Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later — Indoctrination
MichaelW on Oct 26 2007 at 4:14 am | Filed under: Education, Media, MichaelW's Page, Race, Society
I hadn’t ever seen this series before, but I have to admit that I find this stuff pretty damn scary:
That’s just a snippet of what is apparently being taught to our kids of high school age. Not only are white kids being denigrated as being overprivileged and unappreciative of “what they have”, as the Principal puts it, but black kids are being enouraged to think that the deck is officially stacked against them:
That was a public high school teacher promoting the idea of segregation. Is this what we really want? Is this the progeny of the Civil Rights Movement? Somehow I think that Dr. King would disagree.
Honestly, when I see these sorts of things, I worry about how they legitmize the White Power movements among other racist organizations. If the goal is to categorize everyone according to race, and dole out government privileges according to such standards, then how is it possible that racism will ever die? The totally predictable result is that, like in prison, people line up in fealty to their skin color. If we teach our children that this is the optimal result, what advancement is even possible? The only realistic result is a race war. Is that what we want? More concretely, is that what we’re teaching our children? If “Little Rock: 50 Years Later” is any indication, then the answer is: “Yes. Yes we are.”
Technorati Tags: HBO, racism, Little Rock, high school, civil rights
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That is truly incredible. I am simply stunned.
Like Lance, I find this truly incredible.
Students discussing racism…appalling.
A principal crying as she shares her concerns about her students…truly disgusting.
I share your concerns, Michael W.
Yeah, that’s the problem. You sure are sharp one, aren’t you.
Judging from your condescending attitude you don’t share much of anything with me.
Seems to me YOU’RE the sharp one, Mike.
Sharp like a bag of balloons.
Do you have something important to post about, or will you continue to point out the shocking sight of students and teachers talking about matters important to them?
Do you have a point at all, or do you just like lording you oh-so impressive moral superiority over us lesser beings?
Feel free to look around at what I post about. Although judging from you’re lack of reading skills you’re not going to understand any of it.
If you don’t have a comment about what I actually wrote, then you’re just kind of showing what an ass you are. But don’t let that stop you from slaying an army of strawmen with your sword of self-righteousness. Hack away!
Using the logic you are peddling BC I guess when a teacher talks about things important to them that run along the lines of “black people are inferior” we are to feel all warm and fuzzy inside? It is important to them after all and skin heads have feelings to. Look, the idea that segregating black and white students with the white students told what creatures of privilege they are and black kids told what victims they are, including the merits of re-segregating, is pretty damn disturbing. Kudos to the black kids who revolted against the meme that it is all about what is being done to them.
Hey, Lance, y’all can feel any way you want about teachers and students speaking their truths. Warm and fuzzy, shocked and outraged, stupified and numb, makes no difference to me.
I thought it was compelling to hear the black student argue against the “poor downtrodden black male” meme. I thought it was compelling to see the principal show emotion as she encouraged her white students to consider their advantages in our still, even after Little Rock, racist society.
Where the hell do you hear the teacher telling her students that black people are inferior?
And Michael, this is my first visit to your writing. I have no idea what else you’ve written on and frankly don’t care. I was intrigued by the title of your entry, and then puzzled by your “pretty damn scary” opening bit.
That you greeted my sarcasm with an insult is indicative, I suppose, of what one can expect if one disagrees with you. Don’t have anything coherent to say? Just call your opponent stupid or lacking in reading skills.
I’d offer to debate you on the “mean feminazis are ruining the lives of fine white Christian males” meme which I’m sure you’ve already posited, but I’m afraid it might be too much for your fragile ego.
Re-read it. I am pointing out that you would be far less accepting if they had. Your logic would accept that type of talk. I wasn’t claiming that was what was said. Re-read my comment and let’s talk again.
That’s pretty dang funny coming from someone’s whose opening salvo was a sarcastic, condescending dismissal of the post devoid of even a whiff of substance.
Huh? I don’t have a clue as to what you’re on about here.
Lance: “…I guess when a teacher talks about things important to them that run along the lines of “black people are inferior” we are to feel all warm and fuzzy inside”
How else does one interpret this? Ohhhh. I see what you mean. I think. You are equating a bigotted teacher (claiming blacks are inferior) with the discussions taking place in the 2 videos. Comparing apples to toilet seats, methinks.
And no, we are not to feel all warm and fuzzy inside if some racist teacher claims to her students that black people are inferior. It would not even occur to me to feel warm and fuzzy. Why does it occur to you?
Michael: you are absolutely correct.
You don’t have a clue.
So, it isn’t that they are discussing what you said, things important to the teacher. It is that segregating kids by race, and then conducting classes where the white kids are made to feel as if they are unappreciative of their privilege and blacks to resent their status is not disturbing. Then suggesting that segregation to deal with this is the answer is also okay. Fine, we disagree. But it has nothing to do with whether it is a concern of the teacher. I find such things offensive and manipulative, you don’t.
I have no problem with discussing racism, this just isn’t the way to do it.
Lance,
There has never been an idea too dangerous to talk about. You give students no credit for intelligence. I didn’t say anything about discussing ideas important to the teacher. I said discussing ideas important to the stiudents AND the teacher. That’s an important distinction you ignore.
Reminding white kids of their socio-economic advantages distresses you? Addressing the REAL problems which impact blacks and whites bothers you? The teacher raising the question about segregation? That is troubling?
I find it interesting that your interpretation of the videos is so very different than mine.
I saw a give and take between students and teacher, I saw a principal that gives a shit, and I saw a teacher raising questions that surely her students had already thought about.
How any of that can be the source of an “alarmed” post is curious to me. Of course, if you go looking for scarey monsters, you’re sure to find them just about everywhere.
BTW, any chance you or Michael are African-American?
Okay, re-edit with that distinction and my point still stands. I didn’t say talking about it is an issue. I do think segregating the students with such transparent attempts to manipulate the conclusions, and in those particular directions is wrong. Once again, if I flip comments around we are all uncomfortable with them. Once again, talking about racism is important, manipulating the conversation in the way this one has been isn’t the way to do it.
If you think that is all that was go ahead and think that.
No, manipulating white students to bring out guilt, and black students to enhance resentment, bothers me. You seem to accept at face value that those are the real issues facing black and white kids as opposed to the goals of the teachers.
That way? Yes. Now, there are interesting questions there which if spoken about in a non manipulative way might have led to some insight. For example, if the point had been to break down the idea that the color of the people next to you is a determinant of the type of education one gets, that would be something to discuss. Others have made the point about the successful schools African Americans have attended where the lack of white students seems to not have been a handicap. It would discuss actual racism, where African Americans were viciously discriminated against with inferior resources, yet some wonderful schools were created. Such a discussion would have dealt with real issues facing children, about the choices of the past, and the choices of today where we have focused more on the racial makeup as opposed to the actual obstacles African Americans face. It would put the lie to the idea that black children need white children to succeed (one of the pernicious aspects of the legal argument put forth in Brown.) Instead, after mentioning that inspiring past about African American academic achievement she veers off into the merits of segregating blacks from whites. Louis Farrakhan must have chuckled.
If we have focused too much on integration in schools as opposed to the quality of the schools, that hardly justifies segregating them purposely. Once again, had she sympathetically made such a discussion based on the idea that “white” schools were better before integration and that maybe white people should consider segregation I doubt you would be so sanguine about her sympathetic airing of such views. Yet the result is the same whether we segregate because of white pressure or black pressure.
That the teachers give a sh*t isn’t the issue. Setting up an atmosphere which is primed for indoctrination is often a hallmark of people who “give a sh*t.” The guys at Stormfront “give a sh*t.” Louis Farrakhan “gives a sh*t.” The question is, is this the way to get kids to honestly deal with racism? Or is it to generate the views we see the teachers exemplifying and encouraging, black resentment and white guilt. It focuses the issue on white behavior and away from the complex dynamics between people of all races. Such a simplistic narrative may be emotionally cathartic for various people, but it does nothing to address the real problems we face, and feeds a sense of separation, as opposed to our common humanity. Racism becomes a one way street. The racist resentment of the young man (a mirror image of the arguments of David Duke) claiming it is all about being kept down by the white man certainly wouldn’t have been allowed had they come from a Duke fan from the opposite direction. I can understand giving such feelings more leeway than the opposite, but this kind of set up presumes ahead of time that some racist resentment (and all racism is dominated by that emotion) is not only understandable, but expected and rational, while the other is irrational and vicious. The asymmetry is likely to stoke racism, not quell it. Approaches such as this keep race and group identity a focus, rather than moving us towards a focus on our worth as individuals.
And why does that matter? I’ll try and not assume anything about why you feel it should, but needless to say people of all races have problems with this kind of approach, as unsatisfying as such arbitrary racial categories are.
I will reiterate: You give the students no credit for intelligence. You equate the teacher discussing provocative ideas with “manipulation.” You ignore the very salient fact that what we both watched was a snippet of classroom activity with absolutely no context. It appears to be edited to substantiate whatever xenophobic (and I use that word deliberately) agenda the original poster had in mind.
Of course it matters whether you’re African-American. We’d be having a different discussion if you were. Your reference to the boogeyman Farakhan is telling.
The intent of the original post was to point out how awful these educators were for discussing reality. You seem to think she was “manipulating white students to bring out guilt, and black students to enhance resentment.” I saw a principal asking her students to consider each other’s realities in an effort to promote understanding.
There IS no issue with these videos, unless you twist them to your interpretation.
Perhaps you have a more cogent example of what you’re trying to get me to swallow. But I’m telling you, this ain’t it.
This has nothing to do with the intelligence of the students. It has to do with the rather ridiculous things being taught the students.
I didn’t edit the clips. I happened to be watching the program on TV, heard the ridiculous things coming out of these teachers’ mouths, and grabbed whatever clips of that particular program I could off of YouTube. I had no agenda other than what was stated, and I certainly had no anti-foreigner one (do you know what “xenophobic” means?).
I seriously doubt that. But your assumption is telling.
Wrong. The point was about how they’re teaching the students to mistrust and hate one another based on their race. The teachers are deliberately setting up a competition between the students based on their respective races. I then questioned the wisdom of such an approach.
Which is probably what the teacher thought she was doing, and what the film maker thought would come across.
Who’s twisting anything? The plain words of the teachers is on display here. I’ve mostly raised questions, none of which you’ve bothered to address. You have made a great number of assumptions about me and the point of the post without actually acknowledging what’s there.
My issue is that I don’t like seeing the victim mentality pushed on people, and I certainly don’t like teachers setting students up to compete based on their race. The end results of such teaching is more racial tension and hatred. I for one would like to see less.
This has much to do with the intelligence of the students, and was exhibited by the A-A student who objected to the disadvantaged-black-man meme, neatly destroying your theory of manipulation.
By the original poster, I meant whoever selectively edited the program and posted the snippets to YouTube. You, or course, are responsible for disseminating the “indoctrination” nonsense.
You said: “The point was about how they’re teaching the students to mistrust and hate one another based on their race. The teachers are deliberately setting up a competition between the students based on their respective races. I then questioned the wisdom of such an approach.”
I think it’s extremely telling that your interpretation of this is that the teachers were deliberately enacting some evil agenda. I bet you see spooky monsters everywhere.
Such right wing foolishness deserves scorn.
You have mine.
You didn’t watch the show obviously. Michael did. You wish to surround the clips with the most generous interpretation possible, Michael is surrounding them with what the goal was. That the young man rebelled against it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, in fact, since he rebelled against it it obviously did exist. It does not destroy the meme, it demonstrates it. As I said, switch the premises around and you would be screaming, and quite rightly so. If it is “right wing” to be concerned about such things regardless of the direction, then yeah, I am right wing. Such notions used to be considered liberal, but I have given up on the usefulness of pointing that out. Of course I never considered such notions right wing, but if that makes you feel smug, so be it.
Lance,
That’s interesting, considering the show doesn’t release until October 30.
Next…
I’m not sure what you mean by this. are you trying to claim the series hasn’t even aired on tv yet? what would lead you to believe this given michaels claim to have seen it on tv already?
Uh, no. (pdf: p. 18, third column from left)
Just as a lesson in deductive logic: Where did you think the clips came from BC Buddy?
BC,
I don’t think it should change your argument, but two things do flow from this. One, you should address the substance of my reply. Two, you owe Michael an apology for calling him a liar.
Example of reality-based deductive reasoning:
A: Michael presents 2 Youtube snippets.
+
B: Michael doesn’t claim he’s actually seen the series on HBO.
+
C: Michael posts a month AFTER the series aired on HBO
+
D: The DVD is not going to be released until October 30th.
=
It’s MOST likely Michael has not seen the series.
It’s a certainty that Lance hasn’t seen them.
Addendum:
You haven’t provided anything other than 2 very small moments in time, bereft of context.
I love that Buddy. First of all that is an after the fact rationale for your claim. Most likely is pretty different from it not having been possible for him to see it. I don’t mind you disagreeing, but when you call someone a liar and you can’t back it up I expect apologies, not some lame way for you to say we can’t prove Michael isn’t a liar. Our commenters do that kind of thing here on a regular basis. Issue the apology and get back to the discussion or move on. I tolerate a lot here, but I have little tolerance for unfounded accusations against posters or valued commenters. That protection by the way is non partisan. I have leapt to the defense of many who I disagree with many a time.
BC buddy, if you’re not interested in arguing the points here and prefer to stoop to slinging mud and calling your opponents liars, then well you’re not anyone who belongs here.
Maybe not such a great introduction if you want to be taken seriously, but it’s your funeral.
What did you think I meant by the first 7 words of the post? (“I hadn’t ever seen this series before ….”)
What? You should really follow the link. In fact, if you want to know exactly what time I was watching it (incidentally, I posted while it was on), you can go here, click on the link for October 25th (left-hand sidebar calendar), then click “LATER” until you find that at 10:30 PM on “HBO Signature East” the program aired.
Funny, that’s not what I got. I guess its that new “reality-based” math.
Dear Lance,
Your comprehension skills are sorely lacking.
Nowhere does Michael claim he’s seen the series. (that was YOU, Lance). Nowhere do I call HIM a liar. I did show my reasoning, and if you can show me where it’s faulty, have at it.
After you apologize for your diversion from the actual issue, perhaps you can do what I’ve asked. Provide context. Show me other egregious examples of this “indoctrination”, anything besides 2 short clips of a broad-ranging program.
Now, nowhere do you claim that YOU’VE seen the series; ergo, you’ve seen the snippets, whipped yourself into manufactured outrage, and now call me a liar.
You said he couldn’t have seen it, he did. You brought that up, not me. I have not called you a liar. To say one cannot have seen something, when they say they have is to call them a liar. Now, if you were not aware he said that I will cut you some slack, you need only apologize for giving that impression. I will accept your explanation that you at the time were unaware that he had said it due to careless reading. Here is a quote:
So he had claimed to see it. If you have problems with basic acknowledgment of error and unwilling to admit your mistake then leave. This site has a reputation for commenters who inadvertently or intemperately make these kinds of errors apologizing and getting back to business. I have dome so myself when I assumed something or other that turned out to be untrue or poorly founded. My acknowledging one such thing has led to the establishment of one of my best online relationships even though the person in question and I have a great many vigorous disagreements to this day. I would appreciate it if you would respect that request and not force me to make it so. That is basic courtesy.
Dearest Lance,
I admit I missed that he didn’t edit the clips, he watched the shows. I will not apologize for calling him a liar, since I did no such thing. You may read into my comments anything you like, and when you’re done digressing, pray answer my question.
Why these 2 laughable examples of “Indoctrination”? Neither one shows anything of the sort without some added context.
PS: Save the lectures, Lance. Makes you seem a bit schoolmarmish, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.
I said maybe you were just careless, and I said I would take your word for it. It is our site. We can be as schoolmarmish as we like, and personally standards of debate.
As for the substance, I disagree, what is going on is quite apparent. Not much more to say than we disagree. The context however is pretty clear to me, but then I have been around this stuff enough to see the pattern. Your subjective judgment however leaves little to discuss.
AH, the old “I’ve been around this stuff, and even though I pooh-pooh YOUR subjective analysis, just take my word for it. MY subjective analaysis is all you need.”
Since you don’t know who I am or what my objective experiences are, your claim is just as valid as mine. PLUS, you’ve just used the old trust-me-I’m-an-expert argument.
And that’s lame.
Y’all just carry on with being scared and shocked at the boogey-teachers.
Sheesh.
No BC. That isn’t it, and I do not argue in that vein as a rule. I just don’t see anything to discuss on that front at this point. We disagree. If there is some other argument you wish to make then let us do so. I discuss things to learn, not to score debating points. I was speaking purely of my conclusion, not yours. Your subjective judgment is one I disagree with, but there is nothing to discuss. I never said my analysis wasn’t subjective. You seem to erect strawmen rather quickly by assuming things so you can shoehorn me into some mold you have. That makes the pointlessness of the discussion all the more clear.
Yes, Lance, that’s exactly what you and Michael did.
Tis the season, I guess, since the big ole scarecrow of “indoctrination” certainly seems Halloweenish.
You see things one way, I see them another. Which is the basis of all good debate, no? Yet neither you or Michael have answered my questions, backed up your assertions of indoctrination, OR provided any coherent examples of why you’re afraid or appalled.
When you do that, we may have something to discuss. Until then, it’s just more of the same.
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