Dawn F. Harkness (dawn@harkness.net)
Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:57:26 -0500
Kathleen, I believe my record of accurately quoting sources remains wicked
good, as we say in northern New England.
On 12-12-2000 at 10:07 pm you wrote "It wasn't a minority whining
about "the white man keeping me down." When I wrote, "For all protests to
the contrary, I believe this was a case of someone inferring, "the white man
is keeping me down" what I quoted was accurate, I just disagreed with you.
In the vernacular this means : just cause you say it ain't so doesn't mean
it ain't so. I did not misquote you.
I thought this was self-evident, but apparently it was not . Therefore, I
will try to make it very clear why I think your analysis of a difficult
minority child experience at a Sudbury model school inferred that it was a
case of the white man keeping some minority down.
On 12-10-2000 at 10:23 am you wrote: (I'm just quoting your most
demonstrative statements to make my point as briefly as possible. But the
full content and context of your post also supports my opinion)
>This society is dominated by white male thinking. Nothing new there. I see
>the Sudbury model somewhat as an extension of that. Not all of us are
white males, however.
>We just don't think like white males. No matter how much it's shoved down
our throats. We think like "we" think. Yet, we must adapt to a white male
environment.
>I know there are tokens of
>minorities in these schools. My son was one of them. He was raised in a
>rich Hispanic/Indian culture. He thinks like that, not like a white male
>(Even though his dad is Irish!) He struggled in the Sud system. He found it
>difficult to assimilate to the "white" way of doing things (He despised
>J..C.!) At the same time, he loved parts of it. He just didn't experience
it
>like he was expected to. I doubt anyone was even aware of his difficulty
>for what it was. I saw it, but that's because we come from the same place.
When you make statements like these, I think you are trying to pin much of
the difficulty a minority child might experience on a cultural difference
and an
institutional bias which unfairly works against the child. Pretty classic
white man keeping the minority down mentality IMO.
Dawn Harkness
-----Original Message-----
From: Avenfeliz1@aol.com <Avenfeliz1@aol.com>
To: discuss-sudbury-model@aramis.sudval.org
<discuss-sudbury-model@aramis.sudval.org>
Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 7:44 PM
Subject: Re: DSM: Education/Science
>In a message dated 12/13/00 4:11:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>dawn@harkness.net writes:
>
>> For all protests to the contrary I believe this was a case
>> of someone inferring: "the white man is keeping them down". Hanna, I
think
>> you were wrong to encourage that kind of thinking.
>>
>
>Dawn,
>Please read my posts before you misquote me. I specifically said that I
was
>not whining about that fictional plight of the "white man keeping me down."
>I'm surprised at you. You're usually much better with your facts.
>Kathleen
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Mar 29 2001 - 11:14:39 EST