Most of you are not familiar with the dynamics of metro-Atlanta so let me explain.
Gwinnett County is a county that sits to the northeast of Dekalb County Georgia.
Fulton County, Dekalb County and Clayton County are the core counties where Black people live in high concentrations.
As I think about it I can enumerate no less than 6 of my (Black Progressive) friends who used to live in Dekalb County as we where young newlyweds or single and who now live in Gwinnett County. This was done as a means of providing their children access to the quality of education in Gwinnett County Schools that they believed had fallen in Dekalb County Schools. Remember - I am the "Black Conservative" of the group.
The long story short is that the vast majority of the Black families who live in the fast growing Gwinnett County have purposely moved there in order to gain access to OPPORTUNITY. Educational opportunity for their children being at the top of the list. This from my first hand experience with m friends. Some of these same friends questioned why I choose to "move to Macon" instead of Dekalb County. (Macon being the reference to how far south I moved away from the hub of our social gatherings at the time).
Side note: The History Of The Integration Of Gwinnett County Schools
We Will NOT Allow You To Make Our Children INFERIOR
From the WSB Radio article
For the second time this year, there is a federal discrimination investigation open in the Gwinnett Schools.
The Office of Civil Rights is looking into systems I-E Squared program. Some parents complain it sets the bar too low for some students to meet testing goals.
The program is part of a deal the system has with the state to give the schools more autonomy in exchange for more accountability.
Marlyn Tillman said African-American and Latino students are being set up to fail.
"When you set the bar low enough, you're sure to hit it," Tillman said. She is one of the parents who complained in July.
An examination of the contract the school system has with the state of Georgia finds various benchmarks for various student groups.
For example, 48 percent of white and 50 percent of Asian students are expected to meet or exceed the Language Arts scores at Trickum Middle School in Lilburn.
By contrast, the goal for African-American students is 26.9 percent. The goal for Hispanic students is 19.8 percent.
In a written statement, the school district said an investigation does not mean a complaint has merit.
"This complaint is not supported by facts and we are confident OCR will agree once they have looked into the matter."
Federal investigators hope to complete their investigation within six months. In May, parents complained redistricting in the Duluth area discriminated against low-income minority students.
When I heard this report on the radio this morning I was forced to do a double take. By far the most common cause of a "racial discrimination lawsuit" against an integrated/majority White school system is due to the claims of suppressed access to high level resources such as Advanced Placement courses or, lately, a higher rate of disciplinary action including suspension against Black children.
The charge that Black people are given a lower bar on a standardized test is the key exception.
(Psst - Notice that the Georgia NAACP is not mentioned in this case)
The reason for the exception is that these are disproportionately middle/upper-middle class Black parents, with professional careers who moved their children into a highly competitive school system to allow them to GROW and swim within the prevailing currents.
The sight of a (bigoted) school system that judges them INFERIOR based on nothing more than the color of their skin and what it projects in the way of:
- their family's financial situation
- their family's structural situation
- their parent's ability to competently manage their children's academic careers
I now plan to call up each of my family friends who live in Gwinnett County and have school aged children and ask them about this issue, and if they don't know about it - tell them about it.
You can't run from ANOTHER PERSON'S ignorant view of you because of their own bigoted views of what your racial phenotype projects upon them in the way of assumptions................but you DAMNED SURE can do all you can to not play into their views about your INFERIORITY.
When the BIGOT is INTERNAL to your race - compelling you to hunch your shoulders as a necessary pretext of receiving collective benefit for short term advantage - it is incumbent upon you to refuse HIM - just as our ancestors refused to stoop low to the bigot that was an outsider, in his case seeking to hold on to his benefit received by his perceived superiority.
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