A "Coward" Speaks

As someone who, in the early 1960s, took a bus from Connecticut to rural Virginia to help people I had never met register to vote, I really sat up when I read that the Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. said we are “essentially a nation of cowards” on race relations.

I am certain that Mr. Holder was speaking for effect and really wants to see a full, frank, “nuanced, principled and spirited” debate on topics like affirmative action.

I just don’t know how to proceed. Who is to speak and to whom is that person to speak? I suggest that there are as many positions on racial issues as there are people, probably more, since every race is actually two races, one composed of people one knows and the other the race in general. Having said that, here is my take on affirmative action.

Affirmative action was supposed to be a band aid, something to serve while the wound of inadequate schools healed. Nobody in his right mind would think making allowances for the reality of lousy schools is a worthwhile permanent solution. But, 40 years after the Great Society, more of our schools are in worse shape than they were in the 1960s. Part of that is because there are a lot more schools, but the real reason is a lack of will.

The whole educational system is flawed. The key components, the teachers, get no respect. In college, elementary education majors are not the National Merit Scholars, or the winners of the math, science, or even English prizes in high school. Students in other disciplines tend to look down on the el-eds. They will never make any money. Their reading consists of Dick and Jane books.

Then, when these newly-minted teachers get into the schools, the students don’t have much respect either. Probably something they learned from their parents.

The school buildings themselves are models of form following function. They look like warehouses and that is what they do. That is all they are really asked to do. Just lock Junior up for most of the day so he doesn’t get into trouble or do some costly damage to himself while mommy and daddy go to work. Mommy and daddy work very hard for their money and don’t want to pay for anything more. This is the whole system. Not many schools in even affluent districts teach art, music, have well-equipped biology, chemistry or physics labs, or offer the wide range of courses that used to be available. How many schools now offer German, which used to be required of anyone seeking an advanced degree in the maths and sciences? Greek? Latin? You must be joking. In a number of high schools, even calculus, sine qua nunc for engineering, is not taught.

The really stupid thing in all this is that mommy, daddy and Junior will have to pay just as much, if not more, for remedial courses in what passes for colleges nowadays. Maybe the key is that Junior gets to pay for college. We seem very good at piling huge burdens on our children’s shoulders.

But, Mr. Holder, I don’t think affirmative action is a racial issue. We don’t even want to pay to educate our own children. We just want to pay even less to educate other children.

Tom Gordon