The Colorblind Leading the Blind (part 5)

I could go on and on about diversity concerns with Lakota faculty or the West Chester/ Liberty Twp. community in general. I could talk about the disciplinary issues, or dance team/cheerleader segregation, or the white Egyptians that kept inexplicably showing up in history class, or the attempts to gerrymander district lines to keep trailer parks out of Lakota, or the immigrant roundups that left elementary school kids without parents.

I could even talk about a controversy a while back that concerned elementary school kids performing a very violent song at a concert. You may know it. The title was "Ten Little Indians.” (And trust me, unlike the play, that performance would have encouraged small children to celebrate the extended version of the rhyme, complete with plenty of slurs and racist imagery).

But a juvenile listing wouldn’t be constructive. I’ll just say this – what some label as arbitrary “perceived insults” become significant when you suspect your getting treated unfairly by people who just so happen to approve of these “racial insensitivities.” When someone who happens to be white starts in the football game and you know you’ve made more tackles this year. When someone else gets the solo at a recital and you know you can hit that high note that they can’t. When you get disciplined for dress code violations that the white kids wearing the same thing never get hassled for. Then these lapses in “political correctness” cease to be innocent mistakes – they start to look like winks and nods that express how others really feel about you but can’t say out loud. Let’s not forget that inside jokes and innuendo have historically been hallmarks of segregationist culture.

Like I said, Lakota’s knee-jerk response to silence discussion of race rather than confront it is typical of their usual pattern. Probably because of the lack of diversity in the faculty, Lakota seems afraid of engaging in any racial issue because they think they will always be cast as the racist villains. When most of the people with complaints are black and most of the people receiving the complaints are white, it can be hard to escape that perception. Especially when in some cases it’s true.

The NAACP’s combative approach doesn’t help. Was their response a little too reactive? Yes. Does Hines’ connection to a business that provides services very similar to those he says Lakota needs look kind of shady? Definitely.

But in his defense, isn’t it possible that he just tries to lead his professional life toward things he’s personally passionate about? His methods have their faults, but is it so hard to believe that maybe both his confrontations with Lakota and his choice of profession come from a single desire for equality? How many journalists have tried to connect their publications to stories that they are passionate about or are personally affected by?

But even more problematic than Hines’ conflict of interest is the way the NAACP tends to adopt a “we freedom fighters against the racists” attitude rather than a “all of us banding together against racism itself” attitude. The NAACP keeps trying to cast itself as Luke Skywalker and Lakota as the Empire, and that just drives neighbors they should be embracing into more defensive positions.

~ Geoffrey Dobbins
Vice President, UCABJ
Lakota West Class of 2002