News item:
From FoxNews: Michigan Elementary School Principal Investigated for Blacks-Only Class Trip
An elementary school principal in Michigan is under investigation for authorizing a field trip last week for 30 black students to meet with an African-American rocket scientist. Students who are not black were excluded from the outing — a possible violation of a state law that bans racial favoritism in public schools.
The principal, Mike Madison, who is black, said the trip was part of an effort to close the achievement gap between black and white students.
I think the principal had good intentions.
If we lived in a country, and a time, where race was not used as a means to gain power and race baiting was not just another career path… perhaps this would not be such a big deal.
But we live in a time and place where race is used to demonize political opponents; where many believe equality is an end state instead of a starting point; where political correctness is so out of control that a law to help catch people in this country illegally is immediately twisted by the press, pundits and our president into a oppressive, racist attack based upon skin color.
As a result, even the best intentions can run afoul of the race police… the rub here is that folks are learning that this particular blade cuts both ways.
This would be a completely different news story if a white principal had schedule a whites only trip to meet with Larry Bird as a means to encourage them to aspire to play in the NBA… President Obama would have already made three off the cuff snide remarks and invited Al Sharpton and Bird to the White House for a beer with that principal.
But this story, which might not even have been news a few years ago, is news today, not because what this principal did was necessarily wrong, but precisely because what he did would not be acceptable if this were an all white trip and folks are plain tired of the double standard.
If what he did is, in my view, not wrong… it was not as right as it could be.
What if the same exact trip were scheduled but half the students were white? Aside from avoiding the potential for dividing his student body along racial lines, there would be the added benefit of exposing the white students to this successful rocket scientist who happens to be black.
Was the trip to meet and learn from a rocket scientist or a black rocket scientist? Either way, wouldn’t the white students benefit? If there was a belief that the black students would benefit from meeting a successful black scientist, why wouldn’t the white students also benefit.. in fact, would that not benefit everyone in the end if one of the goals was to drop the race barrier?
The principal believes he has learned a lesson from this trip and would have done more to educate the parents prior to the trip… but I don’t believe that is the lesson to be learned here.
The lesson is that we do more to advance towards a color blind society when adults, even if they themselves are not color blind, behave as if they are for the benefit of the children.
That means not selecting students for trips, clubs, proms, sports, or anything based upon their race… class dismissed.
