About half of the 37 students in teacher Jeanne Kirchofer's Laguna Creek High School classroom, who span nearly every combination of race and ethnicity, have joined the growing number of California studentsn who decline to state a race on official forms and tests.
"We shouldn't be judged by our race," said senior Jessica Mae Belcher, 17, whose roots are African and Cherokee. She prefers "none of the above" because "we're all different, but we're all the same, too."
She likes sharing her classmates' unique American journeys from Mexico, China, Japan, Laos, India, Vietnam, Italy and the Philippines.
"I'm not saying we're going to forget where we came from, but we can all see similarities from different hardships," Belcher said. By eliminating racial categories – and racial consciousness – "we can make racial hatred go away," she said. link
I'm reminded of what Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the court in the Louisville and Seattle "desegregation" cases, Parents Involved v. Seattle School District (05-908) & Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (05-915), "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." These students seem to get it.
This option is not available to students in my school district. Our standardized test answer sheets come pre-coded for each student, so the student's race is already bar-coded according to whatever is listed on records the district has.
7 comments:
The only proper answer to check is "human". Anyone who wants to know more is a racist.
I think that it's strange that there are very different choices for every race that is not "white."
Example: There is African American, Chinese, Japanese, Samoan, Hawaiian, Korean, Taiwanese, etc; but, there is only one choice for white people: white/Caucasian.
There is no Italian, German, British, etc.
Therefore, I fill in every box. I'm like a UN conference.
There isn't even a box for American: That's what I really am.
Even born into an environment steeped in political correctness the kids reflexively abhor the race-based obsession institutionalized by their parents.
You've just got to have a little faith.
I'd like to send those kids a big box of cookies for being so sensible! Got to reinforce it where you can :)
Has anyone else here ever stopped and wondered where Caucasia is?
Must...resist...effort...to...make...non-family-friendly...joke...
our tests come pre-coded also. and, several of the 17 markers for meeting ayp are based on race. they say it is in an effort to see if we are meeting the needs of our non-white students or not, so that they can mandate more workshops on culturally appropriate education methods. none of which help motivate lazy students (of all races) whose parents encourage lazy lifestyles driven by government handout programs (which are mostly populated by non-whites - where's the research and improvement plans for that?).
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