That should just about sum it up right there, but this is a story worth telling. (Falls into the You-Can't-Make-This-Shit-Up category.)
I've been a resident of what is known as "metro Atlanta" since 1979, when my parents made the unfortunate decision to relocate our family to what was then mostly-white DeKalb County, one of the northeast suburbs. I was beginning 7th grade. During the 80's, I went to an 85% white high school (which is now majority black) and Emory University, itself much whiter and less "diverse" than the Emory of today. Driving through Emory today is like cruising a displaced Third World country, except the inhabitants all carry bookbags, cigarettes, and cell phones. What happened to all the white Jewish kids wearing Greek-lettered jerseys, playing guitar and HackeySack on the Quad? (Oh, yeah...they're the ones now carrying 75% of the country's tax burden to cover the cost of the rest of minority Atlantans on welfare.)
But I digress.
I graduated in 1989 with a B.A. in education at a time when Georgia was trying in vain to raise its depressingly crummy ranking as 49th worst state in terms of education. On top of that, there seemed to be an excess of teacher applicants in the late 80's, especially in the nicer suburban counties, making it that much harder for new teachers to snag a position there.
The only county to hire me last-minute (a week before school started) was Atlanta Public Schools. I was one of only two white teachers and a white principal at the first school at which I was assigned. The rest of the faculty was black (not counting the speech teacher, who wasn't there every day...but she becomes important later on).
I have to take a moment to refute what I read the other day in Paul Kersey's book Escape From Detroit:
I wasn't one of those Crusading White Teach For America-type people. I was just so grateful to have a job and be able to move out of my parents' house, I figured I could make the best of it. My plan was to get through the next few years until I got tenure, then try to move to a different county. How hard could it be? I was teaching six-year-olds, after all.
I had no idea. None.
The rest of Kersey's book, however, is right on the money, as is his astonishing read about Atlanta in Black Mecca Down. I'm writing this post to illuminate what I saw in APS way back in the early 90's, even though their CRCT cheating scandal is being presented to the press as though it were a recent development. The following episodes serve to highlight the misbehavior of a majority population that takes no individual or collective responsibility for ANYTHING they do.
Without further ado, here are the Lessons I Learned About Race (with a nod to Robert Fulghum):
- Majority-Black classrooms cannot have, use, nor enjoy nice things.
I learned this little nugget the hard way: after spending my precious-little paycheck on buying nice new art supplies, reading books, a throw rug, a comfy chair, etc. for my first class (a bunch of six-year-olds), I realized I would have gotten a better return on my investment had I simply handed the cash over to the drunk panhandler who hung around the school parking lot. The students DESTROYED materials, deliberately broke writing utensils, tore pages out of books, put holes in the furniture and in the walls, tore apart lamps, clocks, and pencil sharpeners, and shredded the rug. They even stole all the spare change out of my purse when I went to the bathroom. All within the first few weeks of school.
- The concept of "Sharing Time" became synonymous with "Lying Time."
One of the staples of the primary classroom is "Sharing Time", (the Show And Tell of the new millenium) when students are allowed to share about something they did, something important to them, etc. In my all-white student teaching classroom when I was in college, this practice came off without a hitch. The kids instinctively knew how to share with each other honestly about their lives and families, and each student eagerly anticipated his or her turn to share with his friends. A majority-Black class, however, uses this time to make up blatant lies about their home lives, families, etc. For instance, "Yestaday, my daaaaddy, he took me to Six Flaaags, then he took me to ChuckECheeeeeeeeese, then he took me to White Waaater." Most of these kids didn't even know who their fathers were, and those that did had fathers who were either incarcerated or unemployed. This quickly became just an exercise in Wishful Thinking. Sad.
- Most of the students in the school are related to each other.
This bizarre little factoid came to my attention on the first day of school, when one of my kindergarten kids had to wait in my classroom for his 3rd grade NEPHEW to come walk him home. I thought perhaps he was confused, and meant to say "cousin" or even "uncle". The nephew, when he arrived, set me straight about the family tree, and I realized that about five or six black men pretty much fathered everybody in the school, spreading their sperm like dandelion seeds and leaving the "baby Mommas" behind to collect the welfare checks.
- Their three favorite words aren't "I love you.".
Majority-Black students in a class know they have a white teacher over a barrel, no matter how young they are. I was "warned" by many of these little Future Inmates of America that I'd better not have any plans to discipline them, give them a poor grade, or even look at them sideways, or else (and this is their exact words), "My Momma SUE!!!!" In fact, their Mommas had a very good reason to go sniffing after a white teachers' (presumed) money: they need the cash to fund their child's defense attorney fees when they get older. (Think I'm joking? Check out the link below: this moron was a student in my very first class.)
- Academics is NOT an admirable, worthy goal among majority-Black student populations.
I had a few students whose parents were stationed at nearby army base, and worked as higher-ranking officers. These kids, unlike the civilian thugs-in-training, were disciplined at home and had a good work ethic. Because of this, the other students would pick on them mercilessly, call them names such as "sellout", "oreo", "Steve Urkel", you name it. I quickly learned that I would have little to no success with the general black population, who regards academics as a goal not worthy of their time or attention, because that is synonymous with "acting White". Instead, what is admirable among the majority-Black kids is acting up in class, destroying things, failing tests, dropping out, and reproducing like cockroaches.
- Majority-Black schools commonly lose a few kindergartners after the first week of school.
My kindergarten class actually shrunk by three kids, who suddenly didn't show up for the second week of school. When I inquired about this, I was informed that this was not unique: apparently a few resourceful baby-Mommas, anxious to get rid of their little darlings and utilizing public education as little more than free day care, actually forge their children's birth certificate to send them off to kindergarten too soon, when they're just 4 years old. It takes a school about a week or so to weed-out the forged documents and send those students back to the projects, at least for another year. While majority-white schools encounter the exact opposite problem, with parents actually keeping their youngsters home an extra year to give them an academic edge over their classmates (commonly called "Redshirting"), in the Black schools, these Mothers of the Year nominees are breaking the law to get their kids out of the house, regardless of the fact that they're not cognitively or emotionally mature enough for school. Even if they get caught, the worst that ever happens is the kid gets sent back to its mother, and Momma enjoyed a free week of babysitting, courtesy of John Q. Taxpayer.
- Teachers in majority-Black schools, unlike in white schools, HATE taking field trips.
Generally speaking, teachers enjoy field trips just as much as students, because it means one less day of grading papers, a break in the monotony of school, and a chance to do something fun. NOT SO with the majority-Black schools. The main reason (and this is no surprise) is that these kids are so incredibly uncivilized and poorly-behaved, they're an embarrassment to bring out in public. They act out, are violent and destructive, and are rarely asked back to a destination unless the place is forced to host them by law. However, should someone in the private sector dare to complain about this, or try to prevent them from visiting their establishment, they are immediately branded as RACIST.
I specifically recall one mandatory trip (we used to be required to take three per year, before budget cuts ended that practice) to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Our bus of 1st graders arrived about 20 minutes before the Gardens opened, so our plan was to sit on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance. The employee who came out to meet the bus, a refined white older woman who handles all the school groups, wouldn't allow us to get off the bus. Instead, she ordered the bus driver to "come back in 15 minutes". When we came back after driving aimlessly around Midtown, our bus pulled up to the entrance where, lo and behold, an entire school group of all white kids had taken our spots on the sidewalk. Apparently, the woman had no reservations about a huge group of white children loitering in front of their establishment, mainly because they likely would be a well-behaved lot. The Gardens has other private patrons who would be charmed to see such a group going in to learn about botany, (unlike our crew, who holler, hoot, jump around, do back flips, yell at passing cars, grab at each other, steal, fight...the list goes on). The black teachers IMMEDIATELY lodged complaints with the Gardens, but to my knowledge nothing happened, likely because this woman has encountered majority-Black schools before and was protecting the place as best she could.
- Any criticism a white teacher may have about a Black child is because "You RACISSSS!"
This one defies all common sense, all forms of logic, as I had NO OTHER WHITE CHILDREN in my classes during my time at APS. One would question exactly how I could practice what amounts to "selective racism" against only one or two students and not the others. This does not deter the baby Mommas, who yell "Racism!" at everything from poor grades to discipline issues. I once made the mistake of asking a mother if the student's father would be attending our parent-teacher conference and got a 10-minute lecture about how "She don need no MAN tellin' her what to do." (Most parents never even showed up for conferences anyway.)
- The APS cheating scandal is nothing new.
I actually felt badly for some of the teachers caught up in that CRCT cheating mess, as I had the displeasure of having to administer standardized tests to these dullards (in the early 1990's, it was the ITBS test) and experienced the pressure and threats coming down from the principal if our class performed poorly. The last principal I worked for actually stated at a faculty meeting that he was going to post each teacher's class score in the lobby of the school, so parents could see which teachers were dropping the ball. In his words, "if I have to be embarrassed, YOU'RE gonna be embarrassed!" He also made ominous comments such as, "You're all just a couple of paychecks away from being out on the street," insinuating that our jobs were somehow in jeopardy if our class performed poorly. No wonder so many teachers felt they had to do anything to pass.
- Other Black teachers resent the white teachers' presence at "their" schools.
As I stated before, I was so grateful just to have a job, I really had no higher agenda than to teach my class, get paid, and focus on my new engagement to my then-boyfriend. The stress and flat-out disbelief of what I was seeing and experiencing every day took its toll on me, and I slowly began to see that, despite my good intentions, neither the students nor the other Black teachers wanted me there. They were "insulted" any time I expressed horror at conditions I saw, thinking me "racist" any time I was shocked or disappointed at a student, parent, or the school itself. (The white speech teacher called me at home one day to tell me to watch my back, and that the Black teacher establishment finds a twisted joy in watching "young white teachers fail". She was right, and I'm forever grateful.) One year, NINE fistfights broke out in my 3rd grade class. A crack-baby kindergartner took a chair and slammed it on another child's head. Another kid in the same class was caught in the closet with his pants down, two little girls (his "ho's") in there with him. Cockroaches infested the cafeteria and swarmed brazenly on tables and chairs while kids ate their lunch.
The "last straw", for me, was when a 5-year-old brought crack cocaine to school to "show it off" (only in a majority-Black school would this be considered an item worthy of showing off to impress one's peers). I asked him where he got it, and he said "my daaaaaddy's bedrooooom." I sent him up to the office and wanted to call the police, or Children's Services, whatever. But I had to get back to class, so the principal and secretary handled it. By "handling it", they decided to call the child's father to come pick him, and the crack cocaine, up and take him home. When I found out what had happened and expressed dismay at their solution, I was accused of "wanting to see another Black man in prison".
I quit the same day.
Now as a married mother of three girls, I'm distressed watching my majority-white little enclave of Gwinnett County changing year by year. Dekalb is a lost cause, at over 60% black, and right now in Gwinnett the white population is in the minority when you put both the Black and Hispanic population together. We're only holding out for 2 more years, until my oldest graduates high school, and then we're getting the hell out of Dodge. Salt Lake City is vastly whiter than Atlanta, and despite Andrew Young's dire warning to our people, I doubt a big majority of Blacks will follow us to Mormon Country. You don't see a lot of Blacks on snow skis. (At least that's what we're counting on, Mayor Young.)
***Just a caveat before I close: not all the Black teachers were racist or indifferent to my plight. A few were actually helpful and kind to me, but unfortunately those were very few. They were all in agreement that the school was basically a "holding pen" until the students reached the age where they could quit, and most tried to civilize them as much as they could in that time. They have an impossible, depressing job, and need combat pay for what they do.
Fled,
ReplyDeleteIt's back. dinduplantation.com
SBdL