WHO TESTS THE TEACHERS FOR RACISM(COLORISM)?

WHO TESTS THE TEACHERS FOR RACISM(COLORISM)?
(by Carol Taylor - Reproduced from 1990)

Okay, the more things change, the more things stay the same, right? Especially if it's perpetuation of public education-system refusals to teach the truth about the hueman race.

"The admission of the New York State Education Commissioner, Thomas Sobol, that the state's public school curriculum needs to give much greater recognition to the contributions of cultures which represent three-quarters of the world's population is certainly commendable.

However, unless reputable scholars and teachers who have been conditioned by an institutionally racist (colorist) society are tested for their individual levels of racism (colorism) and where necessary, referred to anti-bias counseling, the 'deep-seated pathologies of racial hatred,' which Dr. Leonard Jeffries recently highlighted, will continue to pervade the state's education system, with extreme detriment to white students as well as students of color.

Assuredly, racial (colorist) hatred is no new problem, but one can only change that which one can first acknowledge. The most productive way of ridding a society (including an educational system) of a disease is to acknowledge its existence first. Not much can be done about blatant (nooses and baseball bats and cop killings of Black males and other people of color) or subtle racism (colorism) or bigotry, which indeed exist, until each individual is able to confront his or her own feelings and/or beliefs (which is what bigotry is all about).

America, indeed, is not the only country faced with this problem, but this fact is, if anything, one more reason for urgency in diagnosing the extent of the disease of racism (colorism) within the education system. America's unique position in world affairs (and the multiplicity of its ethnic groups) demands that we lead in the fight against racism (colorism) and other prejudices.

That much has already been done in this fight is not to be denied, nor commendation witheld for the courage and huemanity of those who have fought for so long, but it is equally not to be denied that those efforts, laudable as they have been, have fallen far short of the goal.

What has been gained is at best an uneasy cease-fire. What has hampered many efforts has been a lack of support from the wider society, stemming from a deliberate complacency, a form of escapism where people have persuaded themselves that racism (colorism) is not really all that serious, that it will eventually work itself out without any involvement on their part.

The basic reason for this desire of each to protect his own little sphere from an admission of the unpleasant reality of racism (colorism) varies from person to person. Racism (colorism), to be effectively treated, must be addressed on the level of the individual, but current programs have been concentrated on the community or state levels, and this, I suggest, is an integral failure of those programs. Entrenched societal conditioning is a major contributing factor which stymies the efforts of anti-racism (colorism) programs and makes stubborn racists (colorists) of so many otherwise enlightened people. Thos few who have managed genuinely to reject or outgrow such conditioning represent, in each case, a triumph for the individual, but also serve to emphasize the need for an approach on that level to the racism (colorism) of the majority of those who remain prey to the infection.

We cannot, in the final analysis, legislate out of the subconscious, the effects of institutionally racist (colorist) conditioning, and the problem remains fundamentally unchanged unless the usual defense mechanism of denial is removed.

It is past time for children in New York State (and, indeed, America) not to have to continue to rely on the supposed goodwill of those administrators and teachers who are responsible for such a large portion of their basic education - which, traditionally, has excluded the truth about the beginnings of civilization and contributions of people of color.

The solution, to reiterate, is Racism (Colorism) Quotient Testing and, where necessary, follow-up counseling until a functional R.Q. score can be achieved - especialy for those who are to revise the state's public school curriculum."

(With all due respect to the incisive thorough intellectual contributions of Barbadian scholar Winston Worrell who wrote most of the above Tract)

This entire nation should use the www.racismtest.com
www.racismtest.org ...as, obviously, not a panacea but as a tool to foment discussion in a non-threatening arena - to put the issue of untreated colorism 'on the front burner' (as suggested by Law Professor Lani Guinier) to combat, on an individual basis, the counterproductive nooses, killings and other negative color discriminations