Coalition on Race Responds to Candidate Forum Question Dispute archived

http://joestrupp.blogspot.com/2012/04/coalition-on-race-responds-to-candidate.html

yalestreetman, you have to get rid of that ad block on Maplewoodian.com. The whole site is framed? If I size the window to anything less than 1/2 of the screen, there's no site there at all. Not even a header. It's a design travesty.

go to joestrupp.blogspot.com

http://maplewood.patch.com/articles/coalition-statement-on-board-of-education-forum

so was the question addressed? What was the response to the comment made re: "black under achievement"?

max_weisenfeld said:

http://maplewood.patch.com/articles/coalition-statement-on-board-of-education-forum

It's an extremely wordy and information free statement, and that's coming from someone who made it through college doing exactly that.

Is there an earlier story that addresses what actually was said and what actually happened? In plain English, like an actual article (sorry yalestreetman).

Patch chose not to run the story when it arose for a few reasons I believe, one of which concerned repeating and thus potentially perpetuating a rather disingenuous and inappropriate question (to say the least) on the eve of the election. I hope Mary, et.al. will take it up now, however.

Still no apology to Rusty Reeves either, as far as I know.

Haven't seen one. Not expecting to, either. Sad.

If one googles "black culture and underachievement" there are 73,000 pages, so its hardly a novel idea that was discussed. Given the fondness that many white people have for Sarah Palin, who made a cottage industry of being clueless, its not hard to see that there are more than a few elements of white culture that don't have alot of respect for academic excellence as well.

In short, it is not a unique idea that there is a cultural influence on how an individual values education, and that its not necessarily related to race. This isn't some revolutionary idea that Mr. Reeves dreamed up on his own. I don't know why it was selected as such a contentious statement and turned into some sort of bizarro world example of how PEB supporters are closet racists who want to keep black kids from getting an education.

I just googled "evolution is false" and got 86,600,000 results. Must be fact.

Patch has posted the video of the "incident" at the debate. Take a look.

campbell29 said:

If one googles "black culture and underachievement" there are 73,000 pages, so its hardly a novel idea that was discussed. Given the fondness that many white people have for Sarah Palin, who made a cottage industry of being clueless, its not hard to see that there are more than a few elements of white culture that don't have alot of respect for academic excellence as well.

In short, it is not a unique idea that there is a cultural influence on how an individual values education, and that its not necessarily related to race. This isn't some revolutionary idea that Mr. Reeves dreamed up on his own. I don't know why it was selected as such a contentious statement and turned into some sort of bizarro world example of how PEB supporters are closet racists who want to keep black kids from getting an education.

So, back to the statement about "black culture." If it's not a novel idea, then stand by it. Say you don't think it's racist, or whatever - qualify your position on that statement.

Has anyone else noted that the CCR is now providing a service that is contrary to its mission?

If

eire said:

I just googled "evolution is false" and got 86,600,000 results. Must be fact.

The argument isn't whether the statement is true or not. Its that it isn't a novel idea. If we were having a debate in our school system on whether or not to include intelligent design as part of our science curriculum, I'm sure we would have lots of people speaking out on both sides of the issue at BOE meetings. If someone chose to speak up and say they thought that God had created the universe and that this should be part of the biology curriculum it would be their right to do so. It does not however give someone the right to take the statement, create a Youtube video about it, attach it to a political email and drag this person through the mud as an example of backwards thinking.

Its perfectly fine to use statements and actions by the candidates and to a small extent their campaign staff as fodder for political debate, but it goes quite a bit beyond the pale to take every statement ever made by someone who might (or might not) have been involved in a political campaign and extrapolate that view to the candidates. I'm sure that were the goal to go on a community witch hunt it would probably take about 10 minutes to find something that a PPHS supporter said that others found to be both grossly untrue and inflammatory.

The debate is not over whether or not the statement, or view is racist (I'll go on the record and say I don't think its racist), the debate is over the inappropriateness of involving the position of one individual and using it to indict an entire slate of candidates as having the exact same viewpoint.

The idea of slavery was not new when abolitionists fought it. If someone had stood up at a New England town meeting and said"Slavery is fair" it wouldn't have been any less vile. Just because an idea is not new, doesn't make it obscene. I have many African American students whose parents very much want them to succeed academically and do everything they can to inculcate those values in their children.

dave said:

Has anyone else noted that the CCR is now providing a service that is contrary to its mission?

me! Maybe the CCR should now be self-funded.

I thought South Orange had already started to phase out funding, and was due to completely sever ties as of the next fiscal budget.

The CCR's statement reads in part:

"The forum was proceeding as planned with all candidates participating, a racially mixed audience of 85 to 90 attendees present and solid responses given to the advance questions distributed to the candidates by the Coalition. The tone of the evening turned when a question submitted by someone in the audience questioned the affiliation of one of the candidates with a person named on the card who had made public statements expressing a viewpoint connecting race, culture and academic achievement. The question was read because it represented a concern expressed on six other cards that had been submitted.

"We feel a commitment to hold to our standard for candor in acknowledging a variety of opinions in the community. We understand that questions that focused on a comment made on “black underachievement” at a BOE meeting submitted by the audience made some people feel uncomfortable.

"We had to assess seven questions on the topic on the fly--in the midst of the debate-- and to select one which seemed the most representative of all. Given the number of questions submitted by the audience that focused on that issue, a decision was made to ask the question in the interests of being transparent and of bringing forward even those issues that are painful.

"The moderator appropriately offered to pull the question and to move on when concern was expressed by some of the candidates. It is extremely important to the trustees of the Coalition on Race that we remain true to our mission to be candid about race in our community. We feel that it was appropriately transparent and authentic to ask the question, but regret any perception that is was presented in a manner that did not allow all the candidates to contrast their points of view with that of the individual in question. As always, our intention is to promote transparency in public discourse and we continue to strive to do so."

http://maplewood.patch.com/articles/coalition-statement-on-board-of-education-forum

Having now seen the clip (at http://maplewood.patch.com/articles/race-and-this-election), I find the CCR's explanation inexplicable and hollow. The moderator states, in relevant part:

"This questioner says a close supporter of yours, Mr. Bennett, Dr. Reeves -- I'm not sure of the context -- says that the problem in our district is black culture. The person writing this question finds this offensive. Does this sound familiar, a close supporter says black culture is the problem in this district, and the person is then asking if then Dr. Reeves hosted a coffee for your campaign."

The moderator asks this vague "question" with all these qualifiers. It is hard to accept that 6 other people independently wrote the same question on a card and and the question not only could not be better phrased, but also that the CCR believes it had to be asked because it believes in addressing difficult questions about race.

The moderator says that Mr. Bennett can refuse to answer the question -- that is any candidate's right -- but isn't that generally perceived as damning in itself, like one of those "no comments" or "a call from this reporter was not returned")?

Some words do considerable damage by just being said. This is one such situation. I am appalled that this happened in our supposedly tolerant towns, where we are supposedly trying to raise our children to be "good world citizens."

that quote is reprehensible. I hadn't seen the specific language. Thank you for posting this. There is no way this group should be receiving tax dollars to accept and tacitly endorse unchecked questions like that.

Anyone with a brain between their ears can listen to what Mr. Reeves actually said, then read that question and see the distortion.

kmt said:

Still no apology to Rusty Reeves either, as far as I know.

We're so sorry you were so offensive.

campbell29 said:

If one googles "black culture and underachievement" there are 73,000 pages, so its hardly a novel idea that was discussed. Given the fondness that many white people have for Sarah Palin, who made a cottage industry of being clueless, its not hard to see that there are more than a few elements of white culture that don't have alot of respect for academic excellence as well.

In short, it is not a unique idea that there is a cultural influence on how an individual values education, and that its not necessarily related to race. This isn't some revolutionary idea that Mr. Reeves dreamed up on his own. I don't know why it was selected as such a contentious statement and turned into some sort of bizarro world example of how PEB supporters are closet racists who want to keep black kids from getting an education.

Well how about that? If it's been said 73,000 times on the Internet, it can't be offensive now, can it?

Who was it who said "if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth?" Oh right, that was Goebbels.

Is mentioning Goebbels close enough to Hitler to close down a thread??

How does "We don't want to acknowledge that the reasons for black student underacheivement is broadly due to culture and single parent families" tranlsate into "the problem in our district is black culture" and/or "Does this sound familiar, a close supporter says black culture is the problem in this district"?

barry_badrinath said:

How does "We don't want to acknowledge that the reasons for black student underacheivement is broadly due to culture and single parent families" tranlsate into "the problem in our district is black culture" and/or "Does this sound familiar, a close supporter says black culture is the problem in this district"?

Why are you bothering to translate? The first comment pretty much stands on its own and is offensive, particularly when it is said by a white guy publicly lobbying to preserve an educational strata system that is arguably discriminatory.

eire said:

So, back to the statement about "black culture." If it's not a novel idea, then stand by it. Say you don't think it's racist, or whatever - qualify your position on that statement.

Racist, not racist, maybe we need to take a step back, and take out the word "black". Do you think that cultural values and practices can affect educational attainments? This is an over-simplification, but we need to start somewhere, if it can become a real dialog with real outcomes in our community, which the CCR, in my opinion, did not/does not facilitate, unfortunately, at this point in time.

To continue the dialog, I doubt whether cultural values ALONE can support educational motivation, but I do think they can play a strong role. If upward mobility is seen or better yet evidenced by a group as being directly connected to academic success, we have a winning recipe, but there are many other influences. I do not think addressing culture as it relates to academic achievement is a complete picture, but I definitely think it is part of the picture, and I see no problem with it being part of the dialog, and it should not make people uncomfortable, because it is about race and culture, not about being racist, if we can open our minds, and actually recognize and appreciate the diversity we supposedly tout.

But it didn't stand on its own. That statement was made in the context of a criticism of the deleveling effort as disruptive to all high-achieving kids (including black kids) and ineffective at addressing the real problems that are the cause of the achievement gap (the fact is that such a gap exists, and the levels have been a witness to that fact rather than a cause of it). He predicated his statements on the assumption that a good education for all kids (including black kids) is in the best interest of everybody. He stated that his opinion about the causes of this achievement gap came from his experience as a psychiatrist dealing with prisoners and troubled adolescents.

He also said that the board took the flimsiest of evidence and ran with it, however inappropriately, to suit their agenda. It's a sad irony that in the process of making that observation, his own testimony would be used in a similar way.

Shameful. Slander. His treatment is totally inappropriate for rational public discourse.

CCR's public funding is miniscule. That's not an issue.

The co-opting of CCR, now a cog in a corrupt political machine, is an issue.

The comments in this thread - from all sides - are pretty awful.

This isn't a great example to set for our children (yes, they come here to see what all the fuss is about) and it's not going to help improve and sustain our schools and community.

I really wish people would consider cooling off for a day or two or at least refrain from such viscous and personal comments.

kareno said:

eire said:

So, back to the statement about "black culture." If it's not a novel idea, then stand by it. Say you don't think it's racist, or whatever - qualify your position on that statement.

Racist, not racist, maybe we need to take a step back, and take out the word "black". Do you think that cultural values and practices can affect educational attainments? This is an over-simplification, but we need to start somewhere, if it can become a real dialog with real outcomes in our community, which the CCR, in my opinion, did not/does not facilitate, unfortunately, at this point in time.

To continue the dialog, I doubt whether cultural values ALONE can support educational motivation, but I do think they can play a strong role. If upward mobility is seen or better yet evidenced by a group as being directly connected to academic success, we have a winning recipe, but there are many other influences. I do not think addressing culture as it relates to academic achievement is a complete picture, but I definitely think it is part of the picture, and I see no problem with it being part of the dialog, and it should not make people uncomfortable, because it is about race and culture, not about being racist, if we can open our minds, and actually recognize and appreciate the diversity we supposedly tout.

One need only look to the tea party, to find millions of white people basking in gleeful ignorance. Likewise there are plenty of other very white subcultures that don't seem to place a very high value on education, and tend to look down upon those who do. I don't think that the black community is exempt from having the same issues as the white community when it comes to cultural influences that might negatively impact our kids view of education. I don't think all, or most white people subscribe to the cultural norms of the Tea Party, or self described "redneck" culture. Nor do I think most or all black people are influenced by hip-hop culture. However, I don't think that means that those things don't exist, or that to mention their existence is a sign of bigotry.