At 03:00 PM 2/19/2003 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:
Steve Schear and Tim May mention some interesting incidents. In Steve Schear's case, there's a mysterious absence of response:Not too sure. I noticed a similar lack of involvement interest when school yard fights broke out between pink students. Once word spread that some bussed in trouble makers had been "dealt with" the level of problems appeared to abate (at least until I graduated). It was reckless for the teachers and administrators to take no obvious actions and I probably should have been expelled. I was careful not to mention these incidents to my friends or family until I graduated.
"No one asked me about him, I never saw him again and none of the students said a word."
"Several days later three of his friends tried to jump me ....I never saw them again either, nor was I ever questioned about them by school administrators."
Well, obviously my following points will probably be met with scepticism (to say the least), but here goes.
If those same incidents had occurred in an all-white environment, most of the time there'd be hell to pay. People would freak out, and students expelled. In THESE cases, however, there's the tolerance and even expectation of bad behavior on the part of black students. While teaching in Brooklyn, I saw the same thing again and again: "You can't change them, that's the way they are." Even here, officials fail to respond for fear of political reprisals, while negative behavior is expected.
Of course, expectations don't FORCE a group to meet those expectations. So I'm not saying "people have no responsibility for their actions". But I AM pointing out that the non-response (of which the NYC High Schools are merely a giant example) is tainted with racism, and this racism gets magnified via the projecting lens (perhaps a camera lumina?) of institutions. So it basically takes whatever's already messed up and excacerbates the problem.
BTW, there were quite a few local brown/black students who attended Hami. I saw few if any hanging out with those bussed in. It seemed they also wished not to associate with trouble makers.
steve
