A Wee Flaw In The "Discrimination!" Logic
Jason L. Riley writes in the WSJ about intimations from the Obama camp that black kids' discipline rates (which are higher than whites') are due to discrimination:
The Obama administration is waving around a new study showing that black school kids are "suspended, expelled, and arrested in school" at higher rates than white kids. According to the report, which looked at 72,000 schools, black students comprise just 18% of those enrolled yet account for 46% of those suspended more than once and 39% of all expulsions.Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the administration is "not alleging overt discrimination in some or all of these cases," but that's certainly what he's implying when he bleats on about the "fundamental unfairness" of the situation. "The undeniable truth," said Mr. Duncan in a press call this week, "is that the everyday education experience for too many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise." Of course, if racial animus toward blacks explains higher black discipline rates, what explains the fact that white kids are disciplined at higher rates than Asian kids? Is the school system anti-white, too?
The reaction to studies like this reveals disturbing sensibilities on the left when it comes to education in general and black education in particular. The data were compiled by the Education Department's civil rights office, which probably thinks that it's doing black people a favor by highlighting these racial disparities and pressuring schools to reduce black suspension rates. No thought, it seems, was given to whether this course of action helps or harms those black kids who are in school to learn and not act up.
The Obama administration's sympathies are with the knuckleheads who are disrupting class, not with the kids who are trying to get an education. But is racial parity in disciplinary outcomes more important than school safety? Going easy on the students who behave badly--especially in inner-city schools where the problem is pronounced--is an odd way of advancing black education and closing the learning gap. Black kids already tend to be stuck in dropout factories with the most inexperienced teachers. Must they be consigned to the most violent schools as well?
A black girl threatened to kill a teacher here in our local high school. The officer on duty at the school responded. She was violent, and for some reason he would not pepper spray or tazer her (fear of lawsuit no doubt). She attacked him and gave him a severe enough break on his hand he had to have surgery and was out of work for 2 months (can't work as a cop if you can't use your hand). She wasn't even expelled. What do you think would have happened to a white kid who did that?
Same school had a riot the year before, hundreds of kids attacking the school and attempting to take the guns off the police's hips. What color do you think the majority of the kids at this school are? Not white. So of course most of the white parents are going with other schooling options, and the school will keep going downhill and eventually it will be racisms fault that this mostly minority school sucks so bad (sarcasm, that).
Shame, because it was a good school, once. It has an IB program.
momof4 at March 10, 2012 5:53 AM
Black adults disproportionately get sent to prison, have children out of wedlock, are unemployed, have no savings or assets....
Assuming these effects are the residue of past discrimination and racism, the effects should be getting smaller over time, right? Are they?
Bueller? Anyone?
Comment Monster at March 10, 2012 6:43 AM
We need to examine the findings in this study more closely. We can't just take it at face value. I imagine that the reasons for the suspensions, expulsions, and arrests are multifaceted.
I see a disproportionate number of African American students punished - even expelled for dress code violations. To me, this is rather idiotic. I don't want to see private body parts or displays of alcohol or drugs. I would like students to be able to walk for 10 feet without holding up their pants with one hand, but really - expelling a student for not tucking in his shirt, rolling the ankle of his pants, or even wearing a solid colored shirt? I would rather see them in class, learning. Sometimes the harsh enforcement of dress code serves only to create division between the students and faculty in my opinion.
On the other hand, violent, intimidating, or disruptive students need to be controlled or removed for schools to be safe and productive places. If African Americans need to be removed more often to provide a effective learning environment, so be it.
I do not think that we are helping African American students long term if they are not held to high standards (or at least decent) standards of behavior.
I was substituting for another teacher when I was trying to quiet the class. I told the students that they were to be at a zero voice level. Then I told them that that means no talking, tapping, or humming. Several students continued to whisper and one student kept talking clear across the room. I could hear him say things that could be interpreted as insults: Sasquatch, Mexican, retard, and I called him out by name and asked him to leave the room. He shouted, "racist!" and threw his desk. Naturally, I called his parents and sent him to the office. His punished - nothing as far as I could see. His father said that he would talk to the young man because he should be respectful, "even if you are racist."
So, while this student isn't disciplined, I see others expelled for dress code violations.
I cannot understand it, but I think that the concerns about discrimination can make things worse. It's easier for school administrators to see dress code violations than it is for them to see the most egregious acts which are not going to generally take place where the administration can witness them. They must take the word of the teacher or students who may (or may not) have their own prejudices.
Jen at March 10, 2012 8:20 AM
The race equity industry either knowingly or unknowingly doesn't know the difference between a correlation and, cause and effect.
Probably a little of both.
bill o rights at March 10, 2012 9:59 AM
How can you possibly hold anyone accountable in a private or local setting when a) they are told and shown relentlessly by public agencies they are "special", and b) with nothing to lose because they are given things, they have no reason to care?
Look around at the Bureau of Justice Statistics Arrests page.
Years ago it was pointed out that while blacks are 13% of the population, their arrest rate is up to ten times that of other ethnicities for some categories of crime. What this really means is that there is a serious problem. Not only is there no KKK conspiracy to put black people in the slammer, black officers and judges are locking black people up in this way.
Extend your study into single motherhood, and just try to find somebody married in a public housing project. Then plot the crime rate vs. those locations.
You should do this. You're paying for it.
Radwaste at March 10, 2012 10:11 AM
Below is the example of the pseudo-intellectual accusation that everyone is prejudiced, but only Whites are racist. This means that all Whites are racist. That is the university accredited definition.
This is asymmetric, intellectual warfare. The people who want to be good are falling for propaganda designed to control them. Socialists offer to increase the power of the state over them as an expiation of their sins. This only works because they are already good people, with the usual amount of anxiety about the world.
This standard argument deserves to be seen in detail to be opposed and laughed at.
The Undergirding Factor is POWER: Toward an Understanding of Prejudice and Racism
By Caleb Rosado, Department of Urban Studies, Eastern University, Philadelphia, PA
=== ===
[edited, emphasis added] Prejudice by itself is not racism. Racism results when someone uses his position of political or institutional power to reinforce his prejudice and limit the rights and opportunities of others.
Racism is prejudice plus power. All people can be prejudiced; only those who have power are really racist. African Americans, Latinos, Asians and American Indians (the powerless in American society) can be and often are most prejudiced toward Whites on an individual basis, but they are not racists at the structural, institutional level.
Racism requires two things: (1) socioeconomic power to force others to do what you desire, and (2) the justification of this power abuse by an ideology of biological supremacy. At present, only Whites have that kind of power, reinforced by a belief in an ideology of supremacy, both of which constitute the basis of racism in America today.
What is described as racism is often nothing more than prejudice and discrimination. A Black or Latino person might use a gun or intimidation to force a White person to submit. This is an individual act of aggression, not a socially structured power arrangement.
=== ===
This is the message applied politically: When a Black man dislikes a White man or his statements, that is simple prejudice, a regrettable mistake. When a White man dislikes a Black man or his statements, that is Racism requiring the intervention of the government. This is the accepted Liberal view, taught at respected universities and enforced by the government.
It would be interesting if there are any criticisms of Caleb Rosado's analysis from any Department of Urban Studies.
According to Rosado, only whites can be racist, and he seems to imply that all whites are racist. So, it seems that Sheila Jackson Lee is race baiting. She seems to imply that a majority of white congressmen are motivated by racial hatred.
A casual claim or implication that an individual or group is "racist" must get the response that this is despicable race baiting. As despicable as a casual statement like "What else would you expect from a bunch of Blacks?"
Andrew_M_Garland at March 10, 2012 10:12 AM
So agreed Andrew! The accusation of racism without grounds is race baiting. It's despicable and undermining. I feel that we have to stand up against that word when used improperly while truly fighting racism when it does occur.
It was amazing how many of my students were vulnerable to that word. As a Special Education teacher, many were mentally challenged. One young African American man looked puzzled and said, "I didn't know that! She had always been nice to me." Subsequently - surprise- he became uncooperative. Sometimes there were consequences to that. There it is - proof that I am a racist bitch. The co-operative white kids didn't get the same consequences. Getting labeled racist is death.
Thankfully, that accusation has not poisoned the water this year even the it was thrown at me daily last year. I haven't been quizzed about my appearance (Are you wearing contacts? A hair weave?) It has allowed me to develop good enough relationship with African American students that I think that a few students might stand up for me against any accusations. But this is middle school. No student wants to go swim upstream.
Jen at March 10, 2012 2:59 PM
This story is about school, but the principle it teaches applies in the working world too:
There isn't any racism against blacks, and hasn't been for at least 40 years.
But SOME (not all!) blacks have the notion, taught by Al Sharpton, that being black "means never having to say you're sorry." And exhibiting that attitude is plenty of cause for discrimination of all kinds, no matter who you or your opponent are.
It also has major, and well deserved, consequences later in life. Black teenagers who don't bother to pay attention in high school (again, following Sharpton's advice) graduate but find there isn't any job or any college that will have them (without affirmative action). Guess what? You earned that, too!
It's high time that the Civil Rights Act be amended to explicitly allow discrimination of all kinds against people who behave in these ways, even if it has a "disparate impact" on blacks. Only then will we be "judging people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
If you call this post racist, YOU are the racist.
John David Galt at March 16, 2012 6:09 PM
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