Now, here is an interesting thing. Does the culture of the black communities discourage education, while the culture of the Asian communities encourages it? And is this bias by racial community at least partially responsible for the educational divide? Yup... I'll go out on a limb and say it is.
If racial communities have a positive or negative impact to education then we should measure that impact. It's actually racist not to measure because then you have no data to prove their community is an impact, it's only your gut reaction. (Aka your limb is an unproven racist stereotype until you have some data demonstrating the impact.)
Meh, yeah, I really misphrased that paragraph. The dangers of forming thoughts as I type them. I'd go back and edit it, if it wouldn't throw the continuity of this thread out the window. So, instead, I'll try to restate more of what I meant... Which is actually an interesting exercise in precise wording.
What I should have been saying was... There certain communities, that may happen to be predominately black, that hold a lesser value on education. Does this disproportionately affect blacks? Yes, it may. But that doesn't mean we should be making corrections based on color. It means we should be looking at those communities and trying to help. When I said 'racial community', I wasn't meaning black community, I was meaning it as local community whose members tend to be black. That may sound like it's splitting hairs. But it definitely is not.
The predominately black communities in the City of Detroit don't have much in common with the predominately black communities in say Southfield, MI. While the predominately white communities in Ecorse, don't have much in common with the predominately white communities in Farmington Hills. Despite all these areas being within 50 miles of each other. But
totally different sets of problems. Ecorse and City of Detroit look a lot more alike than any of the other combinations.
Another way to look at this is we're expecting whites to improve their reading by 50% and blacks to double that with a 100% improvement. In that perspective we realize that a greater % of blacks must make a greater improvement. (I suppose one could see some inverse racism as whites have the smaller demand.)
Or you could look at this as we are expecting certain districts to improve their reading by 50% and others to double that with 100% improvement.... With this perspective, we realize that a greater number of students in district B must make a greater improvement...
As I said before.... Pretty much any time you're looking at skin color, you're doing it wrong.
How about, instead, we reach out to their community leaders and ask how we can encourage more parents and youth to get interested in education? And then actually do those things to help their community?
Oh so now you want to use race. Racist!
Of course going to the community is part of what needs to happen and nothing excludes that from the approach.
I said nothing about using race. (Though I can see your confusion formed from my other paragraph...) But I said community leader. I didn't say racial leader. Those are usually two very different people with very different personalities. Your racial leaders are your Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons... They're not going to be much assistance, here. Your community leaders on the other hand... Are the neighborhood grandmas who watch the kids every morning, the local business owners who donate to the community, the local church groups, the after-school groups, the citizens at the city hall meetings, etc... These are the people that know the local hardships and conditions. They're going to tell you the real problems in the community. A lot better than any outside blowhard is going to.
Do you build Black Centers For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too which refuse whites? Wow would that be racist.
What? First off, who said anything about building anything? Typically buildings don't do a damn thing. Ask Detroit. We got shit-tons of them. Hell, most are free, if you want them. What you have to do is get to the bottom of the
reasons why certain areas have the problems they do. Is it because of local violent crime rates? Drug use rates? Is it because the parents are not home? Is it because of a lack of opportunities? Is it because people just don't know any different way? Address
those concerns, and you'll be starting to get somewhere.
