Althouse: ''All whites are racist in the U.S.A.''

May 23, 2008

''All whites are racist in the U.S.A.''

A statement in a NYC teachers' training manual that raised an outcry in 1987 — today's Year That Blog Forgot.

20 comments:

J. Cricket said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 5/23/08, 11:21 AM
Anonymous said...: The handbook may be gone, but the anti-white theory lives on. Hence we see such examples as the refusal to call Rev. Wright's rantings racist.; 5/23/08, 11:24 AM
Balfegor said...: I wonder whether you will you give up on this lame idea quicker than you gave up on "cruel neutrality"?

I'm getting a kick out of it, actually. Liked the WWII ones better, perhaps, but it's fun. I'd prefer the Economist, though -- their archives go back back to the 1840s. You might end up with contemporary reports on the Indian Mutiny or the Crimean War. And wouldn't that be fun? What was their editorial position on the Congress of Berlin? Or the Russo-Japanese war?; 5/23/08, 11:51 AM
rcocean said...: I think this was a great idea for a blog!

The problem is we can't get access to the NYT articles. So there goes half the fun.

Even so, the audience for this will high quality, low quantity. Most people want blog posts with sex, pretty pictures, and red meat politics. Their whole lives are shaped by what went on before, but most find history too abstract for them.; 5/23/08, 11:59 AM
former law student said...: we can't get access to the NYT articles.

For real? I can. Have you tried registering at nytimes.com ?

I wish they had included the pamphlet's definition of racism. The number of non-white kids in special ed did suggest that white people were taken to be the norm, and all other people deviated from the norm. Plus white people get the benefit of the doubt in America. Nobody pulls me over for looking mismatched driving a Mercedes, even if I'm wearing my yardwork grubbies.; 5/23/08, 12:20 PM
rhhardin said...: Whites are in fact racist. The lexicographer's task is now to find out where the word went.

Like for honest he writes

2. (of women) chaste.

It's no big deal to fight over.; 5/23/08, 12:48 PM
rhhardin said...: I'd say merging the blogs, that is, putting those posts here, would work better.

Zipf's law is working against the second blog idea, if traffic is part of the expectation.

Which it need not be. I have a blog that I'm quite happy with that I think nobody at all reads, including me. Occasionally the NYT disgusts me enough to provoke a protest snark that needs to be in writing, is all.; 5/23/08, 12:56 PM
bearbee said...: I wonder whether you will you give up on this lame idea....

Quick, somebody wrest that gun being held to UN's head by Althouse!

WIKI shows the definition of 'white people' as: The current U.S. Census definition includes white "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.

Do Middle Eastern people think of themselves as 'white'? I'm first gen ME and growing up I never thought in terms of race only that I felt different.; 5/23/08, 1:03 PM
Ann Althouse said...: The 1987 archive is completely open. Try it ... especially before bitching. And if you don't want to read the historical posts forget it.; 5/23/08, 1:20 PM
rcocean said...: Sorry, you're right, 1987 is open, its an interesting article.

What's the logic in having 1987 open but expecting people to pay for 1907?

Note: I reserve my right to bitch about things without knowing the facts - its my God Given Right as an American.; 5/23/08, 2:47 PM
reader_iam said...: Here's a vote for your continuing.; 5/23/08, 6:01 PM
Dark Eden said...: Lurker chiming in. I am enjoying these posts.; 5/23/08, 7:39 PM
vbspurs said...: Another vote to "continue" here.; 5/23/08, 8:03 PM
Kathy said...: The number of non-white kids in special ed did suggest that white people were taken to be the norm, and all other people deviated from the norm.

Interesting you would say that. When I was teaching tenth grade English, I filled out the paper work to have a child evaluated for special ed. This child truly, truly was not capable of doing the minimal work required by the class or to pass the test for graduation. The tester put him just above the level at which he would have qualified for special ed. Then he privately told me that we had too many black kids in special ed already, so I could stop filling out the paperwork because he was going to pass them all. In other words, forget about who actually needs the extra services--it's affirmative action in reverse.

So you know, you can assume that having more black kids in special ed means we're all racist, or you could actually check out the real, live kids in special ed and see if they belong there. Then perhaps you could start looking for reasons why more of them happen to be black.; 5/23/08, 8:30 PM
former law student said...: forget about who actually needs the extra services

Kindly spare me your self-righteous, self-pitying, uncritical thinking.

Do the "extra services" ever get any one out of "special ed"? Or are they just an easy way to label someone, treat them as less than fully human, and dispose of them? In other words, once you put a kid on the short bus, can he ever get off?

Face it: special means exceptional. If more than two percent are "special", it's time to redefine "normal".; 5/23/08, 10:41 PM
blake said...: The number of non-white kids in special ed did suggest that white people were taken to be the norm, and all other people deviated from the norm.

Yeah, just like all the black people in jail, right? Couldn't possibly suggest anything else, could it? Must be racism.

Plus white people get the benefit of the doubt in America. Nobody pulls me over for looking mismatched driving a Mercedes, even if I'm wearing my yardwork grubbies.

I used to get pulled over all the time as a kid. There are other forms of prejudice besides skin color.; 5/24/08, 6:16 PM
Kathy said...: In other words, once you put a kid on the short bus, can he ever get off?

As a matter of fact, yes. Are you familiar with the ARD? If not, then perhaps you would like to inform yourself more about this subject before pontificating. Not to sound rude, but you act as though whether a child needs extra help in school, beyond what can be provided in the regular classroom, and whether a child has the capability to do the kind of work required for graduation is all a matter of perception.

"More than 2%" might be a sign of a larger societal problem rather than a sign that we should just lower standards to fit the new parameters of student capabilities. I prefer to use a color-blind approach to these things, and for that reason I'm not teaching in public school anymore.; 5/24/08, 10:12 PM
reader_iam said...: Hell, I can remember when the kids in special ed were taught in a spare room behind the itself carved-out stage area at the end of the gym in my (small-town) elementary school. You basically saw them for art class/music class (alternating weeks, and the teachers went from room to room; there were no music or art rooms, or even an art/music room. Little chairs were drawn up next to desks. But most of the kids just made fun of them, and complained, and all of that. (And on the rare times they saw the kids outside of the school harassed them, and chased them all the way home, or at least to pick-up, if possible. Well, to be fair, they also did that with some other kids, especially those at the other end of the spectrum, as well. But it was unforgivable in terms of the former.)

Me? My desk was the one where I crowded around as many small little chairs as possible. The experience galvanized me for a lifetime: a lifetime, I'm telling you. (Along with a couple of other things.)

There are all kinds of reasons for sensitivities, and also sensitivity, and--above all--compassion. There are also different reasons for taking a hard look at special education programs, how best to "do" them, and how to view and judge them. Then there's that little thing having to do with looking at the kids in that setting, and not viewing them as a clump, a lump, a one-size-fits-all, which I think people still do. It's just all fancy-dressed up, now--and incredibly more crowded. Talk about justice denied, justice delayed. Talk about bullshit, for cynical benefit of one thing or another, for one entrenched interest or another, to bolster one ideology or another.

Oh yeah, it's "prettier" these days (you generally don't have to go through the boiler room or janitor's room to get to the actual, "physical" rooms, these days). But we still don't consider "those students" as real people, as truly individuals, as opposed to fodder and controvery(ies) and dollars. Oh, no, we don't.

No. We. Don't.

(Ptooey.); 5/24/08, 11:41 PM
former law student said...: the kind of work required for graduation

I missed the part where those requirements were handed down on stone tablets on Mount Sinai.; 5/25/08, 1:00 PM
Kathy said...: Trust me. I'm not defending the current school system, either the special ed part or the rest of it. But the percentages of various groups that show up in special ed do not by themselves tell us much about what's going on in the schools.

Eh. It's a big mess, and a racial quota approach only makes it worse.; 5/25/08, 7:15 PM