Racism Continued

Did you read the paper today? A proposal for blacks-only school. Can you believe it?? BLACKS-ONLY school!

BLACKS-ONLY!!!

So if a white administration suggested this we'd be back in the Rosa Parks era with a divided nation fighting for the right for all to be treated equally. But it's suddenly not racist if a black "executive officer of student and community equity" for the TDSB suggests it. He even wants race-based statistics on the students! They're so up in arms about the police and racial profiling but having the system in place at school is a good thing??! Uh hello, can't have it both ways, people!

They say it's needed to give special attention to the hopeless black kids out there who are falling behind in school, in life and in opportunities. Now if we take out the word "black", don't we have a lot of those other coloured kids in the same boat as well? Poor families come in every single colour there is out there, it's not necessarily about skin colour. The focus should be on socio-economics. If the government announced they wanted to put more money and time into schools in troubled areas, I might not have a problem with that. I might even applaud their recognizing that poor kids, living in poor environments with more problems to deal with than the average kid joe (eg. gun fights, making rent, absent parents), need an extra bit of help and encouragement.

What message are we sending out to kids, the black community and the rest of the community?

> If you're black you obviously aren't smart or good enough to be in a regular school. No no, you will go to a special school for blacks. And really, only black teachers can teach black kids so our plan is to completely segregate you from the rest of the world where not everyone is black. When you graduate from our black school and get back into reality, well, you'll just have to learn how to deal with it.

> If you're white, yellow, brown, magenta, etc. and feeling alienated, falling behind, losing hope and just generally not doing well in school... too bad! We don't have any special race schools for you.

Can I suggest a "Whites Only" school to help kids deal with the fact that the world is shrinking and there is a lot more competition for academic excellence with kids of other races and there's only so much white flight that can take place in Ontario with the mass influx of immigrants choosing to live in this province, and so with a "Whites Only" school they can feel at home in an environment with other white kids and not feel like they're drowning in the melting pot of other racial colours?

Or maybe an "Asian Only" school where we're all yellow, dressed in the crazy ensembles that is supposedly fashion, listening to shrieky Chinese opera and speaking only in my mother tongue. Once I'm out of school I'll be out of touch with society because I'll have become so cloistered in my little culture and I won't be able to communicate with anyone not Asian or understand why everyone laughs at my hair and clothes.

Seriously, is it just me?