AnnArbor.com reports Dicken Elementary School Principal Mike Madison sent black students on a special trip to hear from a black rocket engineer. Some thought America’s first black President would usher in a post racial era. Instead it seems to be doing the very opposite.
An Ann Arbor elementary school principal used a letter home to parents tonight to defend a field trip for black students as part of his school’s efforts to close the achievement gap between white and black students.
… Mike Madison wrote the letter to parents following several days of controversy at the school after a field trip last week in which black students got to hear a rocket scientist. …
[Madison wrote in response to parents’ complaints about field trip,] “… as I reflect upon the look of excitement, enthusiasm and energy that I saw in these children’s eyes as they stood in the presence of a renowned African American rocket scientist in a very successful position, it gave the kids an opportunity to see this type of achievement is possible for even them.”
“It was not a wasted venture for I know one day they might want to aspire to be the first astronaut or scientist standing on the Planet Mars.”
Why white children could not share in the “excitement, enthusiasm and energy” of seeing a black rocket scientist, is beyond me. Neither can I grasp why white children would not see a black rocket scientist as someone embodying the “type of achievement … possible for even them.”
Compounding the Principal Madison’s segregated event is the reporter’s soft-pedaling the event’s nature. The story’s lede puts the emphasis on Madison’s response rather than the parents’ outrage. Imagine, if you can, a Caucasian’s only student club sent on a field trip to hear from a leading entrepreneur while black students were kept in class. Does anyone imagine this reporter would open his story in the same manner?
Two cultural influence professionals, an academic and a journalist, the former explicitly and the latter implicitly, promoting the idea that black students must be separated from their white classmates and seated before a black professional in order to “aspire to be the first astronaut or scientist standing on the Planet Mars.”
Despite his “intent,” Madison created an event that separated students by race, giving one group a benefit that others were denied. Floyd, at Threedonia.com, nailed it with this line: “Hey everybody! Let’s go on a field trip! Whoa Whoa Whoa! Not so fast whitey.”
I suspect, Dee, that you succeeded in college not because you were surrounded by people who looked like you, but because you’re an intelligent, motivated individual who would not let anything get between you and your goals.
That is something that should be praised and used as an example for others. It should not be the touchstone for how things ought not to be.
I’m inspired by great thinkers like Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas despite the fact that I’m white and they’re black. Too many people suffered too much for America to revert to segregationist attitudes just so a few can feel good about being surrounded by people that look like them.
When white kid turns on the TV they see hundreds of examples of people who look like them doing cool things, they get positive messages from the media about their looks, their chances of success and many examples of that success. The same is not true for black and other minority kids. It is not true for kids with disabilities, or fat kids and so on.
It is important for all these groups to have a way to fight the negative stereotypes that they encounter so often in the media, these kinds of field trips are a way to do that.
The first day at college as a biology major, I was the only black female in most of my classes, there were no black biology faculty and in my 4 years at college I had one black TA.
I made it anyway, but I had to keep fighting the negative comments, and assumptions about my ability to succeed. It would have helped to have a support group of people who were going through what I was going through, it would have helped to have people that looked like me teaching my classes, and labs. As visual confirmation that yes, there was no reason for me not to do well, after all they did.
What most whites don’t understand is that they have that, unless they go to a historically black college, they will have many examples of teachers who look like them, of support groups that have similar experiences, who ‘get’ what they are going through.
Even if they don’t, all they have to do is turn on the TV and examples on every channel.
I am so sorry this program is now in trouble. This was an experiment to see if the grades of these kids could be improved and if it worked it would have been of benefit to everyone.
I would have no problem if a group of kids with disabilities had been taken on a similar trip, or a group of Hispanics, or girls, or any other group that has negative stereotypes when it comes to achievement and success, because very often these kids need more positive reinforcement to fight the negatives they get every day.
The disbanding of this group is a loss to all. It is sad that a bunch of adults let their politics get in the way of the success of these kids, and that they should be booed and ill-treated by their peers.
A more sensible approach would have been to form more of these groups for kids with different interests, like boys who what to be nurses or teachers, or girls that want to be fighter pilots.
In the past when blacks were excluded they had no access to the majority societies, universities and had no way of succeeding at the same level because of that. The white kids in that school are not excluded from attending university because of their race, or would not have the same connections as the black students because of not having been to those lunches or to that field trip. Their education was not negatively impacted by the lack of that field trip, in the coming years I am sure they will visit many sites where they will find white scientists, economists, judges and so on.
I think what is often overlooked is that when blacks are excluded, often the reason is that blacks are deemed inferior and there is a wish not be be exposed to them.
With these groups there is no suggestion that blacks are superior to whites, or that the groups are formed because there is a desire not to be exposed to them, it is because the blacks are trying to form a positive self esteem that is so crucial in today’s society and that is so hard to form with so many negative images that they are bombarded with every day.