If this happened to your daughter, what would you do?
__________________________
In mid-March, 2000, the mothers of three African American high school girls came to us for help. The mothers said that their pleas to Maria Carillo High School officials to protect their daughters from the racism and sexism at the school had gone unheeded. After considering a number of options, the women decided to jointly send a letter to school officials, to local civil rights groups, and to the press. Following is the mothers’ March 23rd letter to the superintendent of schools:

"We are three mothers, each with an African American daughter who, until this week, was attending Maria Carillo High School. We are writing you with serious concerns about the safety of our daughters at this school. One of the girls was wrongfully expelled from the school on Wednesday. Because of long, escalating hostilities, we are now afraid to have the other two girls go to school. In fact, for the last two days we have kept the girls at home.

Throughout this school year, and last year too, the girls have told us about ongoing and unabated racial hostilities directed against the girls by other students. As parents, we have had several meetings with school officials asking for their help in putting a stop to this constant racial and sexual harassment of the girls. And we have been very dissatisfied with the school’s inability and seeming unwillingness to enforce their policy of `no tolerance’ for this kind of behavior, behavior that is so dangerous and so obstructive of the girls’ rights to an equal education.

In the last couple months the situation has escalated alarmingly. There have been writings on school property that say ”(girl’s name), the black one, is a ******. I’m going to kick her ***.” The girls have heard comments like, “I have black people in my family tree, and they’re hanging from it” and more. The girls are razzed by classmates whenever they attempt to participate in the Black Student Union. Some teachers do nothing to stop this harassment. And in one case the teacher actively blocked the girl’s ability to get to the meeting on time.

onfederate flags, clothes bearing slogans such as “the KKK is getting larger,” and other oppressive symbols are allowed to be worn and displayed throughout the school, even though the girls have gone to school officials a number of times to say how upsetting and offensive these things felt to them. The girls have been variously called “Ho’s”, and “*******”, and “Monkeys”, and it has been made clear to the girls by some students that they (the girls) are not wanted at the school. When one of the girls attempted to defend her culture and let the teacher know that a comment just made in class was upsetting her, the teacher snapped at the girl and told her more than once to act “civilized”. During a talent show, while these girls were performing, racial and sexual remarks were being made by a number of students in the audience. Following the performance, when the girls were in tears over the incident, a school official told the girls to `leave it alone’ and then did nothing to help the girls.

In the last two weeks, these hostilities have broken into physical fighting in at least two incidents and the kids are beginning to dangerously gang up, with only the minority kids being held accountable."
______________________________

Read the entire story at http://www.justicewomen.com/cj_threemothers_en.html


Queenie :spinstar:

It's so unfortunate that things like this have to happen, but it's very much a part of reality. I would say that, even though I'm not even of age to consider becoming a mother, I'd have to say that the mothers should take these girls out of this school. The curriculum can't be that superior to other schools that they should fight to stay there. They are subjected to things they shouldn't have to face. The hatred others carry with them should affect themselves, not other people let alone these girls.

Being as though I could probably relate more to the girls, attempting to put myself in their shoes I'd want to be transferred to somewwhere I could learn and be safe at the same time; I'd might even want to study amongst my own. :o

I'd sue the school; however, in the meantime I'd send my kids somewhere else. It is inexcusable for Blacks kids to be suffering this type of treatment after all the struggles we as a people went through in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Man.....we have really fallen asleep at the wheel. :mad:

This is sad...I agree with Pan..these families should fight back by taking the school to court. Our school system is in enough trouble as it is without having to worry about issues such as this one...

So sad...so sad indeed :mad:

Looking at my original post I see that I didn't finish my thought; however, I know you ladies knew what I meant. It is frustrating that Black people continue to fight the same battles over & over & over again. We aren't the only people in this country to face discrimination, basically all non-WASP (white anglo-saxon protesants) have at one point or another. Yet all other groups: Italians, Greeks, Polish, Russian, European Jews, even Asians, Arabs, and Latinos have little problems once they have assimilated (learned the language). No matter what black people do, nor what rights we gain, we always have to continously fight to take advantage of them.

In this situation and the reactions of the parents, do you think that the behavior these mothers exhibited can be considered "typical" among African Americans today? Are we aggressive in our speech and more passive in our behavior (all bark and no bite)?

Has the "system" beaten us down to the point that we've become politically correct in our reactions to even overt racism/sexism?

I'm not trying to imply that writing letters to school officials is a bad idea, but I am questioning is it enough in view of the nature of the hostility that these young women had to confront? (vis-a-vis Alabama Church bombing in the 60s)

Racism is a system not a one-time occurrence. Racism perpetuates illnesses in Black people. It affects our mental and physical health and well-being and definitely shouldn't be taken lightly. More and more African American women are suffering from clinical depression these days due to racism. Hyper-tension, diabetes and obesity have also been attributed to racism according to some recent health studies.

As we maneuver as citizens throughout American society, at some time or another we're bound to encounter racism in our lifetime, and as we can see, so will our children. How we deal with it will have a major impact on our health and well-being. We need to address these issues not just when they happen, but also when they don't because we know at some point they will.

This particular situation with the school happened four years ago. I wonder how it eventually turned out. But more importantly, I wonder whether there are still any long-term affects of the incidents on the families involved.

In my opinion, we need a cafeteria-style set of strategies for dealing with these and similar types of racist situations and they should range between the conservative to the most radical approaches. Letter writing campaigns is a good ploy but we need to start threatening to shut down businesses and even schools when there is evidence that racism is being practiced and tolerated in these places--public and private. Being soft-spoken might work sometimes, but boycotts, pickets and rallies and using the news media like they use it against Blacks should be included in our strategies. When people want to shut down or expose an abortion clinic, what do the pro-life people do? Short of shooting teachers and school officials, racism should be exposed in the same way, in my opinion. If enough people's jobs and ability to graduate to pursue life ambitions are forced into question, maybe we'll start getting some better treatment.

Queenie :spinstar:

I feel you Queenie.

One thing I know if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence it's because the people on the other side are taking care of it. We fought and cried and bled for the White man to let us sit on his pretty grass. Now we wonder why our own grass is still in shambles and the white man still doesn't want us sitting on his grass. We don't need to stay in the White man's schools. We've got integration on a piece of paper but the hearts of the Whites are still the same and the attitudes of the Blacks are still the same if not worse.

We have to change our attitude toward power. In today's political arena the victim has clout whether you're talking about minorities, women, gays or whatever. But this is false power. Victimhood doesn't build the person up. Used effectively it turnes the person into a childish ***hole with a chip on his shoulder the size of a Sampsonite two-suitor suitcase. Used ineffectively it just makes a person a waste of good skin that crawled into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't looking.

We need real power. That's not something that someone can give us. We have to see it and sieze it from within ourselves. As a race of people we must stop acting like a bucket of crabs and start taking care of our grass.

Greetings river and welcome to our community. What a powerful message! I liked it very much. We hope you enjoy your stay with us and join us in Voice Chat for our scheduled classes or for just sitting back, relaxing, listening to our music and having a good time. Check our class schedule for details.

Keep sharing your knowledge with us because it's very much needed here.

Peace,
Queenie :spinstar:

Hi Queenie,

Thanks for the welcome. I am enjoying this community and I still have so much more to see. I will check out the classes and voice chat. It may be hard for me because I am hard of hearing and have the most trouble when a lot of people are talking at once. But I never stayed away from something just because it was hard. I guess this is part of taking care of your grass, knowing that the only things that grow without our effort are weeds.

holla atcha

I would hope that if I had children I would have more sense than to send them into that kind of situation. Somewhere along the way, We have hoodwinked ourselves into believing that taking **** off of White folks and their co-conspirators are some kind of badge of courage.

A Haitian friend of mine sent her son to an all white school...she was so proud of him; she told us of how he was into hockey and rock music and all the friends that he had-he was different etc... Not too long after that he started acting out, one of the worse situations was him trying to hit her, and he smashed in the wall instead. That was years ago. I used to ask her if he was "alright" at school.
"Oh yes, she would say, he loves it." Well, to cut it short-- he was kicked out of that school and just about every other school, and still today, he hasn't even finished high school...sometimes he's in sometimes he's not. Eventually, she found out about all the hell she allowed her child to go through...he blamed her...he got tired of it and took matters into his own hands... she would literally cry, sometimes.

I don't know how to take things. On one hand I feel sorry for the situation; on the other hand I blame the parent's for letting this go on... because I think that usually these kind are the kind who don't want to be around other black people. And then, what kind of caring parent would allow such?

Isn't it ironic that we hear of these kinds of things from people like; Micheal Jordan, Tiger Woods (named only for reference), Ms. America a couple years ago, and some of the Black Racist Republican/Conservatives... they talk of heinous treatment by Whites towards them:
MJ talks of how they wouldn't swim in the same pool; how he was called N etc...
TW talked about how he got his royal butt whipped daily (???) how he was called N etc...
Ms. America (named because she said in situations where she has to choose, she chooses African-American); I mean, this lady and her family's house was torched...they were taking up a collection to buy a gun and kill her!

Irony: These people literally live in midst white folks.

I just don't get it; I have not had any overt incidences in my life; now, I'm sure some people, including my own Black folk have probably called me N; and I cannot display or issue up that kind of trust for them.

One way I have started getting folks down here to act is spur them on; I have made signs, one relevent to this issue is this:

YOU RUN OUT TO WHITEVILLE
THEN COMPLAIN HOW YOU ARE TREATED WHEN YOU GET THERE!

and the refrain goes (on all the signs--We have 6)

WHO CARES?
THEY JUST BLACK FOLK.
Don't like what I am saying?
Good.
Come to the meeting.

(a person years ago, started me off with that; it was something that they were doing in their community)

I know that's right. Like my mother says go where you are celebrated--not tolerated. We tend to go where we are not even tolerated and like you said we think this is some kind of badge.

Willie Lynch did his job thoroughly. He has us at the point where no matter what we do we don't feel legit unless we are doing it in the white world among whites. We must seek validation in what we do not who we do it with.

I think about those children in the sixties who were the first to integrate white schools under the protection of the National Guard. We look at those children with pride as brave souls. In truth, they were sacrificed for a mistaken cause. What happened was the schools were integrated on the outside but not on the inside. I know of a woman who was bussed to a white school as a child. Before she went to that school she used to love to read but a white teacher told her that children who read a lot talk too much. At thirty years of age she was still trying to regain her love for reading.

Like you said there is no honor or courage in subjecting our children to this.

Excellent posts Sister Happy and River....very thought-provoking indeed. Being a child of the 60s and exactly as you described river, one of the first to integrate an all-white school, I can honestly say that it was that single experience that was profound enough to influence the way that I view race relations in the world today.

I know that's right. Like my mother says go where you are celebrated--not tolerated. We tend to go where we are not even tolerated and like you said we think this is some kind of badge.

Truer words have never been spoken!! It is ashame that the desire for so many of us has been to intergrate, that we lost site of what we had built when we were together.

Please be aware that at the time the public schools were slowly being integrated throughout this nation in the 1960s, it was a fact that most predominately or all-Black schools were suffering from inferior, primarily hand-me-down teaching materials and dealing with other such things. Our history had been stolen and buried deep beneath racism so there wasn't access to even an alternative education in those days. So at the time, many parents did what they thought was the best for their children and not necessarily wanting them to be like "white kids." They wanted what they thought was the BEST education possible for their babies because they never had the privilege nor the opportunity to be taught much of anything except that they were products of slavery and should be greatful for whatever crumbs they were thrown by an racist and oppressive regime. In hindsight, if they knew then what they know now, I would guess that many of these same parents would do things differently. I know my parents would have, but I survived and came through it still a fighter. So, no there may not be in any honor or courage found in subjecting our children to this form of education today and if these same parents learned anything from their struggle the generation before, they should certainly know better and stop trying to force assimilation on these babies. In a country that refers to us as "minorities" we don't stand a chance to be anything but that unless we PUSH BACK!

Peace and I remain your sister in the struggle!!
Queenie :teach:

Of course Queenie,

In no way am I holding the parents of the sixties culpable. I was only saying that integration is not the pie in the sky we thought it would be. I am aware that I am speaking from the perspective of hindsight and I do not see the benefit of blaming the past. We must move forward from where we are and what we know now.

Thanks for correcting me and giving me the opportunity to express things more clearly. This dialogue is turnin out to be very fruitful.

My last comment was in no way meant to correct you, my friend. Not in the least. What you wrote inspired me a bit. It made my passion rise. I had mental flashbacks to the days of my youth when I went through this firsthand. I recalled the emotions and sense of confusion and fear of being lost in a sea of whiteness. I remember the sense of vulnerability as a young black girl taking on such massive challenges simply to get through an educational system that could care less whether I learned or graduated. I remember the biased eurocentric teachings and how the world was always painted white and right. A tiny dark spot on a white slate was where I found myself during the fall of 1964.

No river, I wasn't chastising you and if I sounded that way, I apologize. It's just that the memories never seem to leave you and neither does the anger. The best we can ever do is suppress it or find ways to release it.

Peace,
Queenie :heart:

You know suppressed anger causes all forms of illness. It's what many of us do. So destructive. Your experience is so deep. That's why God gave us the power of words so that we can turn every test into a testimony. Like this one:
http://www.stpaulbc.com/singles/sweetsound.htm

Queen and River;

You two are so correct with your analysis'. I am glad that this is an issue that some of Us are talking about.
I, too, think that integration was wrong-in hindsight. There were many blacks, like Zora Neale Hurston, who were against it, because she was able to see around it-at the big picture. However, as the two of you noted Our families felt that this was right, mainly because of the inferiorness of many of Our schools--unequal in funding and teaching resources-- like some of the minority schools in California-today!

But, even with limited resources--back then, We still had a majority of Blacks who took lemons and made lemonaide--many of Our schools taught and did it superiorly!

I think that We still have an abundance of African-American women and men who are educators and give their very blood to help Our kids... and so many undermined by Our own community--least being undermined in many situations by a hostile environment-that places many under and uneducated people in positions of power; supported by the unions, who couldn't care less about the education of Our children!

I am no educator, but I think that the problem with the system is that they don't teach the basics...We are still lagging in this whole learning crap!

When we do desire things of Our own; then We have people saying "You don't want to be with me." Duh, why should I want to be with you? You have never wanted to be with me; and are hostile, and do your best to make sure that you keep me upset and unhappy as to impede my progress!"

Now, as a people, we are in this "African-American and" pipe-dream.

When there is injustices to fight it is usually "just Us".... So, I say, when We wake up and there are fruit once more to reap, from Us; let it be "just Us."

Queen, some kind of way this has to be a part of Our Agenda...
An excellent Topic.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001887473_cross25m.html

Now tell me why I should really care about this family?

I cannot give Martin the props on his tenacity in wanting to stay in this neighborhood. If he has the money to live in an upscale white neighborhood then he has the money to renovate a black one, improve education and employment opportunities for black kids who are falling through the cracks (pun intended) and not only the money but the human resources he would have as the pastor of a black Church to build up the local community are awesome. Why isn't he doing this? Is he seeking validation of his social status by living in a white neighborhood?

I know many blacks who have "made it" materially feel resentment when someone suggests that they owe something to their brothers and sisters in the hood. Once up in the big league they don't feel beholden to the blood and sweat of the people who helped them get there, but we are supposed to share their pain when the white boys beat them down? No, darling. Sorry but no. Uh uh. Nothing doing. He wanted to be on his own when it came to his brother's problems. He didn't believe in racial solifarity when his sister cried out but now that he is having problems he should still consider himself on his own.

I have four boys and If I am appalled at the lack of action taken by the school but not suprised. I feel so bad for those girls and their mothers who have had to deal with this problem. They were absolutely correct in contacting civil rights groups in their area. I recently moved from upstate NY where we have just gotten the NAACP involved in some racist activites that was taking place where black children from military families were attending. It is horrible to think that children are being taught such horrendous beliefs. What does it say about the future of our children who will grow and become adults with these children who will probably grow to become adult racists?

I have to agree with River. I think that you are right; but I don't believe that all who move away or have never been in the "hood" don't want to help; some feel that they don't know how to help.

I'm sorry, but again, this goes back to always seeing the grass greener... I think that church members who support and build churches have to start saying that they want someone living where they are living so that he/she can be reached when in need.

To be fair, some of Our sisters and brothers are coming back, all over the country. Some, understand that they may run, and hide- but you have no home; unless you are truly at "home."

It is sad and wrong what is happening to this family; but It is not Our dilemma it is not something that I feel We should have to worry about. I wish them well-esp. the children.

As I have stated a million times I feel the same about Black Entertainers (all of them) who forget the Black Community until something happens to them...like Kobe, and lately I have realized just how disrespectful that was of the fool; calling himself acting "Black!" when he got in trouble! The MLK shirt, the over-abundance of jewelry, the looking unkempt and unclean.... I swear somebody should have slapped him! What did me some good was seeing two older Black men say that they nor the community gave a **** about what happened to the likes of Kobe and MJ etc... We have other important issues to deal with.

Again, I hate it to the core that Black Children have to go through this...it takes someone unhumane to act as a dog and do such...but forgive me for not caring about what they as a family want to do...

Black Fools---the New Blacks.