But why mend fences between African cultures and the black North American / Caribbean slavery descendants? Is the rift that is causing these youth not to succeed really between Africans and those from the Americas? It seems more likely that the rift exists between the mainstream and the blacks from the Americas... so shouldn't the effort be in trying to get that group to more fully integrate?
What if the good work ethic of some individuals rubs off on the underachievers? Isn't that what we're hoping to accomplish here? I doubt full integration is possible or should be possible. Not everyone has to be a carbon-copy of eachother. A school devoted to celebrating diversity, not just in February, but all-year round fosters self-pride and individuality not placating to societal pressures of assimilation.
That is the history of Canada. There haven't been any Bangladeshi prime-ministers or Somalian ships sailing up the Saint Lawrence River to discover new lands. If there had been prominent Bangladeshi-Canadian and Somalian-Canadian contributions in Canadian history it would surely be in the text books. If I take a Japanese history class I don't expect white people to get much coverage.
Gee for a country that gloats how multicultural it is, Canadian history seems quite unilateral in its tapestry. Instead of
Canadian perhaps
World History should be given equal emphasis and perspective on our high schools such that no ethnicity feels left out. The only history courses taught at the high school level are Canadian and European history despite there being more non-whites in GTA classrooms than the latter. Why should these students be subjected to seeking out after-school programs to learn about their own culture?
How can an all-black school better allow a student to find his individuality than a school with goths, punks, elitists, whites, blacks, asians, rich, middle class, poor, etc? Do you really think individuality can rise from telling a whole bunch of black students that they are the same?
As if the black nerd or Goth is any more accepted by white nerds/Goths than the broader school population accepts them. Cliques are a very alienating facet of school life, and being of a minority race pursuing an alternative lifestyle is practically social suicide. Where do these severely marginalized teens have the drive to even attend school, let alone excel there?
Germans and Japanese often get played in a bad light to in historical films, many people lost relatives in the war to Germans and Japanese, and yet despite that history those groups have no problems integrating into society.
I'd love to hear your opinion to why Eurasians have no problem being integrated into society dominated by Eurocentric values
!
The population affected is probably much larger but actual torture and killing as a percentage of the population seems to have been much less.
Was or was not one million Rwandans murdered? Before you go and say black-on-black violence was the cause, may I remind you that Rwanda was an ethnically united nation before European colonization arbitrarily divided up a continent and people that was not their's creating Bantus and Totsis, the former of which corrupted by white power to genocide the latter. Unless you're actually related to someone affected by the developing world's wars, it's very easy for North Americans to ignore or trivialize the carnage then turn around and seek sympathy/vengence for 9/11. In this me-centric society is it any surprise "them" i.e. blacks and similar groups are seen as the enemy that the system will do anything in order to supress, oppress and depress?
You really have a thing for the show Lost.
This show hypothetically represents what society could become if all ethnicities are united for a common purpose. It heavily draws on religion, philosophy, socialism, existentialism, proabaility and other schools of knowledge weaved directly into the narration, plotlines, character's names (John Locke, David Hume, Rousseau), etc. Yes, how the characters are protrayed is very important to the story and its symbolic meaning to society.
I know there are other obstacles such as people who turn down qualified candidates for lack of "Canadian experience", I know there are police officers who will treat those in minority groups totally different from those who are not, I know people buy into stereotypes too much and overlook the individuality of people, etc.
If the system created the problem, they should be the first ones to correct it. Those canadidates with non-Canadian qualifications aren't arriving from Switzerland or Australia. Why do you think I said society's more segregated now than a decade ago? People can mask their racial biases far easier through bureaucracy then outright yelling at someone "I am not hiring you because you're black!".
So where exactly is it written, that all races have to have exactly the same characteristics, the exact same outcomes, despite having evolved separately over hundreds of thousands of years, under different evolutionary pressures?
What ever are you implying? That one race had it good while the others suffered, some continue to suffer, and it should forever be that way because of evolution? Indeed it's survival of the fittest and humanity is defintely capable of doing abominable things to persevere but when does the welfare of others take into effect? No one is saying everyone should be assimilated, in fact it's diverse perspectives I hope a black-focused cirricula could achieve. I'm not saying blacks shouldn't care about learning other people's cultures, I'm saying their own identity too often gets misrepresented, lost in the shuffle or over-coveraged (breaking news pans images of black murderers, guns, slang, hip-hop, Ebonics, baby-mamas, gangsta, bling, 'ganja', street cred, etc.).
