So Challenging
Every time I hear that we’re in post-racial America because we have a black President, I giggle a little. That’s exactly what they said about Hootie and the Blowfish.
So along comes Norm Hughes, a Michigan member of the Tea Party. Ole Norm gives a speech at Americans for Only Koch Brothers Prosperity about charter schools. He explains things in code-speak for his audience.
Kids aren’t going to charter schools if they’re “A” students. They go to charter schools because they’re failing students and, by and large, the charter schools have a higher percentage of poor families, ethnically challenged families…
Ethnically challenged? What the hell is that? Why doesn’t he just say the N word? That’s what he wants to say.
Fifty five years ago, when my Grandmother was speaking of black people, she would whisper it. She would say, “Mr. Riley who works at the church is the nicest man. He told me this morning that his son has the chicken pox.” Then she would lean-in, very ladylike and whisper, “He’s colored,” as if that made not a damn’s worth of difference except to mention. Back to normal voice, “I don’t know what we’d do without him. He is so nice.”
That was fifty five years ago. And if you lived in the South, you know darn well that your grandmother did that, too.
Ethnically challenged?
And then on the other end, comes this from White Whine, one of my favorite places to laugh.
Yeah, the whole month of February.
You wanna know when White History month is, you know, where white people can act superior? January, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. Write that down somewhere, Honey.
Y’know, the day will come when we don’t NEED a “Black History Month” – although I doubt it’ll be in my lifetime.
Thing is, “Black History” is also American History, and by ignoring it 11 months of the year, we have ALL missed out on a rich part of our country’s history.
And it’s why I watch everything I can on History Channel, PBS, whatever – to help fill in some of those gaps.
1Reminds me of Charlie Brown betting his sister Sally on Mother’s Day that if she asked their mom what day Children’s Day was, the answer would be, “Every day is Children’s Day.” Sure ’nuff…
2And, by judging from that tweet and plentiful arrogance all around me, us white folks get February as well.
*sigh* The stupid runs deep in these ones….
3Ah, the endless parade of euphemisms! A word gets ‘contaminated’ and is replaced; the replacement gets contaminated,…ad infinitum.
My granny called them Darkies. She hadn’t a bigoted bone in her body but she was born in 1870 and that was PC in her time and place. And when a new hotel opened in town circa 1884, the all-black staff arrived on the train to greet the waiting crowd with a rousing chorus of “New Coon In Town”, evidently a popular song of the day. Some of my [younger] friends refer to themselves as Afro-Americans, other [older] friends as Colored or Black.
4JJ,
Yep. My Grandmother used the term “Nigras” as she was polite – and in Big D~by the time we were kids, in the late 50s-60s we were NOT allowed to even use the word “Colored” and we were still in Big D~our Mom did not believe in “marking” people for anything~
5You didn’t have to be from the south. I was born and raised a few miles from Freeport Ill, site of a Lincoln Douglas debate. My mother would lower her voice and allude how they were so nice.
First wife and I never got around to telling her that her oldest grandchild was legally black in Louisiana.
6Ronald Reagan’s strategist Lee Atwater made the definitive comments about how Republicans talk in code:
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=lee_atwater_1
White folks who don’t think they’re racist because they talk in code, or think Black History Month is a problem to their whiteness, should stand under a blinking neon arrow and hold a sign that says “I’m an ethnically challenged white person.”
7The differences in what I think we progressives have in mind for charter schools and what the rethugs have is just mind-boggling….
8Eykis, wow, Dallas was more uptown than Houston and Beaumont. My kids were still drinking out of ‘colored’ water fountains at Weingarten’s grocery store.
9Norm Hughes sounds like he is one of “the peckerwood persuasion”
10Well, my gran was from Chicago, born in 1888, and when I was 14 or 15 (in the 70s!) she asked if “colored people were allowed to swim in the city pool.” I thought it was because she was old BUT my parents say that, no, it was because we had recently adopted a boy who was “foreign” (my brother is from Viet Nam) and her nose was out of joint. I still remember being shocked at how angrily my father er, straightened it; my folks didn’t believe in marking people either!
11A friend has 2 children, one an A student, the other an average student. The A student was recruited to go to a charter, her brother was not. Both are still in public schools.
My Little Sister (Big Brothers Big Sisters) is an A honor roll student and was recruited by several chartrs. Still in public schools.
All 3 doing fine. No cream scraping here….
12It was teh home schooling movement for 2 decades & now it’s the charter school movement? What’s with that anyway?
13I Love Hootie and the Blowfish.
Just saying….
14You think black families value education?? Are you kidding? That’s called “acting white” and it is frowned upon in your “community”. You need a BIG reality check. Lol what idiocy.
15Ethnically challenged? I think Ol’ Norm is Good Idea Challenged. I think Norm is Sensitivity Challenged. I think Norm is Perception Challenged. I think Norm is Shut Yer Pie Hole Challenged (also known by its other clinical name, Diarrhea of the Mouth Challenged). I think Norm is Turn a Phrase Challenged. I think Norm is Knowing Crap Challenged.
Whew, I feel better.
16Charter schools are owned, designed, lobbied for, voted for and supported by wealthy Republicans who are looking for a way to diversify their government dole portfolios. You know, for those lean times when we cut defense spending. They designed No Child Left Behind as a method of gutting public education (the only place all kids are above average, or in this case achieving at 80%+ is Lake Woebegone), because they knew that public education was was the last great egalitarian institution left, get it and you effectively disenfranchise all the have nots.
Charter schools cherry pick the best and the brightest students, they hunt for top athletes and if they don’t make the grade they shuffle them back to the public school that now has even fewer resources to meet their needs.
While I know that racism, and its closeted little sister sexism are alive and well in America it is my belief that economic disenfranchisement is the single best way folks like the Kochs and Norm have of maintaining control and the best way to ensure that you keep folks poor is by screwing them out of an education. Sorry mama, but that is the most polite way I have of explaining their actions.
17Hahah “Deb” you’re utterly clueless. Minorities are the ones who try the hardest to get their kids into the charter schools. What’s it like to be so uninformed??
18@Gelgamark:
19I’m going to assume your comment is not a snark.
I teach in a university where there is a sizable African-American student population. All are there paying much more money than they should have to because of the extreme shortsightedness of the Texas lege, but they are there nonetheless. They are no less dedicated to getting a good education than any other student of any other ethnicity. I see no evidence of not “acting white.” They are excited and exciting, good students and OK students; they have goals and aspirations just like any other student; they are homely and beautiful like any other student. The only thing different about them from any other student is that they have a different skin color. But then, you could also look at it that all the other students are the ones with the different skin colors.
I have taught in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Alabama, Nebraska, and now Texas. All that experience has convinced me that our society will be in good hands when all those kids of all colors grow up. Living in a vanilla world is boring. I much prefer having the choice of “31 flavors.”
So there! (I am now off my soapbox.)
@Deb, you hit the nail on the head. The charter schools sure aren’t Recruiting the baby in my room with the 48 IQ, or the baby from Korea who just moved here and speaks about 50 words of English. I just plug along everyday and do my best so they can learn.
20Y’all, I apologize. I was at a party tonight and just checked comments once, didn’t see any dirty words and approved 8 comments without reading them closely enough. Under our rules, Gelgamark’s comments should not have been approved. He gave a false email address. No courage, no voice.
I will leave these two up but will not post anymore from that IP address.
21JJ, I’m not worried. It is like Dolly Parton always used to say, “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.” Likewise, I’m not offended by Geglgamark for much the same reasons.
22Ethically challenged….
Whoops, meant to type “Ethnically challenged,” but I guess I got it right the first time, if I refer to Ole Norm and the Whiner.
Talking of how terms for the EnC have changed always reminds me of the Bloom County cartoon where Steve Dallas’s mother remarks on the cute little “colored” girl playing outside. Steve, newly converted to sensitivity, informs her that she shouldn’t say “colored people”– the correct term now is “people of color.” She contemplates this. “People of color…” “That’s right, people of color.” “Colored people!” “NO!”
When I was growing up, Black was Beautiful, and I don’t know why it still isn’t. Nobody has ever called me a European-American, but people ought to be able to decide what they want to be called, so I try to follow along.
And can we PLEASE get a move on changing the name of the Washington Redskins? Ask owner Dan Snyder how long he’d last if they were called the Washington Darkies.
23I can’t speak for other states, but in California charter schools are public schools. They are required to take any public school student who applies. They are exempt from some Education Code requirements, but only some. They get the same amount of money from the state as other public schools do.
24Sorry to be so dense but can someone tell me what language translates “gelgamark” as “troll”? Sounds German.~
25re gelgemark: at least we know that Greg Abbott reads and posts on this column.
26JJ: It might not hurt to occasionally allow the slime of Gelgamark like creatures seep through the cracks.
27Opens our eyes to the near extinct species.
gelgemark: From the Neanderthal Language. Def: 1. hate filled racist 2. not smart enough to pour water out of a bucket when the instructions are on the bottom. 3. Any one with an IQ lower than their age. Synonym: Republican, conservative, teabagger.
Look it up.
28I admit that I did not enjoy Gelgamark’s comments, but I also prefer we do not always screen out such as that makes us as vulnerable to believing our rhetoric is the most common ideology same as that Teaparty Facebook site is going to reinforce their worldview as the “right one.” Occasional exposure to viewpoints that are opposing are own helps exercise the brain. As Calvin’s dad often claimed, “It’s character building.”
And I did love Jan’s response! Thanks for providing a well-constructed from the trenches point of view.
29@Star: Thanks. I get testy when people “attack” my kids.
30@Crone,
Dallas was no more uptown than Houston – My MOTHER was the one – my Dad, notsomuch~
The “colored only” and “white only” water fountains, bathrooms and all that crap was still around in Big D~
31Geeze, Gelgamark is a desperate troll. Good. I want all RWNJ trolls to be as desperate and upset as they can possibly be – easier to pound them back into the dirt.
32My grandmother did the same sort of whispering Juanita refers to,except she always used the word,”nigra,”pronounced exactly as I have spelled it.
33Unfortunately, when charter schools get the same amount of money, they are actually getting much more than it costs to educate a child in the bricks and mortar public schools, which have many more expenses. In Pennsylvania, the charter schools do not have to meet the same benchmarks spelled out in NCLB, as do the regular public schools. They drain much-needed financial resources from the public schools, causing them to have to cut music, art, gym & library. Charter schools are really the way to circumvent integration, a way to break teachers’ unions which have worked hard over the years to require reasonable class sizes, improvements in the learning environment and improved security measures. Public schools are our last best hope.
34In TX the charter schools are “public” schools, but they’re not required to take everyone. Or they are really good at manipulating the loopholes, however you want to look at it. I have a kid who receives special ed services and I talked with a number of charter schools, until I got that out of my system. Some rejected him for behavior issues, some because it wasn’t a good “fit”. They can’t stop you from applying, but if they don’t want you, you won’t get in. One charter school I looked at sounded good until the director left with all the money.
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