Civil Rights Legacy

I weep for those who gave up everything for the Civil Rights Movement. I think that, given today's educational climate, they might have died in vain.

Too many young minorities today are insulated and innoculated against any kind of cultural assimilation or educational opportunities. To be educated, to listen to the teacher, to dress appropriately, to speak and act civilly are signs of weakness and betrayal and done only by those with the strongest wills and homes. Peer pressure is exerting a strong downward force on the education of the very people who stand to gain the most from taking advantage of the education system in America. Somehow, the dream of sharing a common education and society has turned into ethnic isolation and distrust. Instead of raising up our fellow man out the squalor of oppression, we seem to be forming myriad sub-communities that only barely tolerate each other, all congealing at a lower common denominator of acceptable social behavior.

Are white kids immune or exceptional? No. There's plenty who could care less about an education. But then again, there's more at stake with the education of minority students, especially black students, and we as a nation need to take notice: it's not happening. An eye of mistrust is cast toward school and academic success by many, and it seems to originate from home. Why? I don't know. Education was supposed to be the vindication of our racist past. Once the battle over equal education was won things were supposed to change. But tis not so and I don't know how to fix it.

Maybe I'm old. Plato in his dialogues complained that the youth of Athens were running wild and ignoring their studies. Maybe it never ends. Maybe old people like me will always complain about young people. So be it.

But I know what I see, and I see militant apathy, a term I coined to label the aggressive nonchalance placed by many students, especially young black men, on even the most important tests and opportunities. We're squandering boundless human resources because of racial boundaries, and I feel helpless to change it.