There are days when the cleavages become all too clear…when the battle lines are too bold and bright for anyone to dispute that there’s a war on. Today is such a day:
La Mesa, California Trustee Charda Bell-Fontenot told fellow board members that in-person school learning is “a very white supremacist ideology.” She told the fellow board members who want to open schools that they should check “their privilege.”
To top it off, she claimed in-person learning is “slavery.”
One must wonder how the slaves would have felt about that comparison.
“I know what we are doing is wrong. That seems like a very white supremacy ideology to conform…privilege you guys….check it……I’m not gonna force anyone to do what they don’t wanna do. That’s what slavery is. I’m not gonna be a part of it,” Bell-Fontenot said.
This…person has just ripped the mask off the entire “white supremacist / white privilege” black-racialist campaign – and she’s too stupid even to realize that she’s done so. (Clearly belongs on a school board, eh what?) Think about it for a moment before I begin my explication de texte.
Statistically speaking, white kids consistently outperform black kids in school…when the schools are open and functioning normally. Today, it’s far too easy for any child to ignore the “remote learning classes” that substitute for classroom instruction, with the direct supervision of students by teachers that makes possible. In the “remote learning” context, the student’s incentives to slough off are large and the difficulties are few. More, the inability of teachers to check students’ work – if it really is their work – is near-total. Result: the white kids are no longer outperforming the black kids! Leveling is at last achieved!
Leveling has always been the Left’s goal. The black racialists and grievance mongers are a key part of its coalition. It cannot placate them in any other way – and the black racialists’ resentment over their enduring inferiority is their strongest motivator. But leveling never raises those “below” to parity with those “above.” As I’ve noted in a previous piece, mediocrity cannot be stretched:
[I]t is just as impossible for Leftists to admit an unpleasant fact about one of their coalition-constituencies – in this case, Negroes – as to admit to having made a mistake about crime and justice. The typical Negro public-school inmate studies far less than his white and Asian counterparts. He has, on average, a lower degree of innate intelligence with which to approach scholastic material. Perhaps worst of all, his home situation is frequently indifferent or antagonistic to concentration and study. But these facts cannot be permitted to intrude into a discussion of why Negro youths are “under-represented” in elite schools. It’s much more profitable politically to blame it all on “racism.”
It has not been proved impossible that the intellectual gap between the white and black races might somehow, someday, be eliminated constructively. Neither is it impossible that the study habits and home situations of black children might someday rise to parity with those of their white counterparts. But we must deal with the state of affairs of today – and that state of affairs, a consistent and objectively verifiable pattern of white / black differential achievement that’s uniform from coast to coast, is the fodder that the black-racialist movement, with all its cant about “white privilege” and its unceasing demands for “reparations,” subsists on.
Compare this foofaurauw with the relatively new “mathematics is racist because it demands correct answers” cant that’s entered the national discourse.
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School boards be rayciss!!!
“Change my mind…”
Based on a long experience with students – Black and White (and Other) – I have to disagree with the “innate intelligence” part of this.
Both Black and White students fall into ranges – Poorly Performing, Average, and Highly Performing. Very little of it is innate. Much of it comes down to cultural norms:
Are they uncomfortable with quiet pursuits?
Did they have exposure to Standard English?
How large is their vocabulary?
What are parental expectations (not just “I want my child to be the next President”), but does that parent demonstrate hard work, willingness to sacrifice a good time, and enforcing discipline on kids at home?
Will that parent accept excuses for poor performance, whether to blame the teacher, bias, or “the work is too hard”? Does that parent monitor that child by having them do their work in a common room, or do they let that kid go to his own room, without supervision?
Is access to TV/entertainment/other forms of communications monitored, limited, and supervised? Does that parent watch worthwhile entertainment himself/herself?
Are parents willing to drag their own selves out of bed to make sure that kids are fed, dressed, and ready for school – on time? It’s not easy, but it’s necessary.
Do those parents take responsibility for monitoring student performance, BEFORE there is a problem? Almost every school in the country allows parents access to students’ grades, assignments, and teachers (indeed, encourages it). They need to sign up, check it every day, and get in touch with teachers if there is a problem.
I know that some kids are really disorganized (whether LD or other problem), and need to have parents empty their backpack to make sure that they turn in assignments, and keep in touch with teachers about the problem.
For SOME kids, this means helping those kids develop a habit of putting their homework – assigned and completed – into a pocket folder. Assigned in one pocket, completed in another.
Some kids have a hard time handing in incomplete work or less-than-stellar work. If the online reports show NO work handed in, while that parent knows that it was done – fully or partially – this means that parents need to take charge, even if it means taking a picture of the work, and sending it to the teacher.
It is frustrating for students, parents, and teachers to have these kinds of situations. I’ve had kids with those problems. The good news is, if you can just keep them moving forward, they usually do better in life and work than their lack of organization would seem to predict.
The problem seldom is lack of intelligence – but, they are far more likely to lack basic skills. At least, that’s what more than 25 years of teaching has taught me.
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Disagree if you please, Linda, but the statistics are quite definite, have been consistent for a century, and have been repeatedly confirmed by generations of cognitive-science researchers, in several cases at great cost to themselves. There is roughly a standard deviation’s difference between the mean IQ of American Caucasians and the mean IQ of American Negroes. This is perfectly consistent with those populations’ statistical representations in intellectually demanding fields. I find it difficult to believe that that difference only applies to adults.
Given the difference between the two distributions, only about one sixth of American Negroes possess an intellectual capacity equal to or greater than that of the average American Caucasian. That puts them at a disadvantage in scholastic settings. It also creates an incentive to weaken the demands of the racially integrated classroom, so as not to evoke unfortunate behavior from the Negro students…or even more unfortunate reactions from their parents, when their parents trouble themselves to take an interest.
Public school is a racket.