I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Henry Banks radio interview. Henry let me run off the mouth over and over. I always apologized for it but its so fun to run off the mouth that my apologies were pro forma.
Henry’s idea was to begin with the good news – the story of Laura Mac’s stunning recent success. I warned him in advance that I’ve always been a Cassandra. True to my prediction I praised the work of the MacAuthorites but pointed out that they might not be a harbinger of a similar success for our other half dozen struggling schools. The main reason for this I asserted was that they were given a million bucks and state help which our other struggling schools are unlikely to receive. I also pointed out that in the good old days of “derelict” buildings we poured our general fund money into the classroom whereas now it goes to pay off Red Plan bonds.
Having dispensed with that bit of downerism we got into the learning gap and my perplexity how to deal with it. I gave a little history of Duluth’s black population and explained how our 1921 lynching scared blacks away from Duluth until after Cold War began and we had an Air Force base which began bringing military personnel to Duluth. I said we were a little late to the party and suggested that our non-minority population was a little less practiced at dealing with minorities as a result. Then I said that the recent statewide poor showing in minority test results perplexed me because Minnesota had once had a reputation for openness. I mentioned Hubert Humphrey’s 1948 speech at the Democratic Convention when he called on Americans to walk in the sunshine of human rights not the cloud of state’s rights. That’s not the exact quote although its closer than I could come up with on the fly on Henry’s program. I also muffed George W Bush’s NCLB phrase “soft bigotry of low expectations.” I apologized again for my old brain.
I told Henry I wasn’t sure it was some sort of result of “Minnesota Nice” that was failing minority kids. I had already said I saw not a whit of difference between the potential of children of any race.
Henry did ask me, in light of what I said were the District’s financial shortcomings if I’d renounce my stipend as a Board member. I don’t plan to but only pointed out to Henry that the average annual cost of a teacher is $90,000 and that my $7,000 wouldn’t go very far. He let me off the hook after that.
I also mentioned my conversation with Tim and the curse of too much melanin making it far too common for black drivers to avoid additional traffic stops while driving. I explained how I’ve taken to passing out my school district business cards to African Americans wherever I go. Henry asked if I’d ever read a 1970’s treatise of Frances Cress Welsing called the “Cress Theory of Color Confrontation.” I told him I had never heard of it. He said it was only about 15 pages long and I told him I’d look it up.
I just did after typing up that last paragraph. I won’t read it any time soon. Its so 1970’s and only a hair better than Elijah Muhammad’s preaching that white skinned people were really devils. Sorry Henry. I gotta be honest. I’ll look forward to discussing this if you do indeed let me back on your program. I think it was my joshing about melanin being an affliction that prompted Henry’s recall of the theory. I don’t need to be descended from white mutants to be an idiot. All I have to do for that honor is be a human.
I did confess to idiocy twice. First about losing my early teaching jobs and then near the end when I quoted Mark Twain adding that our school board was working overtime to prove his point.
Henry said he enjoyed the interview (even if I did hog the microphone) and asked for a couple of my business cards.
