Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2008
A survey of 6,008 South Los Angeles high school students shows that many are frightened by violence in school, deeply dissatisfied with their choices of college preparatory classes, and—perhaps most striking—exhibit symptoms of clinical depression.
“A lot of students are depressed because of the conditions in their school,” said Anna snExiga, a junior at Jordan High School who was one of the organizers of the survey. “They see that their school is failing them, their teachers are failing them, there’s racial tension and gang violence, and also many feel that their schools are not schools—their schools look more like prisons.”
The survey, released late Thursday, was conducted in seven South L.A. public schools by a community youth organization, South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action (SCYEA), with technical guidance from the psychology department at Loyola Marymount University. It suggested that many students in some of the city’s poorest, most violent neighborhoods believe their schools set the bar for success too low—and then shove students beneath it.
{snip}
“We’re ignored—our schools are ignored,” said Susie Gonzalez, another Jordan 11th-grader who helped organize the survey. “They give us the short end of the stick. . . . They expect us not to amount to anything.”
Only about one-quarter of the students surveyed said they felt safe at school while 35% said they don’t. Just under half said their school is preparing them for college or a high-paying job, and 93% believe their school should offer more college-preparatory classes. Fewer than half could define the “A to G” curriculum that is the college prep standard in California. The youth organization, which advocates educational equality, fought for six years to push Los Angeles Unified School District to require such a curriculum for all students. The curriculum spells out the types of college prep classes and number of years they must be taken to qualify for UC and Cal State schools.
Two thirds of the students, nearly all of whom were African American or Latino, said they wanted their schools to offer more ethnic studies classes.
{snip}
The survey’s findings contrasted with a February school district report in which 90% of students questioned at selected schools districtwide said they were being pushed to do their best and 80% said their classes “give me useful preparation for what I plan to do in life.”
{snip}
At the announcement of the survey results, at the headquarters of the Community Coalition of South L.A., students played a home-made version of Monopoly that told much the same story as the survey.
Where the familiar squares of Baltic, Atlantic and Marvin Gardens might be, the options included Drugs, Dean’s Office and Drop Out. Jail was a place to go when you’re pulled over by the cops for no apparent reason. Restroom was where the player was likely to encounter gang members. Where Boardwalk should have been, the square read: “Dead.”
As the game began, one student landed on Liquor Store and was told that, on his way to school, “You wind up in front of a liquor store and you find one of your homies smoking a blunt.” When Juan Zamora of Jordan landed on Chance, he was told that “you’re one of the lucky students who actually know and see a college counselor.” His choices: Go to UCLA or “stay on the block and wind up selling drugs to support your family.”
And when Sam Anguiano of Locke landed on P.E. Field, he was told that shots had been fired while he was running during gym class—should he hit the ground or run? When he answered that he’d run, he was told: “You run away and are safe, but later that evening you find out that your friend was the one who was shot.”
That was about as good a roll of the dice as anybody got. The one exception was Juan, a 17-year-old junior, who hit the ultimate Chance: “Your friends and family support you,” the card read. “You don’t die.”
Original article
Email
Mitchell Landsberg
at mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com.
(Posted on April 28, 2008)
Comments
How many of those 6,008 students are frightened and depressed because they create the “frightening and depressing” conditions?
Posted by Question Diversity at 5:37 PM on April 28
Two thirds of the students, nearly all of whom were African American or Latino, said they wanted their schools to offer more ethnic studies classes.
“Ethnic studies”?
What, so the “Latinos” can learn that the U.S. Southwest was “stolen” from them, while the “African-Americans” will be taught that every historical figure from William the Conqueror to George Washington was “black”, a “mulatto”, a “quadroon”…
Give them all the “ethnic studies” they want - not that it’ll do anything, but it’s the thought that counts - right?
Hey, maybe the white students feeling “depressed” can get “European American studies”? Oh, wait, that’s ‘racist’ isn’t it?
Posted by Obscuratus at 6:44 PM on April 28
“Frightened and depressed”? Does that mean joining gangs, using drugs, having kids out of wedlock and majoring in “self-esteem” classes haven’t helpd them?
This clearly identifies a need for more midnight basketball.
Posted by Michael C. Scot at 7:00 PM on April 28
In the school’s Monopoly game, “Jail was a place to go when you’re pulled over by the cops for no apparent reason.”
Yeah, that’s a real great thing to be teaching ghetto youth — that the attention they get from the police is arbitrary and undeserved. That they don’t get pulled over and investigated because they’ve been, y’know, stealing stuff or committing crimes or hurting people or anything. Jus’ cuz dem white cops is all a buncha raciss who be oppressin’ da black man every chance dey gets!
These South LA street urchins don’t get fed this kind of anti-obedience propaganda enough from gangsta rap — they gotta hear it, at the taxpayers’ expense, in the CLASSROOM too?
Sigh.
But then, I suppose given these kids’ intellectual abilities, letting them play Monopoly all day until they’re old enough to drop out is about all anybody can do with them anyway. But couldn’t they at least play the ORIGINAL version of the game? That game, at least, had some positive educational value.
Posted by The Incredible Shrinking White Man at 7:01 PM on April 28
This is the kind of world hispanics and blacks wanted, and now they have it. Gang violence and survival at its lowest is the world they’ve made for themselves. And their complaints get lounder.
It’s completely cultural, and no amount of government programs will make a difference. There are no other ethnic groups that have this problem. This is reality.
btw: Notice the number of organizations mentioned in this short article; “coalitions, etc.. That should tell anyone about the intellectual and behavioral poverty of these ethnic groups.
Posted by Proactive at 7:42 PM on April 28
Where the familiar squares of Baltic, Atlantic and Marvin Gardens might be, the options included Drugs, Dean’s Office and Drop Out. Jail was a place to go when you’re pulled over by the cops for no apparent reason. Restroom was where the player was likely to encounter gang members. Where Boardwalk should have been, the square read: “Dead.”
How come whites don’t encounter these problems to the same degree that blacks and Latinos do? Is it due to a mere roll of he dice, as this game implies, or is it because whites tend to make wise life choices while the others don’t?
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 8:07 PM on April 28
I’ve recently been perusing Tookie Smith’s autobiography (no I didn’t buy it, I borrowed it from the library). He describes horrible, violent conditions as part of growing up in South Central-he had no father but blamed the Dys-Education (his term)system as a big part of the problem. This system had no Afro learning. He was unable to learn about the success of Afro culture. He blames everybody but himself and his culture for the sociopathic life he lived. In a way he is correct-obviously integration hasn’t worked.
****I’m sorry, its Stanley Tookie Williams, Tookie Smith is Robert Deniro’s former Afro Paramour and bearer of at least one of his children.****
Posted by S & GS at 8:26 PM on April 28
“They see that their school is failing them, their teachers are failing them, there’s racial tension and gang violence, and also many feel that their schools are not schools—their schools look more like prisons.”
This is what you have turned these schools into by your presence. This is what you created.
If they’re threatened by gang violence and resemble prisons, it’s because this is the manifestation of what you are.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 8:28 PM on April 28
Culture follows race. Learn this and learn it well.
“It’s completely cultural, and no amount of government programs will make a difference. There are no other ethnic groups that have this problem. This is reality.”
Posted by at 8:50 PM on April 28
“They see that their school is failing them, their teachers are failing them, there’s racial tension and gang violence, and also many feel that their schools are not schools—their schools look more like prisons.”
That statement irks me more that just about anything. I even hear Lou Dobbs say it all the time…schools are failing children. Sorry, but THEY (the students) are failing school not the other way around.
Once again, they are trying to place the blame of their shortcomings, situation, and behavior on anything or anyone but themselves. With a drop-out rate of over 50% for black and hispanic males nationwide, how is that the fault of the school? Didn’t THE “STUDENT” make that decision? Of course, this is as obvious as the sky is blue on a sunny day. It’s the white elephant in the middle of the room that everyone sees but no one wants to admit is there.
Perhaps if they started offering courses like “Gangbanging 101”, “‘Street Cred’ in These Times”, or “Gangsta Rap Appreciation” they’d stay in school and get A’s. The way things are going, in ten years they probably will.
Posted by at 9:37 PM on April 28
If anyone should be frightened and depressed,it should be the the few remaining white students.
Posted by Peejay in Frisco at 9:55 PM on April 28
I don’t know whether to laugh or just shake my head in disgust, after reading this article. These students are claiming that everyone is failing them - except themselves. They say the schools set the bar too low, and they’re shoved under it. Yet, who were the ones who demanded the curricula be “dumbed down” because they thought it was too hard, and did not “meet their needs”, in the first place?! These Bantus and Hispanics live in neighborhoods where education is sneered at, and then they have the cajones to demand the schools offer more college preparatory courses? Heck, they can’t even name the curriculum standard for their state.
Did they really expect the schools to prepare them for well-paying jobs? In that case, they’d better learn how to play soccer, baseball or basketball, and hope that some sports agent will offer them a fat contract.
I think they’ve deluded themselves into thinking they were going to get scholarships to Ivy League colleges, and so ride on the gravy train at whitey’s expense. It’s hard to do when you can’t read at your grade level - Harvard, Yale or Dartmouth aren’t going to take them by the hand, and spoonfeed them remedial reading lessons. Now they realize they’re going to fall further and further behind whites and Asians, and no amount of money is going to correct that.
Exactly how are ethnic studies courses going to help them deal with their “depression”? The schools should offer basic psychology classes instead.
You can spend a trillion dollars trying to teach a pig to sing opera, but that isn’t going to make it so. Proactive is right. This is what they wanted, and so they must now reap the harvest of what they have sown.
Posted by Soprano Fan at 10:32 PM on April 28
Funny how the students weren’t “frightened and depressed” years ago when the school was mostly white.
11th grader Susie Gonzalez: “They expect us not to amount to anything.” Yes, and you continually live down to our expectations!
Posted by Madison Grant at 12:23 AM on April 29
I do not understand how this version of monopoly can possible teach these inner city children anything.
They should play Dungeons and Dragons instead! They would learn how to work as a team, how to communicate, how to plan, what to do in emergencies, (Like when a fifth level… I’m getting off subject.) You have to read and often calculate percentages.
If it is good enough for Legions of white nerds, its is good enough for our inner city youths.
Posted by flyingtiger at 1:52 AM on April 29
” “Ethnic studies”? What, so the “Latinos” can learn that the U.S. Southwest was “stolen” from them, while the “African-Americans” will be taught that every historical figure from William the Conqueror to George Washington was “black”, a “mulatto”, a “quadroon” “
Isn’t that what they learn already in school? Seriously, get a clue. Also, blaming a race doesn’t work. No matter how much whites are blamed, things never improve. If we must blame someone I think a fair share of the blame belongs on the shoulders of white liberals. These pathologies all skyrocketed during the 1960’s and have never come down, for all races; a reality that is always ignored.
Posted by at 9:17 AM on April 29
They want to be lied to in order to boost their spirits.
Actually, the road to real self-respect is a long hard one that never ends and it begins with self-discipline. That alone would be depressing for them to know.
Posted by Whiteplight at 3:24 PM on April 29
“A survey of 6,008 South Los Angeles high school students shows that many are frightened by violence in school, deeply dissatisfied with their choices of college preparatory classes, and—perhaps most striking—exhibit symptoms of clinical depression.”
Just another inevitable benchmark in the decline of the illegal alien sanctuary capital of the world - Lost Angeles.
Posted by Gary at 3:49 PM on April 29
The schools and teachers are not failing them; evolutionary biology and culture are failing them.
This version of “Monopoly” they have been playing attempts to instill in these students the notion that their failures are externally imposed (by us whites, of course) and not an integral part of a culture they have created themselves and in which they deliberately participate.
Posted by Michael C. Scot at 4:01 PM on April 29
I always find it fascinating that the same people who endlessly proclaim that race is a “social construct” with “no genetic basis” all want to live in white countries, white cities and white neighborhoods, and once there, then want race-based preferences and race-based schoolwork. This amazing level of hypocrisy would be hilarious were it not invariably accompanied by demands for public money.
By “afraid and depressed” do they mean that by high school they have realized they are at best irrelevant to the functioning of a society they could never have created, and at worst a serious hinderance to it?
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 5:10 PM on April 30
” “Ethnic studies”? What, so the “Latinos” can learn that the U.S. Southwest was “stolen” from them, while the “African-Americans” will be taught that every historical figure from William the Conqueror to George Washington was “black”, a “mulatto”, a “quadroon” “
Posted by at 9:17 AM on April 29
Sad but true, Afros I work with were passing around an email relating to this nonsense:
http://www.amazon.com/Six-Black-Presidents-Blood-White/dp/1880187000
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Posted by S & GS at 9:26 PM on April 30
The liberal/progressive/communist(another name for New World Order) seeds for the destruction of California, possibly the whole United States, have now taken root and will do their work of choking off the hope for any salvation. Illegal immigration and massive legal immigration, year after year, of unassimilated people combined with their having more “rights” than American citzens of European extraction, will practically assure the ruination of the U.S. if THESE POLICIES do not RADICALLY change.
Posted by Bobby at 5:21 PM on May 1
I substituted yesterday at the quintessential ghetto school and the way they carry on, with ear-piercing music in their cars to their uncaring attitudes, you see that it is pure cultural. Only a few have brains….
Posted by White is Beautiful Robert at 1:41 PM on May 2
