Ah! The healing balm of diversity!
Some white students at a South Jersey Catholic school walked out of classes Tuesday in protest over a speech by the New Jersey Secretary of State Regina Thomas.
Tensions have been building up at Paul VI High School since Thomas’ speech on racial justice last week.
Many students and faculty members walked out of the speech offended. They said that she lambasted one student for not knowing his black history and that she insinuated that the students were racist.
“It’s, like, really crazy right now. Teachers are just standing by the doors. Kids are trying to get out. Kids are in the hallway, they won’t go to class,” one female student said.
“It was chaotic in there. Nobody went to class first and fourth period,” another student said.
Several dozen students walked out after an assembly Tuesday in which the principal offered prayer for healing the rift between students.
“A lot of people are confused, and stuff. I think that’s half the problem, there’s a lack of communication,” a student told NBC 10 News.
Many of the white students and faculty members were offended by what they called an overly confrontational and unprofessional speech by the secretary. Some felt she was calling them racist and a backlash on some black students fueled the fire.
“They don’t know what it is like to open up your locker and see a KKK letter there. It’s not the most comfortable feeling at all,” said African-American student Kristen Minoh.
Minoh said the tension was too much Tuesday.
Many students said the racial problems began only after the secretary’s speech.
“I think she just started up a bunch of stuff and basically tried to start something,” a student said […]
[…] Thomas issued a statement Tuesday in which she said that she is passionate about the topic of diversity and wanted to raise the level of awareness.[my emphases].
Mission accomplished, Ms. Thomas! Nothing like accusing a bunch of racially-tolerant people of passive racism in order to “raise awareness” of the need for racial healing.
Reached for comment, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) told reporters that he “hasn’t owned a coon-skin cap in years,” and that he counts “southern-fried chicken with a side of greens” as among his “favorite of all the delightful negro fare.”
(via Drudge)
Oh, look. Catholic schoolgirls. Pleated skirts and all. Should more than make up for the Dusty girl.
Is there a transcript of her speech anywhere? High school students can be nitwits. So can government employees. It’s a toss up. I’m going to go DIG. You dig?
I agree with Ana, HS students will do anything to walk out of class.
I remember a walkout we had, but I can’t remember what it was for. We just wanted out!
Not that she didn’t say something idiotic, I would just like to know exactly what she said.
Jeff, are you aware Oliver Willis’ persistence paid off? The Brit Hume banner is down, which means he quit, right?
I’m digging but I’m not finding.. Not only am I not finding any transcript but I’m not even finding any specific quotes as to exactly what the whites considered objectionable.. In fact, in one quote someone says (and I paraphrase) “.. Its not exactly WHAT she said.. but rather How it was said..” (emphasis mine).. Makes me wonder if certain elements didnt object to her speech even before it was delivered.. Kids are easily manipulated to express one opinion or another (consider Michael Moore’s slacker tour during the last election).. more often I find that kids are blindly parroting something theyve heard from an influential person in their life.
I hate this ‘PC Trumps All’, ‘White Straight Men are the base of all evil’ & ‘feelings over facts’ philosophy that the looney left embraces as much or more than most.. but there are enough real problems without reading them between the lines.. Thats kind of the liberal modus operandi isnt it?
Turing AI word: dead
I dont think I’ll touch that one…
Reached for comment, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) told reporters that he “hasn’t owned a coon-skin cap in years,â€Â
But he still has the hood, right?
Well, I’m not going to be so quick to dismiss the students’ impressions either out of fear of being lumped in with left wingers.
My experience of these “awareness raising” race lectures is that they tend to suggest that racism is rampant, even when it isn’t obvious, and from the details we do have about this speech, we know that at least one student was confronted for not knowing Black history.
In related news, see today’s Onion http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4111&n=3
“All Minority Postal Staff Undergoes Mandatory Diversity Training”
And Craig, clearly Jeff has Sen. Byrd’s hood.
And I agree with you.. but thats kind of the general attitude of all ‘victim’ groups isnt it ? Everyone is out to hold them down… I dont doubt that Ms Thomas was passionate in delivering her speech about diversity.. It’s like a religion with the left. But liberals are often overly thin skinned and take offense where none was intended.. They see discrimination in one form or another behind every tree.. This is something that the rest of us.. those that still believe in common sense.. need to guard against .. I think ‘suggest’ was the key word there.
This has nothing to do with being “thin-skinned.” It has to do with challenging the accepted PC orthodoxy. And it needs to happen, or else these same speeches will be recycled again and again—and will have the effect of encouraging racial divisions rather than bridging them.
I keep thinking of the female professor at Harvard that walked out on Summers speech because she was so offended that he had suggested that there might be a physiological difference between the brains of men & women.. she was so offended that she had to walk out or she would have been sick..
Its this same sort of ‘hot button’ defensive mentality that I think the offended students and teachers might be displaying. It sounds as if, without listening to exactly what was said and forming an opinion, some students and/or teachers started a chain reaction when they reacted negatively to some perception that they were being accused of racial insensitivety.
I’d be happy to be wrong about this, but so far I havent read a credible witness state exactly what they found offensive. Most of the quotes I’ve read are basically like;
So where are all the adult witnesses to this inflammatory speech?
Who knows? I didn’t write the story. But we do know that adults walked out too.
And I see no similiarities between the Harvard incident and this incident. The feminist who stormed out at Harvard wasn’t forced to be there, for one, and she took offense to a thesis that is based on science, not speculation as to what is in the hearts of white people.
In college, we protested the canceling of “Green Beer Day” (apologies to Son of Nixon by showing up to classes drunk. THAT showed them. POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
Yeah. I once “protested” a cultural sensitivity course by bringing to class an illegal I beat and dragged from the university cafeteria, then lynching him.
Well, Jeff, you are definitely more hardcore than me …
Speaking of diversity, I would like to see more representation of uber-hot blondes like that fine young lady in the “Say Anything” blogad that’s giving me the “come hither, young stud” look every time I swing by for some free yucks from Jeff.
Good gawd!
Anti-spam word: “except” as in ”Except for when my wife or a bothersome neighbor happens by my computer while I’m gazing at the pic and untoward thoughts are running through my head.”
Cultural sensitivity and awareness isnt intrinsically bad.. As a matter of fact a reasonable amount is desireable and even neccessary in a multicultural society.. but the term has aquired negative connotations through the left’s pandering to each and every minority group in the country, elevating individual group culture over and above the broader American culture, discouraging assimilation into mainstream society as well as the creation of victim class mentalities for their own political gain.
The similarity I see is that in both cases, the parties involved appear to have drawn conclusions about what the ‘actual’ intent of the speaker was without having listened to all that was said. In both cases the offended parties were offended by ‘what they knew ‘ the speaker meant.. regardless of what was said.
This reminds me of when I first entered college. When I got there, I was cheerful and open and didn’t think twice about talking to or greeting a black person. I’d come from an almost entirely white area, and instead of calcifying racist beliefs, I had a pretty laid-back, carefree approach. I was kind of like the friend of mine who thought, growing up, that everyone was Baptist; consequently, “Catholic” was just another of the many flavors of Baptist. Easy to laugh at, sure, but it tends to undermine that whole “us versus them” mindset.
Then I started reading the obligatory Angry Black Man on the campus editorial page (doesn’t every college newspaper have one?) I had a freshman English class with a vicious hippy teacher who hit us with “Invisible Man” (good) and “Makes Me Wanna Holler” (bad). Did this “raise my awareness”? You bet it did; it made all of my heretofore relaxed interactions with black people more uncomfortable because I started worrying about what they were thinking about as a representative of their Race.
I had to struggle to overcome treating other people as symbols instead of people because of that claptrap. After a while, I began to regard that kind of rhetoric as a type of social poison. I still do.
“southern-fried chicken with a side of greens†as among his “favorite of all the delightful negro fare.â€Â
The only people that regard fried chicken and greens as “negro fare” are yankees. What the rest of the country thinks of as “soul food” southerners think of as just “food”. Hog jowls, fatback, grits, greens (mustards, turnips, collards, and kale—not spinach), field peas, purple hulls, black-eyes, sweet potatos, biscuits and gravy, cornbread, hamhocks, etc., etc. were/are dietary staples for poor southerners black and white alike.
This public service anouncement brought to you by PWS.
PS. Turing word “data”
southern Maryland begs to differ…
PPS. This is not to say that you shouldn’t take a whack at the miserable old Kluxer every chance you get.
Turing word “board” as in;
Robert Byrd won’t leave the senate until he’s carried out on a stretcher, stiff as a board.
Incidentally, AB, I think one of us is reading the story wrong. My impression is that the walk out occurred Tuesday, but that the speech was last week. This line appears to be causing the confusion, though: “Many students and faculty members walked out of the speech offended.” I think that means they “left” the speech offended after listening to the whole thing. And that the racial tensions in the school are a result of the “awareness raising” brought about by the speech itself—the awareness being that whites are racist whether they think themselves so or not.
Incidentaly, and apropos my earlier comment, the girl in the current “Dusty” ad really suffers by comparison with the “Say Anything” gal. She seems nice, open to new things, like standing in the dorm elevator in nothing but her skivvies, but you know…come on! It’s just not fair to her to put her right below that photographic evidence that God exists and wants us to be happy.
Sorry to interrupt the serious talk here, but it had to be said.
Carry on.
Besides which, what’s with all the serious talk, anyways? Disturbing.
Turring word: larger. Umm, yeah.
If thats the case then its me that is misunderstanding.. I read it as the students becoming indignant and walking out on the speech..
If Thomas’ premise was that all whites are innately racist then she was in the wrong.
If her premise was only that minorities have been subjected to racism and that racism still exists in this country to some degree, then I think the whites were wrong to take offense at that.
Oh, by the way, white men are all racist AND rapists.. just ask Andrea Dworkin
Did you read the previous report?
http://www.nbc10.com/news/4284650/detail.html
evidence that God exists and wants us to be happy
Ben Franklin regarding beer, no?
Shouldn’t it be po’ white trash?
Thanks for the link, Patrick. Clears up the logistics and provides some context for the walkout.
AB, Jeff’s right the walkout was Tuesday in reaction to events that occurred since the speach.
Turing word: wrong. Don’t think so!
Still more info: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/family_guide/11147019.htm
Guess I should watch the local news sometime.
“Shouldn’t it be po’ white trash?”
No.
Po white trash lives in Italy.
Poe white trash lives in Baltimore (which is apparently in a mid-atlantic state).
Poor white trash lives in Fl.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight..
1. Last week Thomas makes a speech on diversity in which she may well have suggested that racism was rampant and even implied that all whites were to blame for it.
2. Some portion of the teachers and student body leave the speech feeling offended as if theyve been accused of racism.
3. During the week that follows a number of threats are made against black students as retaliation for Thomas’ offending remarks. to include; KKK signs, threatening phone calls, etc
4. Police are called in to investigate threats and intimidation of black students.
5. Tuesday of following week the general (white) student body refuses to attend classes , ostensibly to protest Thomas’ speech..
Something smells here… The long and the short of this is that some white students took umbrage at what they perceived as Thomas calling them ‘racist’… so they held all of the schools black students equally responsible for her remarks and used racist methods to attack them..
pretty much supporting Thomas’ attitude. Its a vicious cycle.. I cant dismiss the white students responsibility to be civil and pursue the proper avenues in protesting Thomas’ remarks.. and KKK notes are not it (despite what the Kleagle Hat might think)
My point is only that we need to rise above the rhetoric and not become exactly what were accused of being..
To those that would hunt monsters.. beware lest you yourself become a monster.. for when you gaze long into the abyss.. the abyss gazes also into you. -F. Nietzsche
Um, “we” are not becoming exactly what we’re accused of being, and I, for one, have no fear of that happening. Consequently, I don’t fear “appearances.”
Threats and intimidation of black students hasn’t been proven. I’m eager to see how this story plays out.
You bet it did; it made all of my heretofore relaxed interactions with black people more uncomfortable because I started worrying about what they were thinking about as a representative of their Race.
I had a similar experience in college. Actually, I’d describe mine as being turned up to 11…
You know that white supremacist that was suspected of ordering the murder of that judges family last week? I had the misfortune of having him attend my college. In the midst of the shitstorm the little Klucker-wannabe stirred up, I was informed by someone I THOUGHT was a friend that “Of course all white people think that way”.
Turing word: “moment” as in, “Christ, was that an awkward moment.”
I’m so damn tired of being constantly assailed by this PC diversity drivel. Having lived and worked in 25 countries on this planet, I can guarantee you that the success of any endeavor is founded in sincere respect for the individual. It really is that damn simple. Good Lord, all this caterwauling about catering to socioeconomic, ethnic, or gender groups is nothing but a push to promote tribalism. And tribalism, along with the inability to look in the collective mirror, is one of the few common denominators among all third-world countries – be it Bolivia or Papua New Guinea.
Diversity my ass. Any fool knows you should celebrate unity; unity of purpose, unity of individual respect, and – as an old curmudgeon I still believe this – unity of country.
There. That feels better. Now, about that “Say Anything” gal….
If being ignorant of Black History is proof of my biggotry then it’s time come clean with my friends who are black. Uh, and white. Because I didn’t bother with White Heterosexual History, either. I guess I’m just a big old equal- opportunity hate-monger and it’s a good thing that I know that now because I wouldn’t want to go around confused about what I was thinking and how I felt. Because of the History.
And would she have said this at Cooley High?
I just had to put my two cents in regarding the “poor” vs. “po’” debate. As a Marine brat, I grew up in some of the finest trailer parks all over the south and I have to say that I have noticed the usage of “po’” almost exclusively. From the music of Bill Anderson’s “Po’ Folks” to business names “Po’ Boy’s Used Cars” in Port Royal, SC in 1966 to “Po’ Boy” sandwiches in New Orleans now, “po’” is correct.
I do agree with PWT’s assertion that soul food is just food po’ people eat. For God’s sake, would YOU eat a chittlin’ unless you were very hungry?
Ya.. you gotta ask yourself.. “ Just who was that first person that looked down at a pile of freshly slaughtered, steaming, sticky entrails and said ‘mmm mmmm those are some tasty looking
intestines.. I think I’ll empty the crap out of them and cook’em up..’ ? “ Cant you just hear Andy Griffith saying “ mmmm mmm Thats some good entrails.. gooood entrails! Same goes for tripe, lungs, pituitary glands, kidneys, brains, testes
(mmmm now those are some tasty looking bull balls)
You have to be pretty damn ‘Po to eat that crap.
Hey, my family was Grapes of Wrath dirt farmers from Arkansas.. and we never ate that stuff.. and we was ‘Po.. But my Grandma, rest her soul, could cook the hell outa ‘that delightful negro fare‘…’cept she wasn’t negro.. jess ‘Po white trash, like me..
Turing word: some
as in: … some gooood eatin’.. Good eatin !
A-hem.
Poor is a state of pocket easily attained. Poor can encompas a state genteel poverty.
Po is a state of mind that one must be born into. While it is quite possible to be born po and become something else altogether, it is strictly impossible to be born anything else and become po. Too many nuances, social graces, that sort of thing.
Po White Trash are the elite of the po world and not to be confused with good po folks. Having designed a cuisine based almost entirely on lard, Bisquick, strawberry jello, Vienna sausages, and catsup, the Po White Trash have developed their own apperance and shortened life spans. And the language itself is something akin to Mandarin in complexity.
spam word: art. Exactly.
It is well known that the best way to promote diversity and racial understanding is to call the whiteys a bunch of bigots.
Hate it when I’m way too amusing on a dead thread. P-tooey.
Um, how did this turn into a White Trash Wednesday thread? Nice timing!