The March 1997 (21:3) issue of Beacon (the monthly newsletter of Boston Mensa), Ken Falor asked if we should prohibit educational opportunities for the intellectually gifted. Quoting from a Jon Keller column in The Boston Globe, Stephanie Deeran of the Harvard University Graduate School said,
"Only upper-class white children were labeled gifted, and … are still overrepresented in gifted programs."
As a 47 year old black male who was forcibly "bussed" across town to a gifted elementary school program in our Nation's Capitol during the early 1960s, let me take issue and exception with the above quote.
I didn't see many white children in my classes from fifth through eleventh grade … the population of Washington, DC is 90% non-white (it was black when I was growing up, but there is now a large Asian and Hispanic population) and the "upper-class white children" were severely under represented in my gifted classes.
As a result of this accelerated curricula, I had a high school diploma and was registered as a full-time college freshman at the age of 16 … 100% of my graduating class attended college.
OTOH, I spent my last "year" of high school at a private school, where I was the only black student, and I graduated first in my class of ten. My black classmates, who remained in the gifted public school program, graduated several months later … all in the top 10% of their class of over 900 students.
Now here's the punchline. In 1992, I was earning $54K as a Principal Software Engineer and had an international reputation in a field you probably never heard of. I've been unemployed for the last four years, and can't even get a job at a McDonalds … I filled out an application, and they never called me back. I even walked into a Hallmark store that had a "Help Wanted" sign on the door, and they couldn't find any applications for me to fill out!
Now you ask, "How can a Life Member of Mensa be unemployed?" Well, in a country where a person of color has to work twice as hard to get half as far, superior intellect is a curse rather than a blessing. As my Uncle LeRoy (God rest his soul) used to tell me:
"If there's one thing that the white man hates worse than a smart-ass young buck, it's a smart-ass young buck who is right all of the time. So either you better learn how to act dumb, or else don't let your mouth get you into anything that your feet can't get you out of."
But that's not what I want to talk about …
Texas Principal Cloyd Hastings is quoted in The Boston Globe as saying:
"The ability grouping of students for educational opportunities in a democratic society is ethically unacceptable …"
When I was in the fifth grade, I could spot the kids who were never going to go to college, assuming they made it all the way through high school. They got the remedial and "shop" classes … the gifted students got the White House tours and the Bolshoi Ballet. (What, you think that just because they live in Washington, DC that all those little black children get to see the inside of the White House?)
Ability grouping is the ONLY way some of these "gifted" children can survive in a city where the Number One cause of death for black men between 16 and 25 years of age is "homicide". Yeah, I'm Real Glad that I didn't have to shower after gym with 25 other guys who were more interested in how much money I had in my wallet than how well they would do on their SAT, because they were never going to take the test!
I guess I don't know where people are getting their "facts" that substantiate claims that upper middle-class white children are overrepresented … last time I looked, the National Spelling Champion was Asian.
So I guess what I think about it is that it don't mean sh*t … "despite changes in rhetoric and practice during the last 30 years" … the Real Problem facing this society is that if you are not White and you are not Christian (I'm a " towel-head" these days) and you are not in your twenties, it doesn't matter how smart or qualified you are … there are no positions available at this time.
That is all I have to say. -=DAH=- 1997-03-02
Last update: 2002-03-01
by Dennette@WiZ-WORX.com