It isn’t taught in my kids’ schools, but I can’t speak to nationwide curriculum.
And obviously it’s possible the girl is a dummy and never learned anything in school. I just don’t understand why that would be the default assumption.
I am the training and development supervisor for a county government agency, tasked with hiring and providing a program of policy training for employees who will be determining eligibily for welfare benefits. Rocket science, it ain’t, but it’s also a job that requires a degree of reflexive intelligence, as interpreting and acting on various levels of ever-changing state and federal policy, not to mentioning explaining them to highly stressed people in terms that they can understand, is challenging work in and of itself. Mix into that obscenely high caseload sizes, and then you have need for a skill-set that includes the ability to prioritize, work quickly, juggle multiple tasks, and do it all under very fixed and rigid deadlines. I have fired articulate, intelligent white women with MSW’s who were clearly taking the entry-level job to get their feet in the agency door. They weren’t CAPABLE of doing this job. I have successfully trained women who look, behave, and speak just as Rachel does.
I have learned that innate intelligence doesn’t always look, speak, and think as I do. What you have seen and heard is a product of Rachel’s rather insular background, encompassing cultural influences as well as perhaps Rachel’s access, and/or level of interest, to an educational system that heavily roots itself in the White American version of how intelligence is measured.
Furthermore, it is short-sighted and just flatly wrong to assume that intelligence has much to do at all with how well-read and articulate a person is. Or that there is only one measure of what intelligence actually is.
What I find frankly stupid, and probably at least marginally biased, is that anyone feels that he/she can make an armchair judgment about Rachel’s intellectual capacity based on vernacular speech and demeanor.
White guilt, my educated ass.
Just wonder if you could explain what you mean by that comment. How exactly did Rachel look, behave and speak?
Like a fat black girl, which for many people equates as stupid.
Young black women, many who are originally from Chicago, who speak in African American vernacular. Some, certainly not all.
I’m not referring to physical features, but to a manner of dress that doesn’t scream business casual attire to most white American midwesterners. Vibrant colors, large and chunky jewelry, elaborately lengthy and exquisitely decorated acrylic nails, hair extensions and weaves.
At times, I have to intervene with non-black employees who feel that they are being “threatened” by the assertive, straightforward manner in which some young black women (and in actuality, many younger people, period) speak. I am accustomed to speaking in a manner that couches a difficult message in reasonably diplomatic terms. My approach is likely seen as inauthentic by some people who are accustomed to speaking what comes to mind without the kind of filter that has become a natural part of who I am. And I occasionally have to remind my employees that what is said is only one part of how a message is delivered. I have to remind myself of that, too.
Me: “I don’t believe that it would be credible to assume that I was being lied to.”
Rachel: “That’s real retarded, sir.”
+1
Well, yeah. I can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t want to have a conversation with you and your interesting ideas about “white guilt.” To an anonymous poster on the Internet. That you don’t know what race is.
Thought crimes can be a bitch.
Lol! Maybe she can learn to read cursive.
(checks join date for cotton and Lion)
Uh-huh.
I wonder how those who accuse posters of coming to their decisions to due to “white guilt” would feel about being accused of coming to their decisions due to “racism”.
So, a little about HBCUs. Not all HBCUs are predominantly Black. Langston University in Oklahoma and Bluefield State in West Virginia are predominantly White. As mentioned upthread, HBCUs have never discriminated on the basis of race. Most faculty and administrators at HBCUs were initially White, and their faculties tend to be more diverse (think of populations that experienced discrimination, like Asian and Jewish scholars). There’s a terrific documentary, From Swastika to Jim Crow, that chronicles the experiences of Jewish scholars who fled Nazi Germany, only to find they couldn’t get jobs at most predominantly White colleges - so they worked for decades at HBCUs, mentoring and nurturing generations of Black students.
There are 105 HBCUs. Most are state institutions, many of which were established after 1890 when the second Morrill Act required states to either integrate their land grant universities, or build a separate “equal” institution for Blacks. Guess what most former slave states did?
There are some noteworthy HBCU alums who are White. Harris Wofford attended Howard Law School and Mike Foster (former governor of Louisiana, who earned his JD at Southern Law School). And UNCF scholarships are intended for HBCU students, so yes, White students (as well as Asian, Native American, and Latino students) earn United Negro College Fund scholarships. Also, fun trivia fact: a White student won and served as student body president at Morehouse about 15 years ago. His name was Steven Schukei. Second fun fact: many HBCUs have minority affairs offices for non-Black students.
Many, if not most HBCUs are open enrollment institutions. So all Rachel will need is a GED and she can enroll. Most HBCUs take the approach of taking students where they are, rather than labeling them “deficient.” Most Black public schools historically did not prepare students for college work, so HBCUs tend to have strong developmental education courses and faculty experienced in preparing students for college level work.
I am certain if Rachel is interested and invested in furthering her education, there is an HBCU that will do a fine job educating her. And while Morehouse, Howard, Spelman, Tuskegee, and Hampton tend to garner the lion’s share of attention when it comes to HBCUs, it should be noted that in the late 90s and early 2000s, one HBCU had an outsized impact in medical and dental education. Xavier University in New Orleans (coincidentally, the only Roman Catholic HBCU) routinely placed more Black students in medical and dental schools than Harvard, Michigan, and Stanford combined. There were more Xavier graduates at Harvard Medical School than Black students from any other school when I conducted research there. (Of course, most of these Xavier students wouldn’t have gotten into these great schools as high school grads, but they often better their compatriots over four years.)
So, seeing as no-one here has seen Rachel Jeantel’s transcripts, or had her as a student in a class, I think it’s very inappropriate to write her off. As I said, I suspect if she has the desire to work hard she could do quite well. I wish her all the luck in the world - anyone who can speak three languages has something going on upstairs (says the doctorate holder who only speaks English and a smattering of dead Latin).
What do you mean “someone like me”? It was your assertion that she was very smart. Apparently you cant back up your own claim so you tried to dump it back to me. Bottom line is that ita obvious shes dumber than a rock.
Sorry Ambivalid. I was replying to someone else and got didtracted by a phone call. My bad…
But the NEGROES are GETTING AWAY WITH SOMETHING. And we have TO stop THEM. Any WAY WE CAN!
Whatever they’re DOING is WRONG! They should stop doing it, and be made to do SOMETHING ELSE.
WHATEVER it is that they have, they shouldn’t HAVE it. Take it AWAY from them. They HAVE no right to it. THEY shouldn’t have anything. WHY should they HAVE something, when OTHERS have nothing?!!!
If THERE are more than TWO of them in ANY one place, they are HAVING a meeting, and it MUST be broken UP.
WHAT is needed NOW is action. The TIME for talk HAS passed!
If ONLY you understood THESE Negroes as I DO, you WOULD know JUST how dire this moment IS!!!
No comment necessary.
If she had become fluently multilingual through deliberate study in high school, that might count for something. But being immersed in a multilingual home environment from the day you’re born (as she was) pretty much guarantees that you will become multilingual yourself, whether you’re a genius or not. So as far as measuring her intellect is concerned, I don’t think the fact that she’s multilingual is indicative of a whole lot.
Perhaps, but it’s a pretty solid explanation for why your speech patterns might not be completely standard.
I think Jeantel’s biggest challenge will be the study workload. It’s going to be quite the shock coming from an inner city public school. It doesn’t seem like the school expected much from its students other than showing up and filling a chair.
At least she’s being given the chance. Tutors will make a big difference in getting her prepared. But she still has to stay focused and put in the time studying.
I’d give her a 70% chance of getting a college degree. Which is probably no worse than any college Freshman. A lot of students lose interest and leave college.
Not necessarily, I’ve got quite a few coworkers with college degrees who can’t speak or write properly either of the two languages they’re supposed to be native in, and let’s not go into their level of English.
She’s not stupid at all, but it seems she is potentially going to have serious issues re her ability to understand and interact with students and teachers using college level standard English. Being a success in college is going to require some serious pushups, and it’s going to be a long pull up for a HS graduate who has difficulty giving articulate answers in English at the age of 19 having been born here and lived here all her life.
It’s kind of Joyner to reach out to her, but the amount of work she will have to do to get up to speed for college and get past the first year cut is going to be a pretty tall order. There are lots of people with poor verbal and language skills who can get into low bar colleges, but unless they are ESOL math science whizzes the vast majority with poor communication skills tend to wash out quickly.
I’d like to be wrong, but I think the real world chances of her successfully completing a college degree are pretty remote even with Joyner’s assistance. She’s going to have to really want it.
We’ll see.