Portland Advocate_1981-09&10

Perpetual Myths by G Ioria Stewart Traditionally, Black students have been brought to the atten– tion of the public by the media in the forms of busing, rioting, low-achieving, and as incorrigi– ble juvenile delinquents. Little or no ~ttention has been paid to the quality of education for the Black student, or to the cultural and historical background of Black children. No attention, until sporadic eruption causes dramatic events. Much of what is said to the media originates with educational administrators, political fi– gures, and others with an obvious vested interest in perpetuating one myth or another about Black students and their (mythical) ed– ucational status. We often hear, · "Can't learn, small brains, poor attitude, genetically and social– ly incapable of learning, handi– capped because of being raised in one-parent environment, or too hostile", when the real culprit is inadequate educational prepar– ation, vis-a-vis Portland Public Schools. The unveiled bottom line to the ~hs stems from a long-standing belief among teachers and admin– istrators (and expressed public– ly by Arthur R. Jensen, Genetic Researcher) that Blacks are in– ferior. page15 chieved through development of ful, you know, and you have certain specific abilities. someone in the society that Black students face very real could always say that Black problems. The perpetuation of is horrible - that Back is the inferiority myth (dumb, in- bad, Black was the devil ... ferior, slow, sure to fail, etc) that Black was vicked, that is sure to cause them to fail. Black was evil. Suddenly we All Black people have faced this had Black people who began to problem while growing up in our exert their blackness, and nation's public schools. There suddenly you had people that are those of us who were persis- told us, "All people are tent and thick~skinned enough to beautiful. White is beautiful, survive. However, we cannot af- Black is beautiful, red is ford to continue the wholesale beautiful, everybody is loss of intellectual potential beautiful. Everybody was Black among our children. We must no was beautiful - that is with longer allow assault on our the exception of a few hard– children's self-confidence and headed Toms here and there. I intelligence. could name a few, but I don't want to offend anybody and We are now defining our aca- their heroes. You know who they demic arena, with an emphasis are. 1 would like to mention one on: greater psychological sup- because I can never hold this port (particularly in the case man ... ! could never hold of Black male children who have this man for what he did. I played subservient roles to remember, oddly enough, we Black female children); deep- were just talking about him on :eaching changes an~ attitudes the way here- that's Carl 1n the Black commun1ty; renewed Rowan ..• Rowan. I shall never, Black awareness, Black pride andever forget what he did to respect, a better understanding Malcolm X. When Malcolm X was of Black history.and culture, dead, I mean, he violated all and a to~al comm1ttment to un- the niceties regarding death; derstand1ng of and concern for this man came out with one of the inte~lectual development of the most blistering attacks on Black ch1ldren and all Black what I think is one of the people in our community. greatest leaders that has ever ------------------come upon this earth. And in REV. DAUGHTRY (Continued from Page 5) Nor was Black Power confined to the USA. In England the Pan- this man's death, instead of giving this man credit for the fact that he had fought his In 1961, James B. Conant, edu- cator, found it a common belief Afrikan Conferences were held, among public school educators and and there was the movement to administrators (in the North as hold Black Power conferences, way back from the dungeons to walk among the kings of the earth, and go in dignity in the capitols of the world, And if you go into other parts of the world - from Afrika well as the South) that Black and the Black consciousness students were inherently inferior. movement in South Afrika led by . Steve Biko. Thls belief was voiced only pri- Then in Trinidad the National vately ••• but often. Ironically, Jensen (in his How Much Can We Joint Action Committee led by Boost IQ and Scholastic Achieve- Stewart Granger; Granger now ment, pg 81) has subsequently called Doctor, had almost top- placed much more of the blame pled the regime of Eric Wil- for poor educational perfor- liams, that was in Trinidad. mances among disadvantaged stu- And wayward Afrikans in the dents on the inadequacies of Diaspora conjugated; albeit, public school systems, arguing they had to relate to Black that most students could easily Power, thus, by the way demon- have mastered the basic skills strating the influence that they lack years earlier. Blacks in the USA have on · Blacks everywhere. Every- Literature also supports that "Black children are neither lin– quistically impoverished nor cognitively.under-developed ••• body was Black, and you re– membered the kind of society that everybody is, I mean that everybody of color is beauti- to the Caribbean, you'll find ~he inevitable Malcolm X, and I dont't want to get into a battle between Malcolm and Martin. We had enough of those battles. But when you leave these shores and you get to Afrika, you will find that it was Malcolm X, and yet, Carl Rowan - this "Negro" had the audacity to try to heap scorn upon this man upon his death. So, this "Negro"-he never be– came Black. He was always a "Negro". He probably will be a "Negro" till the day he dies .•• forgive me, Lord, for talking about him. TO BE CONTINUED .... it is a racist assumption that some language patterns are bet– ter than others (Coleman, et al, pp 516-517, Samuel Bowles Tow– ard Equality of EducationaiiOp– portunity?, and Harvard Educa– tional Review, Winter 1968, p.93) Nu-Look Behind this kind of reasoning may be a humane desire to free our children from the feeling that there is something morally shameful about the way of life into which they were born. The development of our children's minds remains a far too serious problem to leave to romantics without insight. We want and need tangible re– sults, and they can only be a- . BEAUTY CENTER For the Entire Family 289-4470 6720 NE Union Ave.