Blaming millions of strangers, most of whom have done nothing wrong, is stupid and counter productive. How does it help to blame millions of strangers when most of them did nothing wrong?
Almost everyone makes bad choices sometimes, especially when they are young.* But some of us are more insulated from the consequences of those choices more than others.
Ive been caught red-handed by law enforcement for using marijuana- 4 times, IIRC. One of those times the cop took my little baggie of pot and poured it on the ground. The other time the cops said something to the effect of “I can’t be bothered to arrest you, just go home”. So, four times, no arrest and three of those times I got to keep my drugs. Those cops really just didn’t want to arrest or even hassle a pretty white girl, I think.
I have a family member with a half dozen non-violent non-drug misdemeanor convictions and a felony burglary conviction who’s never spent a night on the wrong side of a jail cell. Recently, a security system salesman came to his door and tried to stoke some fear by mentioning that their were a half-dozen black families on the block and they might have criminal records or something, which was a laugh out loud white privilege moment.
I could go on in this vein for awhile, but I think I’ve made my point. Everyone is responsible for their choices, but certain groups of people are shielded from the consequences of those choices because our societal institutions place more value on their lives.
If I were a perfect person that has never made any really bad decisions, the kind that can derail your life, maybe this double standard would not be so visible to me.
But as it is, I readily acknowledge that I have lived my life on a cloud of white privilege. I would not have had the successes I have had in life if I had been black. My life probably would’ve really sucked if I’d been born black. My successes later in life are my own and I’m proud of it, but I only got there because I grew up in a strong stable family and community that believed I had value and made not derailing my opportunities a priority.
- disclaimer :Please note the use of the word almost - I’m not trying to imply that any particular participant in this thread has ever made a bad choice or benefited from compassion and leniency.
I still don’t get all the pushback on the word privilege. I have heard the words underprivileged and overprivileged used for years to describe the societal advantages or lack thereof ascribed to different groups of people. No one had a problem with it until someone stuck the word “white” in front of it.
If by both, you mean the individual and society in general, then I agree.
Or you can recognize the nature of systemic problems and realize that a serious problem can exist without it being anyone’s fault.
There are historical foundational reasons that make it more difficult for members of black community to form stable families, communities, and socially healthy and productive individuals. When an endeavor is more difficult, success is more elusive. Telling the people that have the more difficult task that the “solution” is that they just have to work harder than you for the same result is a “solution” that is very comfortable for you, but it’s not the right answer.
There’s also a psychological cost to always hearing “work harder”.
Right before my freshman year in college, I participated in an orientation program geared at minority students. 90% of us were black. For six weeks, we were told repeatedly every day that we would have to work harder than our white classmates. We weren’t told just to arrive to class on time. No, we were told to arrive early–early enough to get a seat in the front. Where we were to always sit, since a black guy sitting in the back will always look like he’s dozing off (and don’t you ever wear a ballcap!) We weren’t told to just ask questions in class. No, we were told to ask intelligent questions. Because asking a stupid question is worse than saying nothing at all when everyone already assumes you’re stupid We’re weren’t told to visit the professor during his or her office hours when we’re having problems with the material. No, we were told to visit the professor just to visit him or her, even when you have nothing to talk about, just so they know your name, your story, and your commitment to being an excellent student instead of the shiftless lazy negro they will assume you are.
One time we were given an assignment. We had to come up with a five-year-plan and a 10-year plan. I couldn’t come up with anything because I was a goofy kid who didn’t know what she wanted to do as a career. The counselor was so frustrated by me and my goofiness that she had a Very Special Talk with me. She made me feel like I was going to flunk out of college if I didn’t get it together. Mind you, I was just 18. There are no 18 year olds who have it together. But she made me think I was a freak.
By the time we got to the end of the six week period, I was convinced that I was going to flunk out. And not only would that be an embarrassment to myself and my family, but also to my entire community. So flunking out was somehow both inevitable and not an option.
I did work hard and performed decently. But damn did I pay a cost. I didn’t attend a single party while I was in college. I never went out drinking, never stayed up all night just to have fun. I just studied way too much and stressed out over shit I shouldn’t have been stressing out over. Every bad grade wound send me to my bed to cry for a good long while. I struggled with my first organic chemistry lab and I practically had a nervous breakdown. I was a mess because no one told me to have fun like everyone else. All I heard was “work harder.”
So I resent always being told to work harder. The people who direct this advice to the “black community” will say they aren’t talking to me, but it doesn’t matter.
Why not allow vouchers so black children in crappy schools can go to better ones? You know? School choice?
We have school choice. Robust system of charters. Open enrollment across the district.
What has that got to do with anything? Why abandon the ones who can’t leave?
Because sometimes schools are just so bad parents dont have a choice. I live in Kansas City and the Kansas City Missouri district is so bad many parents have to resort to sneaking kids into suburban districts even on the Kansas side. They have charter schols also but they are not really that much better.
Many of the problems are just poor district leadership and you can throw all the money at it you want but it doesnt do any good.
Do they mean treated like a black person, the way blacks treat each other?
Back to the OP, do you think she really does much good with this talk? Are white people going to change their ways because of it? I’m guessing the people she is talking to are probably pretty set in their ways so they wont change much.
Are the vouchers going to be big enough so the parents can afford these great schools? Will richer parents be prevented from bidding up the tuition on the good schools so poor families still can’t afford them on the vouchers? Are you going to prevent the government from cutting the vouchers to save money, leaving the parents stranded? Or stuck in schools that are even worse?
Charter schools, vouchers, magnet schools, voluntary bussing programs…they all provide an “escape hatch” for certain kids. Kids that have the kinds of parents who will fill out the forms to get them into these programs and have parents who can ensure their transportation needs are met. Which is great for these kids. The other kids who don’t have these things are left behind through no fault of their own but are still held to the same achievement standards as the schools which everyone’s flocking to.
The escape hatches are always limited in number. There are only a certain number of spots available at the charter school or at the magnet school. Vouchers don’t cover all the tuition costs, and private schools can reject you even if the voucher does manage to cover the entire cost. So in the system we have, we will always have low-performing public schools. The system is pretty much designed to ensure that. Skim off the some of cream of the crop by dangling some escape hatches here and there. Then point and laugh at the “failing” school we’ve helped to create in the process. But don’t try to fix that school! Because you’ll just be throwing money at it, when the problem isn’t about money, you see. It’s about bad parents and bad kids. That’s what folks tell themselves so they can sleep at night, but it’s much more complicated than that.
Monstro,
in my opinion you will always have underperforming kids to some degree, because every kid is different. If we can’t point to the kids, and we can’t (probably more so) point to the parents, who can be fixed so that the kids aren’t?
You say we blame the kids and the parents for failings, but we don’t address the schools? What is throwing money at schools?
Your escape hatch analogy is a good one, and I think we ought to be working towards catching AS MANY as we possibly can with that escape hatch while still providing some level of education for the ones who don’t care to better themselves.
Some parents prioritize school, others do not, you aren’t going to fix that no matter how much money you use to fund the schools.
The vouchers I’m used to are not for private schools but for other public schools. The way Missouri works is they get money (like $150 I think) per day per student. So say a kid in the Kansas City Missouri zone could attend a better school just 20 miles north in (to use a Kansas City reference) Park Hill or North Kansas City. Note- these are public schools. The voucher students money would come with them. This is better than the current system where Kansas city parents are basically forced to sneak their kids into better districts by using fake addresses and driving them to school themselves (happens a LOT). The other way is those parents just move to a better district.
Yes, all this means the crappy schools only get worse.
I can see your point about wanting to keep your kid in a bad school but as a parent you dont have time to be the great savior and martyr to fix a bad school. Some schools are just that - BAD! Yes bad kids but also bad parents and bad administration. You as a parent want YOUR kid to get a great education plus not get beat up everyday for their shoes.
Has it occurred to you that the “ones who don’t care to better themselves” are like that for a reason? Do you think that the reason could have something to do with the fact that everyone assumes they don’t care to better themselves, so they don’t even bother with them?
Dopers who know me well enough are probably sick of this story, but here goes: I learned first hand that the system must always have someone in the remedial program. It will stick someone in the remedial program regardless if they belong there, since there are not enough seats in the non-remedial program. And the remedial teachers (which often are not the best ones) need students to justify their employment. Once you get thrown in the remedial program and you stay in there long enough, you stop caring. Because just like the gifted kids know they’re walking around with golden halos, the remedial kids know they carry a stigma.
I was placed in remedial courses in middle school. I have no idea why they thought I was remedial, but that’s what happened to me. In the seventh grade, I got my class schedule in the mail and saw that I had a weird homeroom number. All the “good” homeroom numbers were between 1 and 12. Mine was something like 14 or 15. But I didn’t say anything at first because I knew wasn’t remedial. Surely my homeroom was one of the good ones. Surely.
But indeed I was in classes with remedial kids. Kids who I knew were slow. There were also a lot of poor kids in those classes. Poor black kids. I know they were poor because I knew where they lived since they rode the school bus with me. Project kids. All the project kids were in the remedial classes. There were very few middle class kids in those classes, but the ones that were there were black like me.
Eventually I told my mother that I thought a mistake had been made. About a week into the school year, she got me out of there. But the same thing happened the following year. We still don’t know why, but we have our suspicions.
Looking back on it, I know I wasn’t the only “mistake”. There were other kids in my homeroom who were smart or at least smart enough to be in a regular classroom. But like I said, there aren’t enough seats in the regular classroom for all the regular kids. Some regular kids have to stuck in the remedial class for the system to work, apparently. Those regular kids will always be the ones who don’t have parents who are hip to what’s going on. Not because those parents don’t care, but because those parents trust the system a little too much. They simply don’t know that they can storm up to the school and demand a change their kid’s schedule, because not everyone feels like they are entitled to make demands like that.
We have “remedial” schools and “good” schools. If you’re stuck in a remedial school, everyone assumes you belong there because you don’t care enough to better yourself. But how do you better yourself when everyone treats you like you’re hopeless right out of the gate and don’t provide the resources you need to exceed their low expectations? The stigma of being labeled like that stays with a person throughout their whole academic career and quickly leads to self-defeating behaviors. If you’re a regular kid stuck in a remedial classroom or school, you will eventually start acting remedial. Just like regular kids who are treated like they are smart and capable will tend to rise to the level of smart and capable.
It’s not clear to me whether you are talking about different zones or different districts - it’s possible they may be the same where you live, but they aren’t everywhere. And because of that, I’m not sure whether you are talking about an actual voucher or per pupil funding- for example, I live in a very large school district. There are over 500 public high schools and when there were zones (not sure if they exist anymore ) students who did not attend their zoned school would not have gotten a voucher to bring to a different school - both the schools would have been funded based on the number of pupils.
Vouchers across districts present different problems , as districts spend different amounts of money per pupil. If school district A provides a $150/day voucher and School district B charges $200 a day for out- of- district students, the shortfall is going to have to be made up.
I get it, I really do but no matter what you do, no matter how racist, no matter ANYONE else, you will ALWAYS have kids not willing or parents unwilling or unable to put education as a priority.
Everything you had happen to you (I am sorry that happened to you by the way) is immaterial to the point I am making though.
Your *escape hatch is imperfect but then again so will anything be. Why don’t we work towards getting more escape hatches to catch all of the ones that want to get caught? Vouchers would be a great start.
I think our disagreement, if we even have one, is over the practicality of the matter. You want everyone to be caught, I just don’t think that is even possible, much less plausible.
I’m not sure if it’s wanting “everyone to be caught” so much as wanting everyone to have a chance. Right now, not everyone has a chance to succeed, or at least not everyone without top .01% talent has a chance, and those without much of a chance are disproportionately black. The system needs to be rebuilt such that every kid has a decent chance at a decent life. Right now that’s not true.
Agreeing with everything you said in that post, but adding to it:
There are, unfortunately, some kids whose parents actually don’t care. Those kids are getting the worst possible start at home. Should we really be punishing them further at school because of their parents’ failure?