Manifesto/Bio
Recent Comments
Re: “Praising attendance, appealing suspensions”
Thank you for some insights, Yugoboy. I think the problem is more particular, though. Serious behavioral problems are found mostly amongst African American kids and the relevant parental critique is that the parents care very little about their kids (and thus such basics as discipline).
One phenomenon I have seen in working with kids is what I call "The Kiss of Death". Every few months I will get one or more new African American kids from the same family to show up at my table and wanting to do some worksheets with me. Later that day, or perhaps the next, their parent (almost always a mom) will find their kids there working and awkwardly express gratitude to me (and other tutors present) that there is local tutoring/learning help available. That is "The Kiss of Death". I almost never see their kids again.
The larger context is that amongst our tutors we do have many poor kids showing up regularly - quite a few with illiterate refugee parents - and they try and they behave (and it works). Behind it all they appear to have the essential ingredient - a supportive parent or parents.
Short of a significant change of direction amongst a good chunk of the city's African American community - including getting on board with learning (which one way or another can help in the long run and feels good in the short run), RCSD is going to have an ongoing uphill battle.
Re: “The question we need to answer before we talk about dissolving the RCSD”
This is a significant topic and City's slant is as expected. But it is Yugoboy's response that deserves attention.
Essentially a solution exists but because "racism" it will never come to pass. It is worth noting that I believe Yugoboy is in fact an RCSD employee.
First, the obvious. The solution has in fact been tried for decades within RCSD. Has there been a bigger - albeit unstated - policy goal than to get "integrated" classrooms and in particular to get poor African American students into middle class/mostly white programs? Look at the history of East High School. And what has been the upshot of this double standards-based effort? The dominant attitude of African American students (certainly by middle and high school) is basically don't study (and sometimes characterized by "don't be white"). I volunteer tutor 4 days a week and this hugely self-evident.
And what happened to those middle class programs? Well some qualified kids had to directly be displaced by this policy. But the secondary effect is creating programs with big differences in the student backgrounds and interests. This is a big problem. What would East High School's basketball program/legacy have been under a policy of integrating several Asian American kids onto teams?
But the deeper issue is honesty. Yugoboy knows this. The accusation that suburbanites are biased against skin color as opposed to behavioral issues is absurd. By the way, for overt racism is there any group that demonstrates more of it than young urban African Americans?
It is good to honest about important issues - even PC-ified topics like race.
Re: “Next to paranormal”
For an interesting ghost report given in the New York Times you might look up "A New Home, Not Quite Vacated" by Susan Millar Perry. Published on 10/30/2005.
Re: “Choosing a mayor in a challenging time”
Howard, your vision of the issue of race is completely one dimensional.
Who exactly are the "people of color" you have pitted against whites? The behavioral - not racist - division in Rochester is primarily between a significant subset of young African Americans and everyone else. That division is defined by the disruptive behaviors of the former.
I was recently at a meeting for a Rochester branch library facing a serious teen problem (almost all of whom were African American). That problem included assaults on the premises. In walked a tardy city official who commented 'sorry I was at meeting discussing the problem of assaults on refugees'. No one had to ask who was perpetrating those assaults. Of course none of this was news - unlike your march in Greece - given the enormous barriers to honesty on the subject of race.