Facing Up to Race
I appreciate the open discussion of the controversies swirling around the last days of this year’s Board of Education election, and particularly the contributions of Mr. Latz and Mr. Eastman.
I’d like to add two comments.
First, with regard to the troubling question asked at the Community Coalition on Race candidates forum, I want to take exception with the idea, in Mr. Latz’ words that “it was unfortunate that the question was asked” and Mr. Eastman’s complaint that it was tendentious.
Since I took an ill-timed bathroom break last Thursday when the offending question was asked, I didn’t really know exactly what had transpired until I viewed the video on Patch. When I did, I was frustrated at the whole upset.
If we want to get past “whispered tones” in talking about race, we need to learn to talk about hot button issues in public, and that’s one thing the CCR has long tried to do and encourage.
The discomfort of the moderator with the problematic question, and the immediate reaction in the room when it was finally asked, made it clear that the overwhelming consensus was that trying to link a candidate to someone else’s opinions was unfair. That speaks well of our community and our values.
What I wish is that we didn’t leap so fast from discomfort to indignation, leaving the hot button issue unaddressed. This happens all too often, in knee-jerk complaints about “the race card” or the inability to separate discussions of race from accusations of racism. It’s not easy to talk about, but we need to do it. Race is absolutely a sub-text in the leveling debates and we can’t talk about the racial achievement gap or racial inequity without talking about race, and attitudes and beliefs about it.
What I would have liked to have seen was any or all of the candidates, to cry foul on the question—no candidate is responsible for supporters’ views, or required to vet coffee hosts in the middle of an intense 6 week campaign—and to address the issue.
The question of the role of “culture” in the achievement gap is not a new one, and Mr. Reeves certainly didn’t invent it. It’s been part of research and debate on the achievement gap for decades. It’s been considered in numerous workshops, community forums and conversations sponsored by the CCR for at least the dozen years I have lived in Maplewood. They didn’t write the question, and they didn’t like it. Perhaps the moderator could have framed it differently, but they weren’t wrong to ask it, and ask potential Board of Education members to weigh in on it.
Secondly, while this is a small community and lines between public and private can easily be blurred, I am troubled that private e-mails would be publicly circulated and their authors castigated, at the same time that objections to public statements would be labeled slander and the speaker defended as a “private citizen.”
I have known Lisa Davis for a decade. Our children went to preschool together. We are not close, and our orbits have diverged since then, but we talk from time to time. We don’t agree on everything, and our “cultures” are different in many ways. But our educational backgrounds and values are broadly similar, as are our hopes and efforts for our children. And while virtually all parents have had problems along the way, or needed to advocate for their children in our schools, I know something of the profound and persistent racial issues Lisa has faced in this school district. Her experience matters, and she’s entitled to her opinions. She has nothing to apologize for.
The gap between her experience—and that of many others in these towns—and the stereotypes of black culture and achievement invoked by Mr. Reeves are perhaps the first “gap” we need to talk about as a community.
Kalani Thielen
9:41 am on Friday, April 20, 2012
Julia,
Although I don't agree with everything you've said here, I think that you've correctly identified a problem that we have in this community about talking about race and "the" achievement gap (meaning "the racial achievement gap").
As you say, when this issue comes up at the 11th hour in a political campaign, and there as a bludgeon against an opposing campaign rather than as a serious point of public discussion, we don't do justice to the topic. Now I fear that the topic has become so toxic that it can't reasonably be addressed by the BOE. That result is very sad for our town, and especially sad for the people whose academic problems we purport to care so much about solving.
Theresa Burns
11:19 am on Friday, April 20, 2012
I find Julia's comments to be entirely reasonable and spot on. Thank you.
John Davenport
7:34 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
I agree that we need to be able to talk about these things more frankly. But the great irony is that this is what Mr. Reeves was trying to do. If we want to be able to have a more open and honest dialogues, opinions like the one he voiced have to get a hearing; we have to be willing to consider them (and the decades of experience on which they are based) before just closing up and saying "that's racist." That is a fundamental part of the problem we have experienced recently. And when it goes on to attacking someone as racist, it has a chilling effect on public discourse.
Jennifer Payne Parrish
9:11 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
No other community of people would accept such comments nor would they be willing to consider them. Why do you expect the African American and black community to be any different?
Kalani Thielen
10:24 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
Ms. Payne Parrish,
Really, no other community of people would accept "such comments"? If you refer to the distorted version of Dr. Reeves's comments, the ones he didn't say, then yes I certainly would agree with you. But if you refer to the comments that he did make, I'm afraid that you're wrong.
His statement was that the BOE had taken the easy path in identifying the cause of this racial achievement gap as racism, rather than look to what he saw as problems of culture and single-parent families. You can reasonably dispute that his explanation is incomplete, that it may be a necessary but insufficient explanation for the totality of this achievement gap, but you can't say that it's racist (at least, in the interest of fair and honest discussion you shouldn't, because it is not a statement about race).
Is it true that nobody would accept and consider such comments? I don't think that's true. I've seen many sharp criticisms of counterproductive cultural beliefs singled out and discussed frequently in my life -- just consider the ridicule of Rick Santorum's "what a snob!" response to President Obama wanting to send all kids to college.
And neither is this discussion taboo in the "black community" (nor should it be). Bill Cosby's so-called "Pound Cake Speech" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_Cake_speech) is evidence of that, and he has pitched a similar message about valuing education for years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFY0HBkUm8o).
Julia Burch
8:18 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
If we are to learn to talk about race, we can't declare it too toxic for reasonable discussion, or try to control the terms of the discussion. Mr. Reeves is entitled to express his views, and others are entitled to take umbrage. We hash it out from there, and that's, in my book, a frank discussion.
The irony is that Mr. Reeves has not weighed in at all (which is, of course, his prerogative) and his defenders have yet to elucidate his point, or address some of the fair questions elsewhere in recent Patch comments.
We are still not talking about the issue.
Kalani Thielen
11:00 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
Ms. Burch,
Excellent comment, again. As to "talking about the issue," this is complicated by the fact that there are multiple issues.
Was Rusty Reeves's statement about the causes of academic underachievement in our district accurate? Maybe, maybe not ... it seems at least partially falsifiable (we could theoretically have statistics on socioeconomic indicators for families in our district).
Was Rusty Reeves's statement within the acceptable bounds of public discourse, and was it relevant to the decision that the board was actively undertaking? What I heard was a skepticism of the soundness of the board's judgement and an identification of deeper causes that the board hadn't investigated. I do think that's within the acceptable bounds of public discourse, and I certainly think that it was relevant to the decision that the board was making.
But these are the more troubling questions, to my mind:
Is it acceptable to distort and lie about a private citizen's public testimony immediately before an election in an effort to gin up votes? Is it acceptable to needlessly and without provocation feed the flames of racial animosity as a political weapon? In a rational society the answers to these two questions can't be anything but "no" emphatically.
When a political campaign manager "whispers" slanderous comments to 19 friends, along with a plea for each friend to call more friends and get out to vote, that must be swiftly and *completely* condemned.
Julia Burch
6:36 am on Saturday, April 21, 2012
If we want to learn to talk about race, we have to learn to separate discussions of race from accusations of racism.
Mr. Davenport suggests that someone(s) are closing off discussion by " saying "that's racist."
Mr. Thielen suggests above, in a direct reply to Ms. Payne Parrish, that she has done so--when plainly she has not.
I may have missed it, but I have not seen where anyone objecting to Mr. Reeves remarks has labeled him, or them, as racist. (He does use the term "white racism" in his remarks.) Many have found them objectionable and offensive, but some are still stuck arguing about objections to those objections rather than answering them.
Kalani Thielen
9:54 am on Saturday, April 21, 2012
Oh please, now you're saying that I claimed that Ms. Payne Parrish said "that's racist" in my reply above? I'm afraid that you're helping to shut down conversation, and I'm not interested in engaging with this kind of "debate".
Julia Burch
7:08 am on Saturday, April 21, 2012
I’ve avoided commenting directly on Mr. Reeves remarks, because, frankly, I am not very interested in his argument, but I think a couple of things need to be said.
First, Mr. Thielen and others have complained that some have distorted and lied about Mr. Reeves remarks. The remarks were public, and I would think that they stand on their own. Certainly now that they have been broadcast and transcribed, there is ample room for clarification if they have been misunderstood.
Everyone with a comment on them has interpreted them, and expressed opinions about them. That’s the nature of public discussion. Interpretation is not distortion.
For what it’s worth, I do think Mr. Reeves’ remarks have been widely misunderstood.
Julia Burch
7:08 am on Saturday, April 21, 2012
It seems to me that the key word in his statement is “displacement.”
Mr. Reeves is using his psychological expertise to diagnose “us”. It’s not clear who the “we” in his statement is meant to include and there are certainly some blurred boundaries there, but his argument seems to be that “we” have trouble accepting the “truth” about the roots of black underachievement and so “we” are relieving our distress over those “truths” by de-leveling.
It fits in with his prior remarks about “reparations” and is a variation on a tired and silly line of argument which sees attempts to address inequity as unfair compensations for problems or wrongs occurring some other place and time.
I think that line of argument is dismissive of the real educational and social issues and insulting to all who grapple seriously with them, value education, and work to improve our schools.
Julia Burch
10:05 am on Saturday, April 21, 2012
Mr. Thielen,
In your 10:24 comment on April 20, addressed to Ms. Payne Parrish, you wrote:
"You can reasonably dispute that his explanation is incomplete, that it may be a necessary but insufficient explanation for the totality of this achievement gap, but you can't say that it's racist (at least, in the interest of fair and honest discussion you shouldn't, because it is not a statement about race)."
Perhaps I misunderstood. Her comment, which I believe you were responding to, did not say anything at all about racism.
(And for some reason, the threading is off here, as not all comments can take a direct reply. This comment is in response to Mr. Thielen's most recent comment at 9:24 on April 21.)
Kalani Thielen
3:05 pm on Sunday, April 22, 2012
Ms. Burch,
I think that you can only reply to top-level comments. If you want to preserve threading, that's your best option anyway AFAIK.
I see what you mean -- I may have confused the point by using an overloaded meaning of "you" to mean "one" (as in, "One can reasonably dispute ..."). I wouldn't say that Ms. Payne Parrish said anything about Rusty Reeves's comments being racist, she hasn't really addressed them one way or the other.
Now I wonder if you'll address the other (IMHO, more important) points in my 11pm Apr 20 response above, or maybe in this more detailed response I've composed:
http://maplewood.patch.com/blog_posts/the-bounds-of-civil-discourse
Julia Burch
4:18 pm on Sunday, April 22, 2012
I believe I have addressed your 11 pm, April 20 comments in my 7:08, April 21 response (in two parts), and to some extent in my original post.
Kalani Thielen
6:37 pm on Sunday, April 22, 2012
Ms. Burch,
Respectfully, let me be clearer then, because although I recognize that you want to contradict Rusty Reeves's original statement, and you've also made the point that Lisa Davis is a good person and has "nothing to apologize for" (as you said in your original post), and you think it's wrong to circulate these "private emails", yet I think that you haven't addressed these facts:
* Steve Latz / Lisa Davis were running a political campaign, and this "private message" sent to 19 friends made specific statements about the opposing campaign, and exhorted those recipients to call their friends and get out to vote. This was political campaigners doing what political campaigners do. This was not a "private conversation".
* The message they sent contained (among other statements), this one: "the other slate believes that any gains for Black students will come at the expense of high achieving White students".
* Neither Pai/Eastman/Bennett nor Rusty Reeves said anything like this.
Regards.
Julia Burch
9:35 pm on Sunday, April 22, 2012
I've said my piece on this.
And I think Mr. Latz has adequately addressed the politics, and the issue of partisan campaign e-mails in his essay.
Kalani Thielen
10:43 pm on Sunday, April 22, 2012
Fair enough. We will see how adequate the response is in the next election.