Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for December 4, 2005 NO NEED FOR PC POLICE?

Many tire of "political correctness" and chafe at the "sensitivity" of certain groups or individuals to "innocent statements...meaning no harm."

An editorial in today's Orlando Sentinel takes an opposing view.

"Forget about it...get over it?" Well, according to the editor, maybe one should "learn about it...think about it!"

Our position: Stetson is right to educate instead of punish students in an incident involving blackface.

It wasn't the appearance of white Stetson University students with their faces painted black to impersonate basketball players a few days before Halloween that was so shocking.

Such incidents pop up from time to time on college campuses even in a modern age that supposedly embraces diversity.

The surprising thing was the insistence of students -- white and black -- that they had no idea that many people would find the act offensive.

It wasn't that the students callously didn't care. They simply didn't know, and that's almost worse than not caring.

Instead of punishing the students, who also donned cornrows and fake gold teeth, the university is teaching them about how blackface was used for decades to demean black people.

This was a teaching moment if ever there was one. It's a lesson that should not have been this late coming.

But that's what happens when calls for multicultural sensitivity, diversity and truth in education are wholly dismissed as political correctness and the advocates of such are shunned for refusing to get over it and let sleeping dogs lie.

To teach America's history honestly means to teach it completely, and that includes its painful past.

Blackface is a part of that past.

The practice was made popular in the 1800s when performers, most of whom were white, would use burnt cork, greasepaint or shoe polish to color their skin, then paint on exaggerated white, pink or red lips and top off the look with a woolly wig.

In full garb, the actors would portray superstitious, lazy buffoons who spoke broken English, stole, lied and lusted after white women.

Unlike the blackface minstrels of the past, the Stetson students say they were not aiming to make fun of the black basketball players. In fact, they say they had the permission of the basketball players who even lent them their practice jerseys to complete the costume.

The participation of black students in the stunt doesn't make it OK, just as the blackface performances years ago by a few black actors with limited stage opportunities didn't make the practice any less degrading.

Those actors had little choice if they wanted to work. Blacks today, however, do have a choice, and for black students to choose to support a practice that was used for years to belittle their ancestors just shows what a poor job parents and teachers have done in teaching full and complete history to young people.

It has become cliche to borrow from philosopher George Santayana in saying that those who cannot remember the past or who are not properly taught it -- are condemned to repeat it.

But the Stetson incident shows there's a reason some sayings hang around so long: They continue to ring true.