Aryan nation have indeed affected blacks, understood. But, what about the studied refusal to address to dysfunction? That does affect me indirectly, and you as well, but, much worse, it adversely affects the very people for whom those luminaries claim to advocate.

Let's take a look at your friend Commissioner Marshall and his complaints about the alleged inequity of application of discipline in local schools. My response to his pandering draws sneers from you, but far far worse, his remarks have drawn a substantive response from the supremely spineless (to name one of its numerous failings) school administration. There is now indeed a discipline inequity in schools, which affects the quality of instruction. One disruptive child can now impede the education of 19 other classmates.

"Case in point," to coin a phrase: last year Susan had a kid in her class who was out of control. Over time, he pushed a kid away from a urinal, kicked two girls in their crotches, killed a class pet turtle, threw pencils at classmates, consistently refused to sit down, and consistently refused to do classwork or homework. He threw away notes to his mother, not that they would have had much effect. Susan and school officials had meetings with the kid's mom, that is when she would keep the appointments. Her response was that it was just rough-housing and that the school administration and Susan just had it in for her son.

This child took to bullying a much smaller child. Susan dutifully filled out bad conduct reports, asked that the bully be moved. Nope, couldn't do it; the bully had rights. She asked that he be transferred back to the district whence he came. Nope, can't do that, either. The parents of the bullied child asked Susan what they could die. Susan replied that her hands were tied, suggested they complain to the central office. The central office decreed that the bullied kid be transferred to another school.

So, the bullied kid and his parents were inconvenienced, while the troublemaker and his complacent mother were not. What about the bullied kid's rights, or the rights of the other kids in the class, or the frustrated teacher? The bullied kid, by the way, is also black. Susan's class was half black, half Latino, nary a white kid there (the cynical segregation of our schools is indeed an issue, but not for this commentary, btw). Thank you, Commissioner Marshall, the products of this sad case of discipline will one day hit the job market. That, OT, does affect both you and me indirectly.

(This child bullied another child, also black and much smaller, who finally took matters into his own hands and attacked the bully. It took Susan and an teacher's aide both to pull the furious kid off the bully, who had received a commendably comprehensive buttkicking from his classmate).

Mind you, some discipline was applied, and the troublesome child received several suspensions, to the relief of Susan and the other pupils.

The story continues and provides a cautionary tale re this self-marginalization. As the year progressed, Susan and the school worked with the troublesome kid, drawing accusations of racism from the indignant mother. Yes, my fiancee', the grandmother of a biracial girl whom she loves, was called racist. But, she and the (black) school psychologist arranged testing, and as they suspected, the kid has ADHD. They reported this to the mom. Nope, this is racist, nothing wrong with my child; you people just don't like him (damn right they didn't, but that was irrelevant). The school psychologist commented to Susan that times had changed, so that parents notified of their children's shortcomings no longer address their kids, but excoriate the teachers.

Finally, the mom paid for her own tests. Guess what: kid ended up on medication, and his behavior changed remarkably for the better. So, all that blame and accusation was wrong and wasted, and the slackassed mom, prompted in part by institutionalized self-marginalization, wasted a full school year of her son's life. Who are the real victimizers in this sorry story?

Before you reply that this is a single anecdote, this pattern regarding discipline and parental response is endemic at least to that school, and I suspect over a much wider area.

The cautionary part of the tale is that while the r-word "racism" is bandied about, pols and mouths like Marshall ignore another r-word: "responsibility." I castigated Minister Farrakhan earlier, but for all the toxins he spews, he understands that word, and expects a standard of behavior from his flock. When I hear Marshall (whom I use as a personification of a larger whole) exhort parents to take responsibility for their kids, and his constituents to behave and to obey the law, I'll listen more closely to what he has to say.

I would really like to know what people like Obama, Powell, Rice, Holder, AmEx's chairman Chennault, and others have to say about Marshall's cultural norms.

Again, I do not dispute your history. As for the collective consciousness that years of oppression and marginalization have created, yes, I, as you say, get it. I understand some responses to that history, such as affirmative action, of which I generally approve. But, I also understand a question that both evoke: when does it end? That in turn evokes another comment: to use another Word Watch candidate, "Get over it." OK, not done at the snap of fingers, but the process must be encouraged. Panderers like Marshall on one side and their right-wing counterparts are not part of that ongoing solution; they are part of the problem.

I recall seeing a movie years ago where an African politician addresses a bigoted South African mercenary who pointed out the shortcomings of African nations. The actor lined, "We must forgive you the past; you must forgive us the present, so that we can work on the future together." If the character in the movie were a real pol, he would be a statesman, a commodity in short supply today. Interestingly, the scriptwriters turned Hardy Kruger's mercenary into a bit of one in his own right: he listened, quit calling the African "kaifa," started calling him "Man."