N.I. Krasnov wrote: > The African slaves had as much choice as the Jews of medieval > Europe. Some history for you: on May 18th in Worms, Germany, > the First Crusaders entered the city. Eight hundred Jews sought > and found refuge in the episcopal palace. Those who did not were > murdered. The following Sunday, May 25th, the Crusaders lay siege > to the palace. After resisting the siege for two days, those who > had not committed suicide were murdered or saved themselves by > submitting to baptism. > > Being ambushed then immediately put to the sword is having no choice. > Not to be envied, both Africans and Jews had choices.
Sure let's call it the Masada choice (which by the way, was not the choice taken by most of the six million who died in the Holocaust). But you forgot to mention the year of your historical example, it was 1096. If you want to cite persecutions of the Jewish people there's no need to go back a 1000 years; as I indicated there are much more recent examples. But what's the point? We were discussing the impact of culture on education, more specifically the impact of American culture. I think that it's reasonable to say that Jews have faired better historically in this country than Africans, or Chinese, or the Cherokee. I don't think that it's reasonable to claim that the polices of the Minneapolis Public Schools negatively impact Jews in the quite the same way that they impact African Americans. Pragmatically, although I haven't seen the exact numbers, I don't think that the dropout rate for Jewish students is 38%. Why is that? I think that choice, self-determination, and cultural tradition have something to do with it. And, [I say this only because of extreme annoyance] I think that if you want to argue on the weight of guilt trips African Americans deserve to win. Jews haven't legally been slaves for 2000 years, it's only been 150 for African Americans. Whoever deserves to win, guilt trips are irrelevant; it's educational success and equality that's important. Michael Atherton Prospect Park TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
