San Francisco School Accused of Racism

[CShine]

Teachers, parents and students at San Francisco's Newcomer High, a school for immigrants in tony Pacific Heights, say their building just isn't big enough to accommodate another school planning to move in this fall. But as one after another pleaded with the Board of Education late one night last week, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman heard something more sinister: the unwillingness on the part of Newcomer, which is more than 50 percent Chinese, to share with a school of mostly African American and Latino teenagers.

Her voice full and rising in anger, she told the crowd, "It is a shame, and I am embarrassed to be a part of this. ... You don't think these young people can come together? That they need to be separate?"

It was just the latest rebuke from Ackerman to those she sees as promoting racist agendas, however subtle. She says racist motivations undermine her mission of improving the achievement of all students, especially African American and Latino children, and she refuses to sit back and say nothing.

"This is my perspective as an African American living in this country for some five decades, OK?" she told The Chronicle. "I understand racist behaviors and racist policies when I see them. It's the elephant in the room that none of us will talk about. I'm really disappointed, and the minute you bring it up, everybody gets offended. ... I'm now saying enough is enough. I'm going to call it the way I see it."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/06/28/BAGLP7D9PV1.DTL

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. California is way ahead of everybody regarding this

problem of minorities being prejudiced against other minorities. It happens everywhere, but the articles I've read which discuss the matter come from California. Usually it has to do with immigrants who are hesistant to blend in with anybody that isn't from their own provinces back home, and sometimes, it's more.

[monobrau]

2. She's right about that elephant

While I can't speak for the motives of the parents in this case, to deny the animosity between the asian, hispanic and AA populations here is foolhardy and possibly dangerous.
I hear racist taunting between these groups on the street right
outside my window on a regular basis, thanks to the lovely children living in the section 8 housing next door.