http://www.thestar.com/News/article/299106

To summarize in brief, the Toronto District School Board (Canada) has just approved a motion to open an all black school somewhere in downtown Toronto. The school will have only black management, teachers and only accept black students. The thrust of the project is twofold; increase attendance rates and a general interest for staying in school, and provide a more afro-centric curriculum.

This is racist. Why, after so many years of fighting against segregation and racism is something like this allowed to happen? Where are the benefits? I honestly can't think of any. But there are enough downsides to this. Aside from the general massive racism intoned in the project, there are also a number of other problems. For example, what happens when these students graduate and enter the workforce or higher education? If they're only socialized with other people of the same race, how will they react to fellow students or authority figures of different races? There is also debate as to whether or not any students actually asked for such a school to be created, as well as the question of public funding.

I have nothing against the offering of an afro-centric course as part of the curriculum... but why like this? Many people send their children to Jewish/Greek/Chinese/you-name-it (private) schools on Saturdays or Sundays, so that their kids can learn about their own culture and have an appreciation for it. That's wonderful. But why does an all black school receive public approval and funding?

Consider this. If someone now petitions for an all white school (which someone will undoubtedly do) they'll instantly be labelled as a racist. But what's the difference? Why is an all black school tolerable, but an all white school abhorred? Is it some pathetic 200 year old slavery justification that has no bearing on the real world anymore?

I'm interested in getting other viewpoints on this because quite frankly I cannot reconcile myself to the alternative viewpoint. I cannot see this school as being anything but a bad idea. I don't see how it can be anything but racist (at least on some level) and, most of all, I can't fathom how it ever received approval.

I don't see the point of that. Black people are the same as white ones - except with a palette change (or vice-versa). It's not like they'd have to be taught in their own special culture, because their culture is the one of their country and/or religion, like with everyone else.
Also making an all-black schoo looks like declaring them a minority. Which is stupid, as they're part of the society not more or less than anyone else.

But then we don't have many racist problems here in Germany so I dunno if I can even say anything. >_>

If this isn't a step back in sociaty, I don't know what is. All the hard work and blood sacrificed to put an end to segregation, and now this. This is a fucking slap in the face.

What is wrong with black people?
On average, they have lower test scores (primary school students).
On average they have lower incomes (both men and women).
On average they commit more crimes.
These are all stereotypes, but on average they are all true.

Furthermore, I think black people who are around white people (i.e., black people who live/grow up in primarily white neighborhoods) do much much better than average black people. Barack Obama is an anecdote. I think the converse is also true. I don't know if there are any studies that conclude this, though.

Being all by themselves in their own school is the last thing black people need.

The USA supreme court has said that for education to be equal, black and white student must go to the same school, sit in the same class, and be taught by the same teachers. That is why integration was ordered. To get around that (in the USA), white and black people have organized into separate communities. If everyone in your community is white (or black), then that's who goes to the school.

What proof do you have to make such a claim?

What proof can you bring to counter his claim?

Ah well it's up to the person making the claim (that's me) to provide proof. In a court of law that is. But I think for discussion forums too.

I don't know where you would go to get such a study. It would be problematic to conduct such a study. Do the black kids at the white school have high scores because the average score at their school is higher? Or is because of the white students themselves that their score is high? If you did nothing but look at test scores of black students, I'm sure the average score at the primarily white school would be higher than the primarily black school. I'll look for a study on this.

For income (black vs. white), you can to the the us dept. of labor site, labor.gov (I think). They have a bunch of stats on there you can look at.

The dropouts at my high school generally had much bigger problems than a lack of interest or "not connecting" with the teachers.

Where does that say that the school is "all black"?

Depends on what you mean by "the same". They don't have equal footing in the job market, for example (one study in the United States showed that "black" people (i.e. fake people with names that are stereotypically black) without criminal records are AS LIKELY as white people with felonies to get a call back on a job). They don't have equal education opportunities, on average. because they are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods and thus go to schools with terrible learning environments. They get scholarships that people of other races don't (LSAMP gives money to students who are in the fields of math and the natural sciences, for example, but they have to be of an underrepresented minority i.e. not Asian). They're probably not treated the same way by teachers, as well. Being "equal" biologically doesn't make you equal in the world, which is an important consideration when you decide what race you want to be reincarnated into next.

This is entirely the wrong question to ask. Mostly, it's a circumstance of birth. No one asks to be born into a race which was oppressed for so long that they had to adopt another culture to survive. No one asked to be born into a minority which important people in the majority (i.e. the people with money) would discriminate against.

If you want an analogy, what is wrong with women? There are fewer female academics with prizes in the natural sciences and mathematics than there are males, and the Putnam exam even has a special prize for high female scorers (which isn't even awarded anually), because women have never made up more than two (I believe) of the top 5. The richest people in the world are mostly men, and even the vast majority of the high rankers in the business world are men. There's not a woman who has even been a VICE president of the United States.

Or put another way, what is wrong with atheists? When was the last time you heard of an atheist governor? About 50% of Americans won't even vote for an atheist president, even if you assume that the person has all the qualifications. In fact, people are more likely to vote for a gay President than an atheist president.

It's not a problem inherent in black people. You can't blame them for the rap culture, the drug culture, just because they happen to black people more often. If you walk into a Chinese restaurant (and I mean a real Chinese restaurant), you see Chinese people behind the counter, and maybe some Hispanics as kitchen workers (i.e. behind the scenes). Similarly, if you look at the companies without equal opportunity (affirmative action) policies, you'll see that the proportion of blacks employed would not be consistent with the proportion of qualified blacks in the set of qualified professionals.
Anecdotes prove nothing.

However, there was a study done on black students who went to expensive private schools, and they did about as well as their peers in private schools schools. So you're half right, by accident.
That is, without a doubt, the most retarded thing I've heard all week, and I was watching the stupidest game show moments on Youtube last night ("Isn't Europe a country?").

It's like you're saying that whiteness, which in your view is equivalent with success, can "rub off" onto a black person. You sound like a hundred-year-old anthropologist. Do you also subscribe to the view that giraffes have long necks because they stretched a lot and then pass their self-mutated genes to their children?
Usually white people choose not to move into black neighborhoods, while poor black people don't really have much of a choice, do they? Try to understand that economic differences matter more than an individual's race, up to the point where educators don't care and employers discriminate.

OK, what's the right question?
Women seem about as smart as men (for primary school age students, girls are actually smarter). Women's suffrage was around World War 1 (1910s), right? In that short time, women have managed to make up most of the ground against men. Black suffrage was granted in 1860 and they are still stuck in the gutter.
You can choose whether or not you're an atheist.
Thanks for that nice straw man argument.

As for your other arguments, I think they are good. I didn't know about that study you mentioned. How 'bout a link?

And anecdotes prove that at least it's possible for something to happen.

I have met a lot more stupid girls than smart girls, therefore I doubt your claim.

Yuka, here is a link for you. There are countless others all over the internets.

This post has been edited by jcdietz03: Feb 7 2008, 01:36 AM

Macleans

It's supposed to be open to anyone, but the main purpose is to help solve the 40% dropout problem, so it would kinda defeat the purpose if the school wasn't mainly filled with black students.

This post has been edited by Wally: Feb 7 2008, 02:20 AM

The internet is not the majority of women.

No. Girls are more likely to study, which doesn't make them inherently smarter.

Just like how black people doing poorly in school doesn't make them inherently dumber than white people, and Asians doing better in math doesn't mean that they're inherently better in math (it can be explained by 1) Asian immigrant children are less likely to be independent, and more obedient, so they are more likely to do better in school, and 2) Asian immigrant children don't learn English as a first language, so this makes up for the studying factor).
Bias against blacks is more significant than bias against women. Black people are seen as dangerous, dishonest, and untrustworthy, so they're less likely to get jobs, which means they stay poor, which mean their children are raised poor, which means that they're more likely to go into crime.

Think about it: Given two qualified potential employees, a black man and a white woman, who do you think the average white employer would feel that he related to more?

And really, you're comparing slavery and race-based hatred with disenfranchisement. Come on. I don't really have to say much more about that, do I? Women were being employed at a much higher rate than black men even before the end of slavery, so they're the ones who have a head start.
Like you can choose whether or not you believe that the world is round? Like you can choose whether or not you believe pi is exactly 3?

Explain.
You don't know what a straw man argument is. A Straw Man argument first makes it sound as if the opponent is saying something easy to disprove, and then (this is the important part) argues against the argument which is easier to disprove. Comparing your point to a backwards view is not straw man, it's insulting.

http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001094.shtml