Not THREE posts ago, I mentioned that the UA Faculty Senate’s apology was one step away from reparations. My worry, of course, was that people will see this as an opportunity to push their idiotic views that we ought to be paying reparations to everyone with a dark skin tone.
The very next day the CW runs an article about a woman who is calling for reparations. One of the things she thinks is “unfair” is gifted programs in schools. Heaven forbid MORE CAPABLE students (of all colors) be challenged. What a horrible thing that would be.
Touré said gifted tracks in public schools and magnet schools are ways of continuing the tradition of “separate but unequal” and keeping a mutual feeling of inferiority among blacks and superiority among whites. She advocated a “leveling of the playing field” in schools with academic reparations for blacks and other minorities who have been historically discriminated against in the United States.
“To separate primarily the children of color and poverty under the guise of ability grouping and to pretend it’s democratic is meaner than slavery and pre-[Brown v. Board of Education] segregation,” she said.
Touré said a system that sustains a feeling of inferiority among blacks early in the classroom has led many to crime and poverty.
“Why do you think the jails are filled with black men?” she asked. “The problem is we have accepted the inferior status of African-American children and people.”
Personaly, I think the jails are filled with black men because THEY’RE COMMITTING CRIMES. Last I checked, nobody went to jail for being black. Fortunately for Ms. Touré, they ALSO don’t put people in jail for being idiots.
April 23rd, 2004 at 10:31 am
“levelling of the playing field”… try getting a law school scholarship as an upper middle class white male with no physical or mental disabilities… no, its not impossible… but it ain’t no level playing field either
as far as I’m concerned the only reperarions there should be are voluntary ones… and I consider ethnic scholarships to be just that in many ways… since its nearly impossible to say this person or that person was more affected by slavery than this other person was… no one has a direct claim any more, period. But if some people want to help a group that they see as unfairly marganalized due to historical conditions… cool, good for them. But don’t claim it’s not good enough, that’s weak.
April 24th, 2004 at 9:10 pm
I must have been imagining the non-white kids in the gifted and talented classes at my schools.