Saturday, August 28, 2010

Update on Federal investigation of violence against Asians at Philly High

"School administrators insist that they took all allegations seriously and disciplined students when appropriate."

I'm sure Philly School District administrators took the allegations seriously. They just didn't do a goddamn thing about it. Installing security cameras and adding a few more security guards isn't enough to mitigate this kind of racially-motivated violence that Asian immigrant students have endured for the past several years.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is keeping us abreast of the recent developments in the perennial Philly High School beatings against Asian students. It states the Justice Department finds merit in the claims made by the Asian students and has advised school officials to take some action. Personally, I'm a bit disappointed with the response from the Feds because "advisory" is too open ended and quite vague of a response. However, I still have faith they will follow through with eventual mandates that are much more specific and resolute to eradicate violence, race or non-race related once and for all. Superintendent Arlene Ackerman did a fantastic job in handling these hate crimes didn't she?

Can somebody please present to her the "I don't give a fuck" of the year award and pay her another fat bonus?

This would have been the perfect opportunity for Ackerman to shine as a community leader by harshly reprimanding the students who brought such a ruckus onto school grounds and ultimately take some corrective action by establishing policies to substantially reduce juvenile violence. School is where young aspiring minds want to learn and socialize with their peers peacefully. Maybe I'm just old school (no pun intended) but I thought school, by convention, is safe haven for students. Of course, when you don't have the proper leadership in place you can throw all of that out the window. Leaders these days who actually take some responsibility and blame for their mistakes are few and far between. Regardless of the person's ethnicity, I guess people are people and sinners at that; myself included.

Nevertheless, its good press and the Philly High incidents have gained national attention. If the Justice Department decides to take some coercive measures against the inaction of the Philly School District, they could even go so far as to sue them to force change. Whatever the settlement is, it will require the school district to improve the treatment of Asian students. The light is at the end of the tunnel.

As Q-Tip once said, "Keep it movin. I ain't got no time for shuckin and jivin."

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