General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A 13-Year-Old's Slavery Analogy Raises Some Uncomfortable Truths in School [View all]Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)named themselves after Frederick Douglass??
And I've been trying to dig up some more background, especially on the "School #3 ostracized her and forced her to switch schools" -story, but the bulk of details related to it all re-direct back to the FDF...All of the linked news stories to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle are dead (all that are left are op-eds and public comment blogs)...
And then there's this curious tidbit?
Williams' parents say other teachers began to single out their daughter, a problem that a series of meetings failed to address. They requested a transfer from School #3 and the District switched her to School #19. On February 6, her first day at the new school, Williams said she witnessed several fights and didn't feel comfortable going back. Tuesday was her first day attending School #19 in nearly a month. She did not go back Wednesday. Williams feels expressing her opinion about the Frederick Douglass book has ruined her life. Fighting back tears, she said, "I love to go to school and I feel like they're taking that away from me."
http://rochesterhomepage.net/fulltext?nxd_id=303562
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/jada-williams-student-allegedly-harassed-for-essay_n_1321926.html
Maybe the rules in New York State are different, but in the modern era I've never heard of students being switched to another school in the system just on a teacher's whim with no input or choice from the student and parents...I thought for that to happen, a student needed to be a *serious* discipline issue and/or a danger to staff and other students?? And no matter the reason, the school usually has a long paper trail documenting the switch anyway...So I'm very interested to find out the real story behind this...
Secondly, how does a student this committed to a better education for herself get scared out of attending school for a whole month?? So her entire time she never saw a fight at her previous school? I've got a whole lotta questions about what's really going on here...
Now, for my thoughts on the essay: (full disclosure: 1. I'm African-American; 2. I was fortunate enough to go to good schools growing up)...
Yeah, of course she makes some decent general points, but they get smothered in hyperbole...One thing I truly despise is the "cheapening" of the four centuries of atrocities reaped by the African slave trade, which is what happens whenever it is horribly mis-used to illustrate an unfair situation...Every few years some millionaire black athlete will make a really ugly slavery parallel to describe his contract dispute, and I just cringe...
There are zero parallels between her situation and slavery--The only thing that would make it come close would be if the public schools were her only access to information and learning, and her life was at risk if she dared seek knowledge elsewhere...It is with some irony that I remember Frederick Douglass. Booker T. Washington and so many other great minds of the 19th century were self-taught, without access to the innernettes or sprawling libraries...I don't know if her teachers are completely deserving of her scorn, or if they're 100 percent blameless and Williams is the one with the problem...I do however hope this motivates her to contemplate a future career in education (assuming of course her essay isn't total sensationalist bullshit)...
And finally, if the Bill Cosby mess from a decade ago taught us anything, it's that no matter how much you may agree, no matter how good the points being brought up are, no matter if they may exactly on target -- If it has the blessing and full-throttle promotion of ultra-conservative front groups, DROP IT and run far, far away...