Black and white and read all over

We heard today that a teacher at one of the public schools read aloud an opinion piece from the Daily News as an example of bigotry.

I agree, wholeheartedly, enthusiastically, in spades, and with bells on. So the opinion piece is gonna receive a fisking.

By Lou Major:

It's bad enough we have horrid academic achievement in the Bogalusa school system, but hand-in-hand with the despicable safety and security problems, we have that age-old menace: Racial Divide.

This promises to be exciting, doesn't it? Danger, failure and "Racial Divide" all at once! Capitalized, even!

There have been many meetings over the past year and-a-half about the fast deterioration of the quality of education in the local school system. School Board members, some parents, teachers and politicians have all joined the quest for improvement. We have been told over and over that this will take time; it cannot be achieved in just one year.

It took more than a year for the problems to develop and become serious, and surely it'll take more than a year to solve them. That makes sense.

If you are going to claim that the deterioration was "fast," I want to see that backed up with stats. The problems have existed for the several years we've been here.

"Zero tolerance" of fighting, insolence and threats has been put into place, presumably as the best thing so far to try to solve those problems. Various thrusts at academic improvement have been introduced at every level.

Sounds pretty good so far. Give "zero tolerance" time to work.

And all the while, very, very few people have wanted to face up to the "racial divide" problem. It is there. Less than a handful of people at all these meetings have dared to talk openly about one of the serious problems that leads to so many of the other problems. They talk in numbers, for the most part. The numbers show that all of the students leaving the Bogalusa schools are white kids. Nobody knows for sure where they are all going and from what I can determine, nobody is zeroing in on finding out.

"The word" is that they are going to Franklinton, Pine, Bowling Green, St. Tammany and Mississippi.

I know that some of them are going to the Franklinton school district, where the parents I spoke to are claiming that the high school is "better." If they think it's academically better, I shot that down in "Dishonest or dumb?".

It's white flight, is all it is. Considering the parish's history, my conclusion is logical.

C'mon, you guys voted for David Duke. And you're surprised there's white flight? The irony has overtopped my hip waders.

Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, Bogalusa students were allowed to go to other schools, presumably until the local school system got up and running again. Hordes of them did just that. The only problem is, they have not come back, and almost all of them are white kids. After the immediate shock of Katrina ended, displaced students were supposed to "go home" to their normal schools. It didn't happen. At one of the meetings recently, it was stated that schools which allowed the Bogalusa students in following the hurricane were supposed to send them back; it was a matter of honoring school boundaries.

That has all added to the growing "racial divide" in the Bogalusa schools.

I thought students were supposed to go to their district schools, unless they were enrolled in a private school - which, naturally, might be outside the district lines. In some places, attending an out-of-district school is illegal.

If anybody's breakin' the law, maybe the DA oughtta get involved, hmmm?

Two years ago, there were 1,270 white students in Bogalusa schools. This year, the number is down to 806. Two years ago, there were 1,595 black students in Bogalusa schools. This year, the number is 1,604. So while there are 450 fewer white students, there are the same number of black students.

As the trend has continued, this means that five years ago there was a 50/50 ratio of white to black students in the Bogalusa schools. Today, the ratio is 65 percent black to 35 percent white.

If we want our kids to grow up to be able to work with people of other ethnic backgrounds, we need to quit caring about this. Yes, just quit caring. Don't see color, see people, and you'll teach your kids to do the same.

That's the only way to stop the "Racial Divide" if by that phrase you mean bigotry.

Sadly, as I read on, it appears that you mean something else.

This growing preponderance of black students is manifesting itself in ways that most people don't even realize.

What? The nearest store sells less Prell, more Hair-Gro?

Forgive me, I couldn't resist. Hang on, it gets much better.

The Bogalusa High Paper Dolls illustrates the point. In 1970, there were 27 Paper Dolls, the dancing group which struts at football games, parades, etc. Of the 27, only 2 were black girls; 25 were white. By 1992, of 23 Paper Dolls, 21 were white and 2 were black, still about the same as 20 years earlier. However, by 1997, the numbers changed to 21 white girls and 6 black girls. In just the next three years, the numbers had gone to 15 white girls and 7 black girls.

Continuing the quickening trend, the next year there were 22 white girls and 11 black girls.

This year, the "racial divide" was glaring. There are 11 Paper Dolls at BHS; not one of them is white.

Additionally, the varsity cheerleading squad this year is made up of 12 girls. Only one is white.

A look at the BHS Band tells the same story.

All this tells me is that the white kids either aren't trying out for the Paper Dolls and varsity cheerleading, or they aren't making the grade. Apparently the white kids aren't choosing band as an activity, either.

Why don't you do some research and find out why this is? And publish what the black/white ratio is at the high school, too. If white students are a small minority, it shouldn't shock you that some extracurricular activities are all black.

Now your editorial sounds like the whine of a white supremacist.

"Waaaah! The blacks have everything! They locked us out! Waaaaah!"

At most of the "curative" meetings, I recall one person willing to stand up and recognize there is a problem: Rev. Coleman Moses, one of the school system's Task Force members who has continued to be active with the group initially appointed by School Supt. Jerry Payne. Rev. Moses has repeatedly spoken out about the need for all of the school disciplinary problems to be attacked first at home. That is the obvious starting place, but getting that accomplished is another thing.

Getting down to the nuts and bolts, how do you get into the homes of the most unruly kids and get their parents, many of them only the mother, to make their kids obey the rules, be polite, study hard, cause no trouble? I sure don't have the answer and it seems like nobody else has, either.

The problems are more than readin', writin' and 'rithmetic.

I definitely believe that "zero tolerance" needs several years to show results.

However, I am dismayed at this juxtaposition of "the blacks have it all," a bunch of white kids left, and discipline problems in the editorial. There's a very unpleasant implication floating between the lines, there.

Elementary school kids are still staying in the Bogalusa school system. Even the discipline nightmare at the Bogalusa Middle School (junior high) has not sent white students running elsewhere. But the trend at Bogalusa High is alarming. The numbers prove the point. Something has to be done or the enrollment of white students will continue to dwindle until "racial divide" will be almost complete.

This won't be PC, Lou, but I can and will explain it to you.

We ain't from here. But we have had the distasteful experience of being told by white "born-heres" that we should send our kids to another high school, out of the district, because otherwise those boys will try to date our girls.

They weren't talkin' 'bout white boys.

You may recall from a previous post that back in the 60s, the FBI considered Washington Parish to have the highest per-capita membership in the KKK of any county in the nation. Do the math. It's those klukkers' grandkids that are being pulled out of Bogalusa High and sent elsewhere.

You think attitudes like that change in one or two generations? I know better. Judging from how I've been warned of the "dangers" of BHS, those attitudes are alive and kickin'. Kickin' hard, Lou.

I've never been anywhere else in this whole wide world where so many whites were so willing to be upfront and vocal about their racism. Anywhere else, the majority of the white population would shun them.

"Run, run! They'll rape your daughters!" Sheesh.

Gee, maybe the black parents are the ones who should be worried. There's a lot more historical precedent about white boys raping black girls, isn't there?

Let the bigots pack their sheets and leave the system. From what I've seen, the kids that remain at Bogalusa High - of all races - get along across racial lines and have a decent, open-minded attitude. I applaud them. They are our future; perhaps this is the generation that will bury the sorry past.

Y'all definitely need fresh blood, y'know? More come-heres, to dilute out this nonsense.