WhatFinger


Black only schools, Toronto, Segregation

A step back in time



In the summer of 1964, I moved to Meridian, Mississippi, which then was a sleepy old-south town just getting acquainted with the 20th century. In those days the town was completely segregated with separate schools for black and white kids and drinking fountains and public washrooms bearing the designations “colored only” and “white only”.

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It appears that the Toronto School Board misses those good old days and is prepared to take a step back in time to when whites and “coloreds” attended separate, but equal schools. I haven’t heard of a dumber idea since Kofi Anan and Maurice Strong dreamed up the Kyoto Protocol. Given that the dropout rate in Toronto’s high schools is fairly high, particularly among black students, the luminaries at the Toronto District School Board believe that having a school with an “Afro centric curriculum” will function as a panacea in curing the rampant underperformance and illiteracy now plaguing black kids attending Toronto’s schools. And if you believe that, I have the deed to a bridge that’s for sale cheap. The problem with the schools isn’t whether or not they are culturally sensitive. What does it matter whether black Nubians discovered the Pythagorean Theorem five thousand years ago if black kids today don’t know how to give change on the purchase of a Big Mac? We can be culturally sensitive up the wazoo and get no closer to solving the problem of black kids underachieving because the problem doesn’t originate at school. The root cause lies in what we have come to euphemistically call urban culture and the accoutrements of the gansta' lifestyle. Being dumb is a quality that’s highly prized among many urban kids today as it represents a form of proof that they haven’t sold out, bought into the ‘Uncle Tom’ trap and are living by their own rules. We also shouldn’t confuse dumbness with a lack of intelligence, as many of these kids have a lifetime supply of shrewd street smarts, despite their inability to spell or read the words Aurora Borealis. Believing that merely segregating these kids into an Afro centric school and steeping them in cultural sensitivity will create a cadre of overachievers betrays a severe misunderstanding of reality that in public officials like school trustees borders on the criminal. It appears that like the Falconer Report, which blames school violence on a school system that “marginalizes” some students, the majority of trustees at the Toronto District School Board have bought the myth that our schools are failing students, rather than the other way around. It’s possible that an Afro centric school will boost some of its students' self-esteem, as they learn positive historical events related to their culture. But it’s a stretch to believe that they will produce “scholars” who can function in a challenging academic milieu, given the conditions under which many of these kids grow up. If you come from a single parent family struggling to make ends meet without a stabile father figure and spend most of your time associating with kids from similar backgrounds, some of whom have found status through dealing drugs, being violent or both, then attending a school that scams you with a lot of touchy-feely fluff will make no difference whatsoever to your scholastic abilities. Self-esteem doesn’t come from knowing that one’s ancestors achieved great things; it comes from achieving great things one’s self. The Toronto District School Board has taken a racial view that’s every bit as narrow, vapid and shallow as that of those white crackers in Mississippi back in 1964. And our kids are a whole lot poorer as a result.


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Klaus Rohrich -- Bio and Archives

Klaus Rohrich is senior columnist for Canada Free Press. Klaus also writes topical articles for numerous magazines. He has a regular column on RetirementHomes and is currently working on his first book dealing with the toxicity of liberalism.  His work has been featured on the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, among others.  He lives and works in a small town outside of Toronto.

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