Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Toronto District School Board - perhaps in a knee jerk to the predictable spanking it got from Julian Falconer’s inquiry into the shooting at C.W. Jefferies - is mulling the creation of an all black school.
It’s a bad, bad, bad idea.
The thinking, however, is well intentioned. Black kids drop out more so than other races and religions and the argument is they need a school of their own where they can take pride in African history and the leadership shown by heroic members of the black community. Toronto has a Native school and it has been something of a success in keeping native kids off the streets.
But it’s the wrong direction.
Just as the majority of Ontario voters were against faith-based schools and rejected John Tory’s bid for the premier’s office, so too are the majority of Toronto residents against segregated schools.
Just ask around.
Like faith schools, it’s a slippery slope. What’s a faith? What’s a race?
African-Canadians? Does that include Jamaicans? Aren’t Jamaicans a stsrong culture to themselves? What about true Africans, like muslin Somalians or Ugandans or Ghanese? Don’t they deserve a school that teaches their history as distinct from the development of African-North Americans and Carribeans.
And what about south Asians? Or Persians? Or Mainland Chinese or Cantonese? Aren’t they also isolated in our communities? Where will we put these schools. Throw out the white, Asian and Persian kids and make them bus. Our throw out the black, white and Asians so the Persians can have a school.
No. This is faith schools by another name and it’s just as unacceptable.
Better that we should teach all our children about the histories of all the races and cultures in our city. Celebrate European culture as well as Jamaican culture and Persian and Asian.
Otherwise we risk creating a bureaucratic nightmare and a series of siloed communities.
Incidentally, for more on the politicization of a young boy’s death read this.