Rabbi Nachum Shifren (Rabbi for Senate.com) emails:
I am about to say what many are thinking, but can’t or won’t express:
When’s the last time you’ve talked to your teacher about what’s REALLY going down in our schools?
Those of us that teach at "inner city" schools can tell you that we are talking to the wall. When DO the parents speak to us? When there’s a failure notice sent home. Or detention is issued. Or the student can’t "walk" at graduation due to failures and unsatisfactory conduct. But on one back -to- school -night at Dorsey High, 5 parents showed up that were curious as to what their students are doing–5 out of 120.
We are witness to unearthly swearing and demeaning of female students, openly and unabashedly. Fights, threats, and promises of payback are the order of the day. When riots occur between Black and Hispanic students, or other ethnic groups, administrations break out the band aids to cover up and obfuscate, lest someone get that there’s a serious problem with discipline and race relations. It’s "multi-culturalism" uber alles–for everybody except those students who are simply in school to learn, excel, and launch a serious career through completion of assignments, showing diligence and responsibility.
If you are not a teacher of "color" and you issue evaluations based on achievement, more often than not, you’re behind the eight-ball by some administrator who is more worried about upward mobility than if the kids are actually learning. It is easy to play the race card, so easy in fact, that many a parent-teacher conference becomes ineffective and consequences cannot be meted out. Rare is the teacher that will confront parent, principal, and community to justify an evaluation. Especially for those of us that don’t have the "color" act wired.
Where did all this begin, the nonsense that passes as "education" in our inner city schools? Who told our kids that they don’t have to be on their best behavior, foreswearing foul language, threats of violence, demeaning and filthy remarks to girls, and that lousy grades are of no consequence, since the teachers are obviously prejudiced?
It may not have begun with Al Sharpton, but it sure was promulgated through his insidious efforts to create a highly charged atmosphere of racial tension and class envy. He bemoans a breakdown of the family structure, yet says nothing about the scandalous rate of teen preganancies debilitating some commnunities. He rails at the "lack of opportunity and proper education that sooner or later results in violence," yet he is on the frontline in pointing the racist-finger at those who uphold standards and decency in the home and at school. When he laments that the "horrific cycle of violence must be shattered", where were these thoughts as he beame judge and jury of the white lacross players in Raligh, N.C.? When he remonstrates us, saying "the first place a child learns behavior is from the parents," what was his message to Tawana Brawley, when she, with Al’s aiding and abetting, accused whites of raping her, knowing it was a lie, having destroyed the careers of innocent men without so much as an aplogy. While rushing to manipulate press releases about injustice against the "downtrodden", where was his selective outrage when he accused "white interlopers" (codeword for Jews) of raping and ravaging Black communities. Where was his anguish when his ideological comrad, Jackson, mentioned the "Hymie town" remark? Could a White have gotten away with such course racism? No Al, your pathetic excuse that "poorly funded and inadequately staffed schools" are the cause of the "rise in aggression so prevalent around the country", falls on deaf ears. Honor student Darrion Albert wasn’t murdered because of a lack of chalk and pencil erasers. It is a culture of violence, of the cheapening of lives and a banality of spirit, of pitting one American against the other, exacerbated by you and your minions.
No, Al, let me set you straight. I and my generation want nothing to do with racism. Each of us, growing up in the 60’s, were indelibly scarred by the racisim and prejudice of our forebearers during the Civil Rights legacy. If anything, we were hyper-sensitive toward any manifestation of bigotry, to the point where we would excuse the most vile eruptions of reverse racism, giving it a pass over and over again.
Anything, just to not be accused of "cultrual insensitivity" ( the modern nightmare of so many teachers).
Truth be told Al, for myself and many Americans, the first time we saw actual racism on parade was by your seditious finger pointing, arousing in many a loathing and abhorrence for your feeble attempts to capture the headlines, creating issues from thin air, issues meant, through jingoistic boorishness, to stir up trouble and keep us in a perpetual racial quagmire.
And your solution? Why of course, more funding! Just pour in the money, and everything will be OK. Where were you in the poorest of slums, shanties, and sweat shops of the immigrants from Europe?
Why did you not visit these, in your words, "disenfranchised neighborhoods", festering with TB, cholera, dissentary, and a host of nighmarish plagues that are no longer an issue in America’s poorest communities. Why? Because there’s no agendas to reap here. Besides, people were too busy surviving to complain and cause mayhem. And who will, in your words, "curb the…utter disregard for human life so pervasive in our community." Why, the government, of course. You will be there to make sure it happens, to be a stakeholder in any government programs that need to be "administered." How much shall your solution cost? For how long? To what end? We don’t know. But we know one thing: unless Al Sharpton gets his way, societal foment will not be far away.
You are one scurrilous American, Al.
