News Mar 13, 2013 at 4:00 am

Recent Controversies Raise Questions About Fairness

Comments

1
A better question, "Is a sub set of the US population less than civilized?"
2
Answer to your story's Headline question: Yes.
3
Yes. (Remember why the CD was sooo racially Black in the first place:red-lining and reSStricKKKtive KKKovenants,anybody?Pfft!!! )----- http://www.inequality.org
4
@1,you mean the land thieves who slaughtered the indigenous peoples,brought slaves here by the millions,enslaved their babies,and disproportionately destroyed much of Gaia over the past five-hundred years?
5
Sharon Peaslee is a racist.
6
Is this a rhetorical question?

When I tell Seattle folk that I'm a recent transplant from the deep south, one of two general reactions typically occur. The first is an empathetic nod and a pat on the shoulder with "Yeah, man, me too. Don't all these passive-aggressive west coast pricks drive you mad?" And the second, more common reaction is a disparaging forced smile and a slight eye twitch, carefully concealed immediately thereafter, as if to say "Now that I know I'm speaking with ignorance manifested, I'll try to keep my composure until I can find a way to evade deep conversation."
As I drove across the country a few months ago with nothing but the shit I could fit in my tiny car on my way west, I got to see and study the social climates of some of the USA's most defining cities--New York, D.C., Chicago--but what stands out to me still is the time I spent in Milwaukee.
One toothless laborer I met in a bar there boasted that Milwaukee is "among the top three most segregated cities in America," and indeed, my aimless walks around the city's various neighborhoods revealed abrupt shifts in culture every few blocks. The wealthy (almost entirely white) folks lived in small mansions looking over the city's (almost entirely nonwhite) slums. At the risk of sounding like a liberal arts student, I thought "Christ, this place is an embodiment of our entire nation's social and racial situation."
The northwest, though, is different. I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I got here, because if you say "Seattle" in most of the south, folks tend to look at you like you said "Cambodia," so far removed is its progressive culture.
The truth is, what I've found here is hardly any different than hellish Milwaukee. The west coast is no less racist than the rural parts of the Carolinas; it's just better at pretending to not be racist.
That's not a good thing. While I've suffered plenty of piercing glares from older black folks in the south who had likely seen a white man who looked a lot like me spray their loved ones with a fire hose in the streets, I feel a thousand times shittier here, because eye contact between myself and a nonwhite individual seldom, if ever, even occurs. He or she treats me as though I were invisible, and I, failing to make any human connection, reluctantly do the same.
That's not any one person or institution's fault, of course. I cannot pretend to speak from experience, though I imagine that if I'd been the lowest common socioeconomic denominator through no fault of my own, I'd be a bit spiteful toward lily-skinned pussies who, despite sitting pretty atop nearly every undeserved boon, still find something to complain about -- My coffee is too cold; my phone sucks. -- I'd be in a state of almost constant anger; anger which might boil, in time, into resentment, then hatred, and, finally, disillusionment. I would resign myself from the impossible "American Dream" I was taught to believe in, and transform into something resembling a pure self-preservationist, knowing well that my culture is not designed to catch me when I fall unless I were to magically wake up tomorrow as some narrow suburban honky.
In sum, the question is not "Are Seattle schools racist?" -- the question is "Is America, even in its most progressive parts, rife with ignorance and separatism?" And at either rate, the answer is a resounding YES.
But where do we go from there? I, for one, am no seer, no strategist, no sage--but I'll offer this: See yourself as a cell, an integral and irreplaceable part of a larger organism called society. Now, what if you were to make a supreme effort to be honest with yourself about what you take for granted? Who knows, you might just mutate--evolve, even--and maybe, just maybe, you'll start to infect other cells with your new brand of compassion until the whole damn organism starts to learn how to heal.
7
Is this a rhetorical question?

When I tell Seattle folk that I'm a recent transplant from the deep south, one of two general reactions typically occur. The first is an empathetic nod and a pat on the shoulder with "Yeah, man, me too. Don't all these passive-aggressive west coast pricks drive you mad?" And the second, more common reaction is a disparaging forced smile and a slight eye twitch, carefully concealed immediately thereafter, as if to say "Now that I know I'm speaking with ignorance manifested, I'll try to keep my composure until I can find a way to evade deep conversation."
As I drove across the country a few months ago with nothing but the shit I could fit in my tiny car on my way west, I got to see and study the social climates of some of the USA's most defining cities--New York, D.C., Chicago--but what stands out to me still is the time I spent in Milwaukee.
One toothless laborer I met in a bar there boasted that Milwaukee is "among the top three most segregated cities in America," and indeed, my aimless walks around the city's various neighborhoods revealed abrupt shifts in culture every few blocks. The wealthy (almost entirely white) folks lived in small mansions looking over the city's (almost entirely nonwhite) slums. At the risk of sounding like a liberal arts student, I thought "Christ, this place is an embodiment of our entire nation's social and racial situation."
The northwest, though, is different. I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I got here, because if you say "Seattle" in most of the south, folks tend to look at you like you said "Cambodia," so far removed is its progressive culture.
The truth is, what I've found here is hardly any different than hellish Milwaukee. The west coast is no less racist than the rural parts of the Carolinas; it's just better at pretending to not be racist.
That's not a good thing. While I've suffered plenty of piercing glares from older black folks in the south who had likely seen a white man who looked a lot like me spray their loved ones with a fire hose in the streets, I feel a thousand times shittier here, because eye contact between myself and a nonwhite individual seldom, if ever, even occurs. He or she treats me as though I were invisible, and I, failing to make any human connection, reluctantly do the same.
That's not any one person or institution's fault, of course. I cannot pretend to speak from experience, though I imagine that if I'd been the lowest common socioeconomic denominator through no fault of my own, I'd be a bit spiteful toward lily-skinned pussies who, despite sitting pretty atop nearly every undeserved boon, still find something to complain about -- My coffee is too cold; my phone sucks. -- I'd be in a state of almost constant anger; anger which might boil, in time, into resentment, then hatred, and, finally, disillusionment. I would resign myself from the impossible "American Dream" I was taught to believe in, and transform into something resembling a pure self-preservationist, knowing well that my culture is not designed to catch me when I fall unless I were to magically wake up tomorrow as some narrow suburban honky.
In sum, the question is not "Are Seattle schools racist?" -- the question is "Is America, even in its most progressive parts, rife with ignorance and separatism?" And at either rate, the answer is a resounding YES.
But where do we go from there? I, for one, am no seer, no strategist, no sage--but I'll offer this: See yourself as a cell, an integral and irreplaceable part of a larger organism called society. Now, what if you were to make a supreme effort to be honest with yourself about what you take for granted? Who knows, you might just mutate--evolve, even--and maybe, just maybe, you'll start to infect other cells with your new brand of compassion until the whole damn organism starts to learn how to heal.
8
Yes, must be racism... Or maybe not

'Alarming' new test-score gap discovered in Seattle schools
For the first time, Seattle Public Schools officials have broken down test scores by specific home language. The recently announced results revealed a surprising trend that may have implications for policy around the district.

By Brian M. Rosenthal
Seattle Times

African-American students whose primary language is English perform significantly worse in math and reading than black students who speak another language at home — typically immigrants or refugees — according to new numbers released by Seattle Public Schools.

District officials, who presented the finding at a recent community meeting at Rainier Beach High School, noted the results come with caveats, but called the potential trend troubling and pledged to study what might be causing it.

Michael Tolley, an executive director overseeing Southeast Seattle schools, said at the meeting that the data exposed a new achievement gap that is "extremely, extremely alarming."
9
I would concur with #2's response. Yes, I think it is. I also think it is part of institutional pattern lacking fairness that is not just race related. A pattern that favors one school over another, gives one program of kids more than another based on connections with administrators that does not serve the community as a whole but hands out to the more "deserving". I'm now looking at 13 years with kids in the Seattle School District and have seen it over and over in so many different ways.

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