Racism in "Christian" Education

I might sound racist to say this (truely I am not), but these parents decisions to withdraw their children may not entirely be based on the color of ones skin (although that too is a possibility).

There are cultural differences between races, this is for sure. Perhaps the parents were not willing to send their students because of this simple reason.

In any event, I don't think it's the role of the principal to take any action regarding this. You can certainly address the issue to your superiors as a reason why enrollement is down... but you should take a very unbiased stand, since this can be a very touchy subject.

Good luck

 

Then you have done nothing wrong. If some folks are afraid of their kids being around too much melanin, let the sin of prejudice be upon them. I know some will disagree with me, but cultural discrimination is a segment of racial prejudice. I doubt the parents are pulling their kids out primarily because the other kids are culturally different.

When I hear of these things, I'm glad to live in a very racially, culturally, and ethnically diverse part of the US, where no one's race or culture sticks out any more or less than another.

If you feel the need to address this, perhaps having a discussion on cultures in a history class setting might be appropriate. But I'm willing to bet that the persons who need to hear the message most are not the kids, but their parents.

 

Well, whoop-ti-do. It's a school, and as long as they uphold a standard of academic and moral excellence, the language, attitude, music, and heroes should be acceptable. I'm sure any little gansta coming to school dressed in a slovely fashion, speaking ebonics and obscenities, and blasting Snoop Dogg on his mp3 player would be asked to shape up or get out.

Loren, I think you're doing fine. You can't be blamed for the White Flight. I guess what to do depends on the situation. Is the school independent of either of these churches? Is there anything in your contract about race as an admission criterion? What I would worry about is what would happen to the school if these churches had the ability to dismiss you and attempt to rectify the "race imbalance" in some fashion.

If you have the ability to thumb your nose at them with impunity--well, I still wouldn't advise it. But then there might be an opportunity to make advances to these churches and get them to come around.

And if they won't send their kids back, I guess you have another demographic to target for enrollment purposes!

 

There is such a thing as freedom of association. People just tend to self-segregate based on all sorts of things, cultural differences being one of them. I'm sure you've seen churches that are almost entirely black, and I doubt if you'd condemn those church members as 'racist to the core'. Why is the cultural issue bogus?

My county was under court-orderd busing to achieve racial balance for 30 years, before a local association of parents finally sued to have it discontined. Guess what? The parents who sued were black, and wanted their children to attend a majority black school in their own neighborhood. Are they also racist to the core?

 

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No, I personally would not.

It's not the fault of most of today's members of "almost entirely black" churches that there is little or no racial diversity in their churches. It's the historical biases & discrimination of whites that resulted in these circumstances. Study history: there has been a lengthy period of time in many areas of this country during which most blacks were simply unwelcome in most "white" churches. The solution became to band together to form their own congregations. Happily there have always been some notable exceptions, and the historical biases that resulted in the situation are continuing to cease to be a factor.

In blaming the current existance of "black" churches on racism amongst their members, you are attempting to pin the fault on the victimized; rather than the victimizers.

 

You have misread what I said. I in no way said that the members of black churches are racist. My point was that, given a choice, most people tend to associate with people who are like themselves.

 

Call it what you like. Maybe they felt that discipline was suffering, or that the academic standards were becoming less rigorous when kids of a different background were becoming the majority. You know, you could have avoided the problem entirely. I don't mean to be too critical, since you felt you were doing the right thing. But you disregarded some good advice and now wish to condemn the parents and churches for responding in the way they that they did.

 

Sounds like the article at http://bpnews.org/bpnews.asp?ID=21464

[ August 27, 2005, 01:14 AM: Message edited by: gb93433 ]