Every time a debate of this kind comes along, we will have in one corner - the Martin Luther King liberals, who will want nothing other then a colour-blind world where people are judged by their character and not by the colour of their skin (that's great), but offer no real serious critique or analysis of the system that generates the opposite (that's bad). Then you have the conservatives who invoke MLK but at the same time staunchly oppose anything that is so-called "entitlement mentality" which is basically another way of saying that they don't want tax dollars spent on yet more social engineering, and their solution is usually something simplified like; more discipline and less gangsta rap (these are usually the same kinds of people who are for things like Mandatory Sentencing). Then...
You've also got the black-identity political agenda people who warmly embrace the idea of an African centered school. The city of Toronto has approved the opening of an Afrocentric School in September of 2009, and it will occupy the unused space at Sheppard Public School, near Sheppard Avenue and Keele Street. I personally can't see how a concession like this one from the very people who couldn't fix the problem in the first place is gonna work. The school districts within urban areas had been met with a surprise, unhappy minority families embittered by perennially sagging test scores wanted something done about an alarming 40% drop out rate (and their right, something should be done). But do these parents really think that children who learn more about their heritage will score higher in subjects like science and math? What about the black students who already score well in integrated schools, shouldn't their reasons for success be studied? Perhaps those students were in better school environments among teachers who weren't racist and targeting their students in a discriminatory way.
What's my opinion? I'll tell you straight...
I think the school board in Toronto is shifting the focus of responsibility away from a structure of power relations (one that they refuse to admit exists) and their placing the educational problems that do exist in densely populated urban areas on to the people who have been and remain oppressed by it. It's not clear to me whether this solution has become the desirable solution because parents prefer their kids to learn largely or exclusively alongside others like them, or because they want schools that have a sense of community. An Afrocentric school is not a segregated school in the sense of that word 'segregation' which was clearly a system of superiors imposing on a class of people seen as inferior, the jim crow era cannot be compared with what is happening now, and that word should not be used to describe this chartered school idea of Afro-centricity. But...and this is a very strong but...Afrocentric schools are a desperate attempt at best, a band-aid solution that isn't addressing the social malady that undergirds what's really at the root of the problem - Systemic Racism.
These are very OLD institutions that haven't modernized themselves for the post-Obama world that we live in. Newer constructs need to be devised, and devised quickly because we are all entering into a very unique economic global climate. The tools needed are different and the curriculums needed to make the youth of tommorrow ready are going to have to be different as well. This penny in the jar type thinking is small change, and all the books one could read about African Kings and Queens isn't what's gonna cut it in a very real competitive world. These kids are dropping out of school because they all want to make money, and their parents who are apoligists for this system of checks and false balances are too weak to really effectualy create change. Ask yourself the question: Which segment of the population largely and popularly supported and VOTED a 'capable' blackman into the office of president of the United States? Was it not the youth...
INVOLVE YOUR YOUNG PEOPLE in the decision making progress, you'd be surprised when you realize how aware and ready they are for the leadership that awaits them. A re-surfacing of fresh ideas that includes everyone, and none of this marginalizing along flimsy racial lines under the guise of "black history isn't being taught". Depending on what school you go to...it is being taught to whites and blacks alike in Toronto, and that hasn't changed the scope of the underlying problem.
More some other time...
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