# Keep that white man out of my son's classroom! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 29, 2003, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569 "2003-07-29T01:26:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/1 "2003-07-29T01:26:49Z")
> [@](#): > > A group of parents said they will fight a possible decision to allow a white teacher to lead classes in black history at Oberlin High School. > > Phyllis Yarber Hogan, a member of the Oberlin Black Alliance for Progress, said a white teacher wouldn’t be well-suited to teaching students about subjects like slavery. > > “When you talk about slavery, students need to understand it is not our fault,” she said. "Our ancestors did nothing wrong to be enslaved. > > “How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?” Yes! Exactly, Ms. Hogan! We cannot have a white person teaching black history. There is absolutely no question that s/he will be a racist fuck, telling those children that it’s the black’s fault that they were enslaved. And I’m sure this… _white_ _shudder_ teacher is just hankerin’ to go out and enslave some o’ them negroes. Yes, this is certainly an admirable position you have taken, Ms. Hogan. I commend you. [/sarcasm] Racist bitch. ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/2 "2003-07-29T01:28:10Z")
:smack: [Link](http://www.newsnet5.com/news/2360897/detail.html) ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/3 "2003-07-29T01:35:00Z")
Yeah and a Catholic shouldn’t teach about the Inquisition! Because, y’know, its _their fault_. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/4 "2003-07-29T02:18:32Z")
**Ms. Hogan** , as quoted in the OP: > [@](#): > > students need to understand it is not our fault Still a legitimate concern, and therefore so are the concerns of the parents. a) Subject matter does not exist as a set of truths that mean what they mean from a hypothetical “objective”, “unbiased” viewpoint. Subject matter has meaning, and meaning is “for a person”. When one approaches human subject matter, one can be studying “them” or one can be studying “us”, and the act of studying is intrinsically political. Not only _can_ you, not only _might_ you affect what you are studying, it is also a political act to deliberately avoid changing that which you study. b) same as a. c) same as a. d) same as a. Repeat until it informs your approach to all social studies. Read _The Everyday World as Problematic_ by Dorothy Smith and _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee_ by Dee Brown. It doesn’t make the parents _right_, but there is no _right_ position from which you can stand and say they are right or wrong. There are only concerns. You don’t get to appoint yourself “objective”. Now if the subject matter were, let’s say, _Peoples and Events of Classical Greece_ I think it unlikely that you’d have a contingent of worried Greco-American parents protesting because the instructor was of Italian or Turkish descent. I doubt that it would even be an issue if the course were being taught in the Mediterranean islands, although it might come up, who knows? We do know from the events in Kosovo and Bosnia and Serbia of the last few decades that sometimes these old conflicts have very current and very passionate resonances. > [@](#): > > Today’s facts are embedded in today’s situation. We accept them as being self-evidently true, as signifying what they are; or at least, we try to. We are unhappy with puzzles and ambiguities, uneasy with shifting roles and mysterious behavior. Why? > > Because they demand something from us. Present events act on us and call for action by us. Since we can change them, not simply define or describe them, they acquire a moral presence. They pose a question of responsibility, and by doing so they change the way we look at themSo valuing invades description, moral judgment confounds analysis. > > The most illuminating reaction occurs when a statement is made which runs counter to the customary attitudes of any given audience. Sometimes it is directly upsetting; that is, the audience takes in its significance and disagrees. But more often the meaning is separated from the fact of the statement. Then people say, “Oh, I suppose this absurd and disgusting thing you tell me is true enough, but it doesn’t matter because it’s just an aberration.” It may be true, that is, in the particular instance cited, but it isn’t true importantly, because it doesn’t link up with the overall pattern. It can, and should, be ignored… > > Clearly, even apparently scientific and objective data do not operate in the social world in the same way that they operate in the physical world. A “fact” can’t be pinned down simply by being correct in the sense that, Yes, it did happen. In the physical world, hypotheses that don’t work have to be abandoned. In the social world, hypotheses will swallow up “facts” that challenge them over and over again. As long as the emotion invested in them can keep them plausible, they will “work” well enough to get by. — Elizabeth Janeway, _Man’s World Woman’s Place_ 1971, pp. 135-6, 143-4) ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/5 "2003-07-29T02:23:38Z")
I’m starting to worry that I’m becoming so numb to this stupidity. I honestly wonder what our society will be like in, say, 50 years. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/6 "2003-07-29T02:30:33Z")
While I agree it’s rather dumb I can see her point. Would you want Heidi Fliess to teach abstinance? ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/7 "2003-07-29T02:38:25Z")
While I agree it’s rather dumb I can see her point. Would you want Heidi Fliess to teach abstinance? ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/8 "2003-07-29T02:40:37Z")
No…I don’t stutter. Honest. ---
**Author:** ![a\_bird\_on\_the\_wire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d9b06d/32.png) [@a\_bird\_on\_the\_wire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a_bird_on_the_wire)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/9 "2003-07-29T02:49:15Z")
Racist. Pure and simple. By any definition. (unless of course you are allowed to make up your own, floating definition.) To call it anything else requires a logic so tortured as to be unrecognizable. ---
**Author:** ![malkavia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malkavia/32/5621_2.png) [@malkavia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/malkavia)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/10 "2003-07-29T02:50:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > \*\*While I agree it’s rather dumb I can see her point. > > Would you want Heidi Fliess to teach abstinance? \*\* I call bullshit. This is nothing like Heidi Fleiss teaching abstinence. This is like Heidi Fleiss’s great-great-great-granddaughter teaching abstinence. This white teacher presumably has never enslaved a black person. FWIW, I think she’s a racist bitch too. _hrmphs_ ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/11 "2003-07-29T03:04:08Z")
Can someone explain how **AHunter3** ’s post relates to the OP, or indeed, anything at all? ---
**Author:** ![Rhum\_Runner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rhum\_Runner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhum_Runner)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/12 "2003-07-29T03:05:05Z")
Damn hamsters ate my post. **AHunter3** - What are you trying to say, because I didn’t follow you at all there. **Reeder** - Huh? You are joking, right? I suppose I wouldn’t want an ACTUAL CONVICTED SLAVE TRADER teaching about slavery, no. Something tells me, and I know I am going out on a limb without a cite here, but something tells me that the HS in question is not planning on having an actual slave trader teach about slavery. Call me crazy, or whooshed. The idea that a white person can’t teach a HS class on history because of the color of their skin is so ludicrous as to not need to be rebutted. Can a black person not teach me about Scotland because he isn’t Scottish? Utterly contemptible rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/13 "2003-07-29T03:08:10Z")
I said it was dumb. I can see her point though. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/14 "2003-07-29T03:08:50Z")
Also ill-informed and/or a liar. It’s pretty well established that some black people in Africa participared in and profited from the slave trade. I believe if students have all the facts, they can make their own judgements pretty easily. They can get these facts from someone of any race. ---
**Author:** ![Rhum\_Runner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rhum\_Runner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhum_Runner)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/15 "2003-07-29T03:11:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > \*\*I said it was dumb. I can see her point though. \*\* What point? That she is a stupid cunt? Oh, I see that point too. ---
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/16 "2003-07-29T03:18:30Z")
> [@](#): > > “When you talk about slavery, students need to understand it is not our fault,” she said. "Our ancestors did nothing wrong to be enslaved. Of coure, there wouldn’t have been an African slave trade without African slaver traders. That’s probably the type of unconmortable truth they’re afraid the students might hear. It puts a crimp in their ability to define victims/oppressors by broad race categories. ---
**Author:** ![japatlgt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df705f/32.png) [@japatlgt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/japatlgt)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/17 "2003-07-29T03:31:44Z")
More near-sighted racist poop from the oppressed. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/18 "2003-07-29T03:44:03Z")
That’s it. It’s time for us to start our own country, and only smart people will be allowed in. Smart people with the correct beliefs. What is correct, of course, will be determined by me. I have no point. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/19 "2003-07-29T05:54:59Z")
Are African-Americans better off being here than they would have been by staying in Africa? I think so. In a sick sort of way, the ancestors of slaves should actually be grateful that their ancestors paid a price that they don’t have to pay so that they have the privilege of complaining about something that never happened to them anyway. In other words, this lady doesn’t have a leg to stand on. It makes about as much sense as the reparations movement, i.e. none whatsoever. [sub]You may commence flaming now[/sub]. ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569/20 "2003-07-29T06:16:25Z")
The problem was that they had a popular long-term teacher for a popular class who was shuffled out. Would a similar situation like that happen in more affluent neighborhoods without massive protest? Highly unlikely. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keep-that-white-man-out-of-my-sons-classroom/191569.md?page=2)