Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Reversing the hands of time

Toronto trustees narrowly approve black school

Angela Wilson, a community member who brought the proposal forward added:

“It's a bittersweet thing because it should have happened a long time ago and it shouldn't have brought all this pain back to our black community.”

Someone should inform Angela Wilson that it did happen a long time ago. It was called segregation. It did not work then and is unlikely to work now.

Brown v. Board of Education
The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas heard Brown's case from June 25-26, 1951. One of the expert witnesses, Dr. Hugh W. Speer, testified that:
"...if the colored children are denied the experience in school of associating with white children, who represent 90 percent of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the colored child's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. [...]

Linda Brown Thompson later recalled the experience in a 2004 PBS documentary:
... well. like I say, we lived in an integrated neighborhood and I had all of these playmates of different nationalities. And so when I found out that day that I might be able to go to their school, I was just thrilled, you know. And I remember walking over to Sumner school with my dad that day and going up the steps of the school and the school looked so big to a smaller child. And I remember going inside and my dad spoke with someone and then he went into the inner office with the principal and they left me out...to sit outside with the secretary. And while he was in the inner office, I could hear voices and hear his voice raised, you know, as the conversation went on. And then he immediately came out of the office, took me by the hand and we walked home from the school. I just couldn't understand what was happening because I was so sure that I was going to go to school with Mona and Guinevere, Wanda, and all of my playmates.

Apparently Angela Wilson, unlike Linda Brown Thompson, does not want the black community of Toronto to experience what it is to live in a multicultural society. It is too painful.

This just like religion based schooling, has no place in publicly funded education. It should be the sole realm of privately funded schools. For those of you about to rant... I personally include Catholic schools in this theory. They have already been enshrined in our charter so to harp on this one is a mute point.

The only questions I have left are... How many Angela Wilson's are there in Toronto and how many will enroll their children in this school? Hopefully not many...

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