Cobb

Okay, it's kind of harsh (or maybe just blunt) but I'd like to know your opinion (and that of your readers) on this.

I'm not sure I understand the rationale behind your epiphany.

You seem to immediately discredit the funding going to these Freedom Schools because it will involve a research study, making the children in the schools "lab rats." The same way that the children given the doll test -- which helped prove the psychological harm inflicted by segregated education -- for the Brown vs. Board of Education case were "lab rats"? What about the "lab rat" smokers who were studied to show that (1) cigarettes are a serious health hazard, (2) they are engineered to promote addiction, and (3) that tobacco companies preferentially">http://academic.udayton.edu/health/NAATPN/tobacco6.htm">preferentially target advertising of this dangerous, addictive drug at poor African Americans? Were they also victims of the Evil White Liberal Scientific Establishment?

I was educated in the field of science, receiving a Bachelor's degree in biochemistry. Though I didn't end up choosing a career in science, I continue to believe in it as a discipline that can be used not only to advance human knowledge but also to improve human lives and create positive social change. Why is the involvement of a scientific study in these schools' funding necessarily a Bad Thing?

As someone who happens to be a white liberal, I also take exception to your depiction of an aledgedly "white liberal" charitable foundation (there is actually a black man on the board of trustees, who is also described as one of the foundation's first associates) as "Mr. Liberal Daddy Warbucks" who's in it to get "money for programs." As it turns out, this foundation is actually focused on promoting entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency. Which pretty much sucks all the air out of your argument. You say that you "cannot presume to know exactly what Mr. Liberal Daddy Warbucks sees in these poor black ghetto kids." How about seeing someone who could use a helping hand and deciding to provide it? What exactly is so wrong about this?

Ultimately, I'm saddened to see that your final realization seems to pivot around the notion that the money going to these programs is coming from "non-black hands." While the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" ethic is an admirable and quintessentially American trait, so is the notion of helping others. I see in this sort of automatic distrust of money (or other assistance) from "non-black hands" a sign of the deeper distrust and bitterness that continues to hinder efforts toward racial equality and equal economic opportunity. The black community needs to realize that many whites share their goals in these areas, so that we can all work together to make this country a fairer place for everyone.

Having said all that, I am always open to new ideas and viewpoints. None of the above questions are rhetorical. I would appreciate any insight the author or commenters would care to give on these issues, so that I can inform myself about all the factors involved. Thanks.

Thanks for your concern. Let's get down to it.

First I'll answer your questions directly, then I'll explain my rationale. After I do that, then I'll check out your links and adjust my reality accordingly.

Q. Why is involvement in the scientific study a bad thing?
A. It lets KC off the hook. Nobody in mainstream middle class neighborhoods needs Harambees to get a good education. The answer is not to study the kids but study the flow of resources available to the kids.

Q. How about seeing someone who could use a helping hand and deciding to provide it?
A. My problem is not so much with the intent, but the method I perceive to be the manner in which such liberal charities institutionalize a helping hand. (This is a big and complicated argument).

As concerns 'non-black hands' I think you misread me, but I can understand the confusion given that my epiphany centers on my perception of what the right wing sees. I'm not so far out, and as I said, I see the value in such programs.

What I expect of whitefolks in the context of community standards and education is that they be motivated to support what is necessary to raise the bar for the best marginal increase, not that they participate in the creation, maintenance or modification of ideas originating out of black consciousness. So when whitefolks say they are spending x million to institutionally replicate Kwanzaa and not x million to send the best teachers into the ghetto, I have a problem.

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I start with a not unreasonable presumption that the reason these Freedom Schools are necessary is because the public school system is failing these children and thus the communities to which they belong.

In other words, they are isolated in ghettoes which are the legacy of American Apartheid. My bet says this black neighborhood is just as black as it was before the Brown decision. These are the hypersegregated - out of the mainstream of culture, politics and economics.

Whatever works in the Freedom Schools would presumably work in Public Schools, so I see the charity as an end-around the political impotence these folks have to influence their local school boards. But are the Freedom Schools real privately funded charter schools? If not, why have their benefactors not gone the whole nine yards? Because a part time program is affordable and a charter school is not, and who is just that committed? Everything I can see is that the local political community is not, and so white knights are necessary.

Understand that I am a firm advocate of integration. The ghetto does not function and it's not going to function unless and until it recieves equal cultural, political and economic investment as any other community constituting the the medians of such currencies in American life. Such a community then ceases to be a ghetto. But I don't see that happening anywhere and I don't see why KC's ghettoes should be the exception. So if kids are to compete, collaborate and fit into the general society then they need the same tools as everyone else, plus a specific booster to get them right and ready.

The Freedom Schools may very well provide the specific booster, and I'm certain that there are no shortage of ways to provide that boost. I myself was a beneficiary of the National Summer Youth Sports Program. So it's not a bad thing that the charity has come along to fund it, but if the 50 year problem with hypersegregation remains, it seems highly unlikely to me that the charity will be able to continue in perpetuity, which brings up my first problem with the program.

Charity in Perpetuity
Convince me that a trust is set aside in perpetuity to keep this booster progam alive. The charity then ceases to be radical chic or subject to the whims of benefactors who don't live inside the troubled community itself. I have no evidence to show me that there is an interest as permanent and abiding in these children which is equal to that of the founders of the program. It seems to me if that were the case, the benefactors would have built a charter school. This is a no-win situation because I'll gripe on the other side of the coin that a permanent charity represents a permanent assumption about a black handicap. Again, I have a philosophical problem with external funding, but I would certainly be more supportive if this were step one on the way to a charter school. I don't see how this program leads to self-sufficiency or mainstreaming.

Self Esteem on the Resume
As high as this booster program goes, it does not and cannot overcome a substandard public education. Kenneth Clark may have had his day and his say, but I for one think that esteem for modern people must come from their trust and ability to flow and move freely in society. To the extent that an institutionalized Kwanzaa and Afrocentrism is what the money pays for in order to correct some percieved identity problems associated with being black and poor, I say that job belongs to the community families, not a foundation.

Let's continue this - there is much to be said.

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