NYC XYZ
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| Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:05 am
Post subject: Re: New White Flight? |
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Nice post. I think I even agree with it, mostly.
But I like Jews! So I hope you're wrong. =)
BTW -- what's with your Jewish obsession? I find it so damned
odd...you find many Jews (that should probably be "Jews") like Noam
Chomsky who are just as anti-capitalistic, etc. Besides, as a
community they have much to be proud of, let's face it.
Chairman Mao wrote:
| Quote: | The Man Higher Up
(A Chapter from the Pardes)
By Israel Shamir
Three thieves, lucky enough to escape their pursuers but broke and
despondent, find their ways crossed in a small Midwest town - opens a droll
short story. The Man Higher Up by the American virtuoso of the genre, O.
Henry. They represent three kinds of graft: Bill is a burglar, Jeff is a
cheat, while Alfred sells junk shares. Eventually, Bill robbed a bank and
opened a poker room. Jeff spiked cards and cleaned out Bill, 'leaving him a
black cat and wanderlust'. But Jeff's joy was short-lived: he invested the
profits of his 'business' operations in gold mine shares, only to discover
too late that the shares are signed by the CEO A.L. Fredericks, who is
nobody but his fellow felon Alfred E. Ricks. Thus, the profits of the
burglary went to a businessman and ended up with a speculator, at which
point Jeff the cheat exclaimed: Wall Street speculation and burglary ought
to be wiped out by law!
This story could be read as a parable of the American fortunes. Bill
the Burglar symbolizes the primary acquisition. The original pioneers killed
off the natives and robbed the new continent. They dug for gold and oil,
turned prairies into corn fields and remained on the Marlboro billboards as
intrepid cowboys. Jeff the Yankee, a typical American businessman, skinned
Bill, opened shops and banks, marketed Coca Cola, created oil companies,
carpet-bagged the South, turned Latin America into his banana-producing
backyard, only to find his money invested with A.L. Fredericks a.k.a.
Goldman Sachs, Marc Rich, Michael Milken, Andrew Fastow et al.
In real life as in the short story, A.L. Fredericks had cheated Jeff
the Cheat. He took his real dollar and turned it into 'funny money',
'unredeemable, non-interest-bearing promissory notes of the Fed, that are
not backed by anything other than the confidence of the credulous', in the
words of one Internet wit. For 650 billion dollars issued, the Fed has just
17 billion dollars worth of equity, 'the real cover'. The US has now $38
trillion of aggregate debt incurred by Alfred in relation to a GDP of $10
trillion produced by Bill and Jeff. The greatest pyramid of all is built on
the same principles as the Albanian pyramid that ruined this small Balkan
country a few years ago. Sooner rather than later, Jeff, the American middle
class, will feel the pinch of AN approaching crisis that threatens to dwarf
1929. Bill, the American worker, feels it already. The ruination of the
American working class and even its middle class is unavoidable, for the
incredible riches of the US have disappeared into Alfred's black hole.
Can we try and identify 'Alfred', the Man Higher Up, with greater
precision than as simply a 'bad rich man'? Who are the net gainers of the
pyramid? A new national study
(http://www.osu.edu/researchnews/archive/relgwlth.htm) by Lisa Keister,
associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University, says that 'the
wealth (or median net worth) of Jewish people in the US is $150,890, more
than three times the average wealth of Americans ($48,200). (In comparison,
in 1956 the median net worth of a Jew was just below average). The wealth of
conservative Protestants (Bill of the story) IS $26,200, or about half the
overall average. The wealth of mainstream Protestants and Catholics (Jeff of
the story) is about the average for the whole sample. Thus, the Jew has
three times more wealth than the much-maligned Jeff the WASP, and six times
more wealth than even more despised Bill the Redneck.
'What parcels out the world is the fact of belonging or not belonging
to a given species. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you
are a Jew, you are a Jew because you are rich', in the ringing words of a
prominent Marxist scholar of colonialism, Frantz Fanon (mutatis mutandis: he
spoke of 'whites' in the colonial reality of Africa).
Lenni Brenner, the Trotskyite author of the book Jews in America wrote
recently: "Why then is the Zionist lobby so powerful when their own scholars
write endlessly about the alienation of their youth from the movement? The
answer is simple: the Jews are the richest ethnic or religious stratum in
the US. Because their standard of living is so high, they are the most
educated. Because they are the most educated, they are the most
scientifically oriented, hence most inclined towards atheism or religious
scepticism. But the true believer minority still has an unbelievable amount
of money to throw at the politicians."
Keister found that full "one-third of the Jews invest in high-risk,
high-return assets such as stocks and bonds, compared with none of the
conservative Protestants, and 4 percent of Catholics." While the Jews have
no monopoly on Wall Street speculation, they do constitute the hard core of
the collective A.L. Fredericks. It is a part of their tradition: Jay Gould
and Joseph Seligman caused the "Black Friday" stock market crash in the late
19th century, while Jacob Schiff caused the notorious 'Black Thursday' panic
that led to a nationwide economic depression. Seligman was also the mover
behind the Panama affair, a stock market swindle that became proverbial in
France.
"During Prohibition," notes Robert Rockaway, the author of an
apologetic book on Jewish gangsters, "fifty per cent of the leading
bootleggers were Jewish, and Jewish criminals financed and directed much of
the nation's narcotics traffic". The present leadership of American Jewry
are to a large extent the sons of Jewish gangsters, killers, smugglers and
fraudsters; for instance, the Bronfmans, sons of Bronfman the Bootlegger, or
Michael Steinhardt, the son of a mafioso "Red Steinhardt", one of Democratic
presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman's key backers.
Dr. William Pierce wrote an interesting piece on Jewish crooks. Oh
yes, Dr Pierce is a far-right racialist, but this does not invalidate his
observations. Half of the antizionist discourse was build upon books of
Benny Morris, an Israeli Nazi, who extolled ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
and regretted that Palestine is not Goy-free. If we use the works of Morris,
we have no reason to disregard Dr Pierce, who wrote:
"It's not that Jews are the only crooks who steal from the American
people. George Bush is a crook, and he's not a Jew. Bill and Hillary Clinton
are crooks, and they're not Jews either. There probably are more Gentile
swindlers in America than Jewish swindlers, simply because Gentiles
outnumber Jews 40 to one in the overall population.
"No, Jews aren't the only crooks, but they're certainly the biggest
crooks. If you hear about a 100-thousand-dollar swindle, it could be
anybody. If you hear about a 100-million-dollar swindle, then you know that
it has to be a Jew."
It will be a mistake to see these data as 'racist'. The ideologists of
Jewry indignantly deny any connection between the 'religion' or 'ethnicity'
or 'origins' of the crooks, and their crooked deeds. This is to be
expected - that is what they are paid for. But as a matter of fact, A.L.
Fredericks is devoted to the Jews, whether he is a Jew or not. Enron's chief
financial officer was Andrew Fastow, described by the rabbi of his synagogue
as 'a mentsh, a very committed member of the community. He's active in
supporting Jewish causes, is a devoted supporter of Israel', while his wife
Lea (now plea bargaining) Weingarten, who 'hails from a prominent and
well-respected philanthropic family', did not miss a lesson in the
synagogue.
But Kenneth Lay, the Goy top man of Enron scandal, was equally devoted
to the Jewish cause. He and his equally Gentile wife Linda chipped in
$850,000 at a fund-raising event last year for the Holocaust Museum in
Houston, Texas, informed the Jerusalem Report, and concluded: "in all, Enron
was connected with about a third of the $3.5 million raised at the event,
which honoured former Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen and Holocaust chronicler
Ruth Gruber.
We see again this uncanny, mind-boggling, closely-knit connection of
crooks and - not Jews, but Jewish causes, be it the Holocaust cult or the
Zionist cause. Lay and Fastow stole billions of dollars from Jeff the
Investor; they stole even more from Bill the Worker while Lea
Fastow-Weingarten siphoned their money into tax shelters on the Cayman
Islands. But when it came to charity, they did not care for poor Americans,
or starving Africans. They gave their tithe to the Jewish cause.
Kenneth Lay is not alone. 'Sir' Conrad Black, a Goy media baron,
(admittedly married to a nasty Jewish supremacy columnist) is totally
devoted to the Jewish and Zionist cause. He owns the Jerusalem Post, an
extreme Zionist paper which criticizes Sharon for his lack of fervour.
Expectedly, he turned out to be a crook. He stripped the assets of companies
he chaired and stole hundreds millions of dollars. But a wealthy man who
likes the Jews and spends so much on the Jewish causes is invariably a
crook, whether he is a Jew like Fastow or a Goy like Lay.
A Jewish crook is pushed by society-enforced feeling of victimhood,
for as perennial victim, the Jew feels the need to correct 'injustice' by
some extra-legal action. Theft of Palestinian lands was explained (by Rabbi
Lerner, among others) by the need to correct the 'injustice' of the Roman
occupation of Palestine 2000 years ago. Establishment of the Jewish state is
explained by the 'injustice' of Arabs having 22 states, while the Jews had
none. Daylight robbery of Swiss banks corrected the 'injustice' of Nazi
confiscations, though the banks never held Jewish deposits. In a way, the
Holocaust museums are an important factor in the growth of Jewish
criminality, for they enforce the feeling of Jewish victimhood.
Extreme combativeness, the state of war with [Gentile] society, a
constant feature of the Jewish tendency, provides another explanation of
Jewish criminality. The state of war which allowed the Jews to charge
interest, collect exorbitant taxes, deal with slums accommodation and stolen
property, has became to an extent the norm of neo-liberal 'open society',
where everyone is at war with everybody else.
These features of the Jewish setup appeal to certain non-Jews whom we
call 'Mammonites'; they prefer the somewhat Luciferian paradigm of an
outsider, at war with the society, free from the moral constraints imposed
by the majority, and yet still chosen by a higher entity. These 'copycat
Jews' rightly feel that they will prosper in the Jewish-arranged world. That
is why they support the Jewish cause and admire the State of Israel, the
country of no moral restraints, a wholesale assassin and nature destroyer,
black money launderer, mass killer, and a leading exporter of weapons and
torture equipment.
Jacob Ben Efrat, an Israeli pro-democracy activist, calls us to "look
at Tel Aviv, a fourth of whose population now consists of migrant workers
from East Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. Capitalist globalisers want a
flexible labour force, which they can transport at will from country to
country. As the result, the gap between haves and have-nots increases.
Israel is a shining example. Here the topmost fifth of the population earn
21 times more than the bottommost fifth (compared with 11 times more in the
US)". This quality makes Israel much loved by the Gentile Mammonites.
Thus, for an American, European or Russian the conclusion is clear:
their pro-Israel, pro-Jewish politicians are the worst for the people and
the best for the crooks. A potential investor in Enron, equipped with this
short essay, could just check Enron's contributions to the Holocaust museum
and he would know enough to carry his money elsewhere, unless he wants to
lose it for tax purposes. A California voter could just ask for Diane
Feinstein's opinion about the Jewish state, and vote for her, if he likes
the War in Iraq, expensive privatised electricity and a flood of illegal
workers.
Indeed, Diane Feinstein, a nominal Democrat, contributed to the War in
Iraq more than the average Republican: "Within minutes of Powell's war
speech, leading Senate Democrats such as Joseph Biden of Delaware and Diane
Feinstein of California were proclaiming it an unanswerable indictment of
Iraq, preparing the way for their party to line up behind the war that is
now only days or weeks away", noted The World Socialist Web Site in February
2003. The present competition for the Jewish and Mammonite vote in the US
Presidency elections is a bad sign for Bill and Jeff, for they are competing
who will skin them better.
In Sweden, their unique welfare state entrenched by the antizionist
Prime Minister Olof Palme is being undone by Göran Larsson, their present
Prime Minister, perennial organiser of holocaust conferences.
When voting or investing, a prudent American, European or Russian
should pick the company or the candidate that does not support the Jewish or
the Zionist cause. For sure, it can be a vote for a politician of Jewish
origin, like Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, who was killed in a
well-timed plane crash in October 2002. Wellstone was the strongest voice
against the war in Iraq, and supported Palestinian struggle. Michael Howard,
the new leader of the Conservative Party, is another good example. Indeed, a
non-Jew who likes the Jewish cause - like Tony Blair or Condoleezza Rice,
Bill Clinton or George Bush - is much more dangerous than a Jew who keeps
clear of the Jewish causes.
Immanuel Wallerstein compares the events of 1968 to a 'ship-wreck', in
aftermath of which the talented A.L. Fredericks scrambled to shore,
'undeterred by the thought of drowning companions', but (to continue
Wallerstein's parable in our terms) the drowning Bill and Jeff came to
interpret the ability of the talented to swim to shore as evidence of hope
for them. Wallerstein missed the point: this interpretation was not made by
Bill and Jeff, but by the wholly-owned subsidiary of A.L. Fredericks, the
Jewish-owned media with its Jewish pundits. Without this tool, Fredericks
would have been tarred and feathered, if not lynched in the best American
tradition.
The financial capital of speculators and banks exceeded the industrial
and agricultural capacities and created the giant dollar bubble soon to
burst. This explains the hysterical campaign against 'antisemites': A.L.
Fredericks does not want his name and address to be known to Bill and Jeff;
he prefers to hide behind an anonymous 'rich white man' front. To be on the
safe side, 'antisemites' are always lumped with 'racists' and Jews - with
Blacks or other immigrant minorities, as if struggle against Alfred has
anything to do with the racial or other qualities of Jim, the Black
half-brother of Bill, or Ahmed, a powerless outsider.
Why should we care who pocketed Bill's cash - an all-American Jeff the
Cheat, or cosmopolitan Alfred the Swindler? However, Alfred the Jew is in a
class by himself, and not because of his cruelty. The Sultan of Brunei
builds a palace and gives a Boeing to his daughter. Paul Getty locks himself
up in a far away place. Wealthy Jews buy media, and media is a mind-altering
tool. Thus, their influence goes way beyond market dominance into previously
uncharted waters of mind control.
This pattern is seen all over the world. Sulzberger and Zuckerman own
a string of newspapers in the US from the NY Times to the USA Today, while
their brethren have monopolised editorial and other prominent positions in
the discourse. Connecting wealth and media influence, Benjamin Ginsberg,
Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins University wrote in 1993:
"Today, though barely 2% of the nation's population is Jewish, close
to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three
major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are
the owners of the nation's largest newspaper chain and most influential
newspaper, the New York Times."
This makes supreme sense, for otherwise, the free media would point
its accusing finger in their direction. The people of America would demand
from Alfred that he pull out his pockets and fully refund the stolen goods.
However, such a remedy does not even occur to them today. The reason is the
Jewish involvement in the discourse. Thus, we can complete the first level
of our analysis on a purely materialistic note, so dear to the hearts of
vulgar Marxists. The rich Jews buy media so it will cover up their (and
their brethren's) misdeeds. The Jews in the media are giving protection to
the rich Jews: in the right-wing media, they protect all rich and powerful
men; in the left-wing media, they blur the distinction between Jeff and
Alfred.
Is that what the Jews want?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
{This question is answered in the following chapters of the PARDES.
The Full text is available to donors or active contributors of this list
just for asking. Send an email to Shamir@home.se with subject 'pardes' to
receive the PDF file}.
Posted February 24, 2004
charles_liu@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1133057869.207508.274960@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
richasiankid@hotmail.com wrote:
...
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB113236377590902105-lMyQjAxMDE1MzIyMDMyNjAzWj.html
The New White Flight
In Silicon Valley, two high schools
with outstanding academic reputations
are losing white students
as Asian students move in. Why?
By SUEIN HWANG
November 19, 2005; Page A1
(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)
CUPERTINO, Calif. -- By most measures, Monta Vista High here and
Lynbrook High, in nearby San Jose, are among the nation's top public
high schools. Both boast stellar test scores, an array of
advanced-placement classes and a track record of sending graduates from
the affluent suburbs of Silicon Valley to prestigious colleges.
But locally, they're also known for something else: white flight. Over
the past 10 years, the proportion of white students at Lynbrook has
fallen by nearly half, to 25% of the student body. At Monta Vista,
white students make up less than one-third of the population, down from
45% -- this in a town that's half white. Some white Cupertino parents
are instead sending their children to private schools or moving them to
other, whiter public schools.
Again, reminds me of the "Japan Inc." swipe at Japanese during the
80's. Asians taint the school with better, more competitive learning
environment? Sounds like the kids who are leaving simply can't compete,
or are not willing to truely compete for the privilege of an (used to
be easy) 'A'?
In America white folks historically, and still do today, enjoy
advantages minorities don't have or aren't given so easily. That's why
the white majority is recruiting Asian Americans to join the "anti
reverse discrimination" cause against multi-culturalism with this "you
people are smart, you don't need affirmative action" kind of subtile
racism - To protect White America's "unearned privileges".
Don't fall for it.
More commonly, young white families in
Silicon Valley say they are avoiding Cupertino altogether.
[flight]
White students are far outnumbered by Asians at Monta Vista High School
in Cupertino, Calif.
Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing
academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're
leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too
narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense
of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal
interests.
The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so
bluntly, are too Asian.
Cathy Gatley, co-president of Monta Vista High School's parent-teacher
association, recently dissuaded a family with a young child from moving
to Cupertino because there are so few young white kids left in the
public schools. "This may not sound good," she confides, "but their
child may be the only Caucasian kid in the class." All of Ms. Gatley's
four children have attended or are currently attending Monta Vista. One
son, Andrew, 17 years old, took the high-school exit exam last summer
and left the school to avoid the academic pressure. He is currently
working in a pet-supply store. Ms. Gatley, who is white, says she
probably wouldn't have moved to Cupertino if she had anticipated how
much it would change.
In the 1960s, the term "white flight" emerged to describe the rapid
exodus of whites from big cities into the suburbs, a process that often
resulted in the economic degradation of the remaining community. Back
then, the phenomenon was mostly believed to be sparked by the growth in
the population of African-Americans, and to a lesser degree Hispanics,
in some major cities.
But this modern incarnation is different. Across the country,
Asian-Americans have by and large been successful and accepted into
middle- and upper-class communities. Silicon Valley has kept
Cupertino's economy stable, and the town is almost indistinguishable
from many of the suburbs around it. The shrinking number of white
students hasn't hurt the academic standards of Cupertino's schools --
in fact the opposite is true.
This time the effect is more subtle: Some Asians believe that the
resulting lack of diversity creates an atmosphere that is too
sheltering for their children, leaving then unprepared for life in a
country that is only 4% Asian overall. Moreover, many Asians share some
of their white counterpart's concerns. Both groups finger newer Asian
immigrants for the schools' intense competitiveness.
Some whites fear that by avoiding schools with large Asian populations
parents are short-changing their own children, giving them the idea
that they can't compete with Asian kids. "My parents never let me think
that because I'm Caucasian, I'm not going to succeed," says Jessie
Hogin, a white Monta Vista graduate.
The white exodus clearly involves race-based presumptions, not all of
which are positive. One example: Asian parents are too competitive.
That sounds like racism to many of Cupertino's Asian residents, who
resent the fact that their growing numbers and success are causing many
white families to boycott the town altogether.
"It's a stereotype of Asian parents," says Pei-Pei Yow, a
Hewlett-Packard Co. manager and Chinese-American community leader who
sent two kids to Monta Vista. It's like other familiar biases, she
says: "You can't say everybody from the South is a redneck."
Jane Doherty, a retirement-community administrator, chose to send her
two boys elsewhere. When her family moved to Cupertino from Indiana
over a decade ago, Ms. Doherty says her top priority was moving into a
good public-school district. She paid no heed to a real-estate agent
who told her of the town's burgeoning Asian population.
[Jane Doherty]
She says she began to reconsider after her elder son, Matthew, entered
Kennedy, the middle school that feeds Monta Vista. As he played soccer,
Ms. Doherty watched a line of cars across the street deposit Asian kids
for after-school study. She also attended a Monta Vista parents' night
and came away worrying about the school's focus on test scores and the
big-name colleges its graduates attend.
"My sense is that at Monta Vista you're competing against the child
beside you," she says. Ms. Doherty says she believes the issue stems
more from recent immigrants than Asians as a whole. "Obviously, the
concentration of Asian students is really high, and it does flavor the
school," she says.
When Matthew, now a student at Notre Dame, finished middle school eight
years ago, Ms. Doherty decided to send him to Bellarmine College
Preparatory, a Jesuit school that she says has a culture that "values
the whole child." It's also 55% white and 24% Asian. Her younger son,
Kevin, followed suit.
Kevin Doherty, 17, says he's happy his mother made the switch. Many of
his old friends at Kennedy aren't happy at Monta Vista, he says. "Kids
at Bellarmine have a lot of pressure to do well, too, but they want to
learn and do something they want to do."
While California has seen the most pronounced cases of suburban
segregation, some of the developments in Cupertino are also starting to
surface in other parts of the U.S. At Thomas S. Wootton High School in
Rockville, Md., known flippantly to some locals as "Won Ton," roughly
35% of students are of Asian descent. People who don't know the school
tend to make assumptions about its academics, says Principal Michael
Doran. "Certain stereotypes come to mind -- 'those people are good at
math,' " he says.
In Tenafly, N.J., a well-to-do bedroom community near New York, the
local high school says it expects Asian students to make up about 36%
of its total in the next five years, compared with 27% today. The
district still attracts families of all backgrounds, but Asians are
particularly intent that their kids work hard and excel, says Anat
Eisenberg, a local Coldwell Banker real-estate agent. "Everybody is
caught into this process of driving their kids." Lawrence Mayer,
Tenafly High's vice principal, says he's never heard such concerns.
Perched on the western end of the Santa Clara valley, Cupertino was for
many years a primarily rural area known for its many fruit orchards.
The beginnings of the tech industry brought suburbanization, and
Cupertino then became a very white, quintessentially middle-class town
of mostly modest ranch homes, populated by engineers and their
families. Apple Computer Inc. planted its headquarters there.
As the high-tech industry prospered, so did Cupertino. Today, the
orchards are a memory, replaced by numerous shopping malls and
subdivisions that are home to Silicon Valley's prosperous upper-middle
class. While the architecture in Cupertino is largely the same as in
neighboring communities, the town of about 50,000 people now boasts
Indian restaurants, tutoring centers and Asian grocers. Parents say
Cupertino's top schools have become more academically intense over the
past 10 years.
Asian immigrants have surged into the town, granting it a reputation --
particularly among recent Chinese and South Asian immigrants -- as a
Bay Area locale of choice. Cupertino is now 41% Asian, up from 24% in
1998.
[library]
Students in the library at Lynbrook High School
Some students struggle in Cupertino's high schools who might not
elsewhere. Monta Vista's Academic Performance Index, which compares the
academic performance of California's schools, reached an all-time high
of 924 out of 1,000 this year, making it one of the highest-scoring
high schools in Northern California. Grades are so high that a 'B'
average puts a student in the bottom third of a class.
"We have great students, which has a lot of upsides," says April Scott,
Monta Vista's principal. "The downside is what the kids with a 3.0 GPA
think of themselves."
Ms. Scott and her counterpart at Lynbrook know what's said about their
schools being too competitive and dominated by Asians. "It's easy to
buy into those kinds of comments because they're loaded and powerful,"
says Ms. Scott, who adds that they paint an inaccurate picture of Monta
Vista. Ms. Scott says many athletic programs are thriving and points to
the school's many extracurricular activities. She also points out that
white students represented 20% of the school's 29 National Merit
Semifinalists this year.
Judy Hogin, Jessie's mother and a Cupertino real-estate agent, believes
the school was good for her daughter, who is now a freshman at the
University of California at San Diego. "I know it's frustrating to some
people who have moved away," says Ms. Hogin, who is white. Jessie, she
says, "rose to the challenge."
On a recent autumn day at Lynbrook, crowds of students spilled out of
classrooms for midmorning break. Against a sea of Asian faces, the few
white students were easy to pick out. One boy sat on a wall, his
lighter hair and skin making him stand out from dozens of others around
him. In another corner, four white male students lounged at a picnic
table.
At Cupertino's top schools, administrators, parents and students say
white students end up in the stereotyped role often applied to other
minority groups: the underachievers. In one 9th-grade algebra class,
Lynbrook's lowest-level math class, the students are an eclectic mix of
whites, Asians and other racial and ethnic groups.
"Take a good look," whispered Steve Rowley, superintendent of the
Fremont Union High School District, which covers the city of Cupertino
as well as portions of other neighboring cities. "This doesn't look
like the other classes we're going to."
On the second floor, in advanced-placement chemistry, only a couple of
the 32 students are white and the rest are Asian. Some white parents,
and even some students, say they suspect teachers don't take white kids
as seriously as Asians.
"Many of my Asian friends were convinced that if you were Asian, you
had to confirm you were smart. If you were white, you had to prove it,"
says Arar Han, a Monta Vista graduate who recently co-edited "Asian
American X," a book of coming-of-age essays by young Asian-Americans.
Ms. Gatley, the Monta Vista PTA president, is more blunt: "White kids
are thought of as the dumb kids," she says.
Cupertino's administrators and faculty, the majority of whom are white,
adamantly say there's no discrimination against whites. The
administrators say students of all races get along well. In fact,
there's little evidence of any overt racial tension between students or
between their parents.
Mr. Rowley, the school superintendent, however, concedes that a
perception exists that's sometimes called "the white-boy syndrome." He
describes it as: "Kids who are white feel themselves a distinct
minority against a majority culture."
Mr. Rowley, who is white, enrolled his only son, Eddie, at Lynbrook.
When Eddie started freshman geometry, the boy was frustrated to learn
that many of the Asian students in his class had already taken the
course in summer school, Mr. Rowley recalls. That gave them a big leg
up.
To many of Cupertino's Asians, some of the assumptions made by white
parents -- that Asians are excessively competitive and single-minded --
play into stereotypes. Top schools in nearby, whiter Palo Alto, which
also have very high test scores, also feature heavy course loads, long
hours of homework and overly stressed students, says Denise Pope,
director of Stressed Out Students, a Stanford University program that
has worked with schools in both Palo Alto and Cupertino. But whites
don't seem to be avoiding those institutions, or making the same
negative generalizations, Asian families note, suggesting that it's not
academic competition that makes white parents uncomfortable but
academic competition with Asian-Americans.
Some of Cupertino's Asian residents say they don't blame white families
for leaving. After all, many of the town's Asians are fretting about
the same issues. While acknowledging that the term Asian embraces a
wide diversity of countries, cultures and languages, they say there's
some truth to the criticisms levied against new immigrant parents,
particularly those from countries such as China and India, who often
put a lot of academic pressure on their children.
[Mark Seto]
Some parents and students say these various forces are creating an
unhealthy cultural isolation in the schools. Monta Vista graduate Mark
Seto says he wouldn't send his kids to his alma mater. "It was a
sheltered little world that didn't bear a whole lot of resemblance to
what the rest of the country is like," says Mr. Seto, a
Chinese-American who recently graduated from Yale University. As a
result, he says, "college wasn't an academic adjustment. It was a
cultural adjustment."
Hung Wei, a Chinese-American living in Cupertino, has become an active
campaigner in the community, encouraging Asian parents to be more aware
of their children's emotional development. Ms. Wei, who is co-president
of Monta Vista's PTA with Ms. Gatley, says her activism stems from the
suicide of her daughter, Diana. Ms. Wei says life in Cupertino and at
Monta Vista didn't prepare the young woman for life at New York
University. Diana moved there in 2004 and jumped to her death from a
Manhattan building two months later.
"We emphasize academics so much and protect our kids, I feel there's
something lacking in our education," Ms. Wei says.
Cupertino schools are trying to address some of these issues. Monta
Vista recently completed a series of seminars focused on such issues as
helping parents communicate better with their kids, and Lynbrook last
year revised its homework guidelines with the goal of eliminating
excessive and unproductive assignments.
The moves haven't stemmed the flow of whites out of the schools. Four
years ago, Lynn Rosener, a software consultant, transferred her elder
son from Monta Vista to Homestead High, a Cupertino school with
slightly lower test scores. At the new school, the white student body
is declining at a slower rate than at Monta Vista and currently stands
at 52% of the total. Friday-night football is a tradition, with big
half-time shows and usually 1,000 people packing the stands. The school
offers boys' volleyball, a sport at which Ms. Rosener's son was
particularly talented. Monta Vista doesn't.
"It does help to have a lower Asian population," says Homestead PTA
President Mary Anne Norling. "I don't think our parents are as uptight
as if my kids went to Monta Vista."
Write to Suein Hwang at suein.hwang@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
In this article, 9th-grade algebra class described was held at Monta
Vista High School. The article incorrectly placed the scene at Lynbrook
High School in Cupertino, Calif.
_______________________________________________________________________________
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MissSouth
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 2:05 am
Post subject: Re: New White Flight? |
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First, THE WORLD would surely be a better, more peaceful place, if
christianity, judaism, and islam were eradicated. Or at least under
the control of a consortium of comedians.
Organized religion, as any rational thinker agrees, is, always has
been, and will forever be humankind's GREAT DIVIDER. But you knew
that.
Anyway, second, HOW DOES Condi Rice keep a straight face when writing
and uttering garbagey lies, such as are propounded in the following
piece of bull-shit?
This is obviously a pre-packaged collection of bald-faced falsehoods
aimed at convincing the most gullible audiences. Such hypocritical
hogwash barely deserves any comment. But such incredible lies are what
propelled us into Iraq!
Let's go over the Bush "democracy" rationale one more time, for those
of you who are weak-minded enough to believe it.
Except for a one-sentence toss-in utterance in a pre-2004 presidential
race speech, Bush NEVER spoke of spreading democracy any where in the
world! He spoke of fighting terrorism and other challenges, but
knowing as he did that oil was Cheney's, Rumsfeld's and his true reason
for wanting to attack and control Iraq, democracy seldom crossed the
the chimp's shallow, un-nuanced mind.
Now comes Rice, armed with Karen Hughes-style "public relations" pith,
spewing the democracy upchuck. But I hope she and Hughes don't think
Condi's Middle East audiences of tyrannical potentates actually buy
this spittle. If so, that makes Condi and Karen as dumb as Bush. And
we know how dumb that is.
=======
"The Promise of Democratic Peace"
Why Promoting Freedom Is the Only Realistic Path to Security
By Condoleezza Rice
Sunday, December 11, 2005; Page B07
The Washington Post
Soon after arriving at the State Department earlier this year, I hung a
portrait of Dean Acheson in my office. Over half a century ago, as
America sought to create the world anew in the aftermath of World War
II, Acheson sat in the office that I now occupy. And I hung his picture
where I did for a reason.
Like Acheson and his contemporaries, we live in an extraordinary time
-- one in which the terrain of international politics is shifting
beneath our feet and the pace of historical change outstrips even the
most vivid imagination. My predecessor's portrait is a reminder that in
times of unprecedented change, the traditional diplomacy of crisis
management is insufficient. Instead, we must transcend the doctrines
and debates of the past and transform volatile status quos that no
longer serve our interests. What is needed is a realistic statecraft
for a transformed world.
President Bush outlined the vision for it in his second inaugural
address: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the
growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and
culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." This
is admittedly a bold course of action, but it is consistent with the
proud tradition of American foreign policy, especially such recent
presidents as Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. Most important: Like the
ambitious policies of Truman and Reagan, our statecraft will succeed
not simply because it is optimistic and idealistic but also because it
is premised on sound strategic logic and a proper understanding of the
new realities we face.
Our statecraft today recognizes that centuries of international
practice and precedent have been overturned in the past 15 years.
Consider one example: For the first time since the Peace of Westphalia
in 1648, the prospect of violent conflict between great powers is
becoming ever more unthinkable. Major states are increasingly competing
in peace, not preparing for war. To advance this remarkable trend, the
United States is transforming our partnerships with nations such as
Japan and Russia, with the European Union, and especially with China
and India. Together we are building a more lasting and durable form of
global stability: a balance of power that favors freedom.
This unprecedented change has supported others. Since its creation more
than 350 years ago, the modern state system has always rested on the
concept of sovereignty. It was assumed that states were the primary
international actors and that every state was able and willing to
address the threats emerging from its territory. Today, however, we
have seen that these assumptions no longer hold, and as a result the
greatest threats to our security are defined more by the dynamics
within weak and failing states than by the borders between strong and
aggressive ones.
The phenomenon of weak and failing states is not new, but the danger
they now pose is unparalleled. When people, goods and information
traverse the globe as fast as they do today, transnational threats such
as disease or terrorism can inflict damage comparable to the standing
armies of nation-states. Absent responsible state authority, threats
that would and should be contained within a country's borders can now
melt into the world and wreak untold havoc. Weak and failing states
serve as global pathways that facilitate the spread of pandemics, the
movement of criminals and terrorists, and the proliferation of the
world's most dangerous weapons.
Our experience of this new world leads us to conclude that the
fundamental character of regimes matters more today than the
international distribution of power. Insisting otherwise is imprudent
and impractical. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world
of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their
citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international
system. Attempting to draw neat, clean lines between our security
interests and our democratic ideals does not reflect the reality of
today's world. Supporting the growth of democratic institutions in all
nations is not some moralistic flight of fancy; it is the only
realistic response to our present challenges.
In one region of the world, however, the problems emerging from the
character of regimes are more urgent than in any other. The "freedom
deficit" in the broader Middle East provides fertile ground for the
growth of an ideology of hatred so vicious and virulent that it leads
people to strap suicide bombs to their bodies and fly airplanes into
buildings. When the citizens of this region cannot advance their
interests and redress their grievances through an open political
process, they retreat hopelessly into the shadows to be preyed upon by
evil men with violent designs. In these societies, it is illusory to
encourage economic reform by itself and hope that the freedom deficit
will work itself out over time.
Though the broader Middle East has no history of democracy, this is not
an excuse for doing nothing. If every action required a precedent,
there would be no firsts. We are confident that democracy will succeed
in this region not simply because we have faith in our principles but
because the basic human longing for liberty and democratic rights has
transformed our world. Dogmatic cynics and cultural determinists were
once certain that "Asian values," or Latin culture, or Slavic
despotism, or African tribalism would each render democracy impossible.
But they were wrong, and our statecraft must now be guided by the
undeniable truth that democracy is the only assurance of lasting peace
and security between states, because it is the only guarantee of
freedom and justice within states.
Implicit within the goals of our statecraft are the limits of our power
and the reasons for our humility. Unlike tyranny, democracy by its very
nature is never imposed. Citizens of conviction must choose it -- and
not just in one election. The work of democracy is a daily process to
build the institutions of democracy: the rule of law, an independent
judiciary, free media and property rights, among others. The United
States cannot manufacture these outcomes, but we can and must create
opportunities for individuals to assume ownership of their own lives
and nations. Our power gains its greatest legitimacy when we support
the natural right of all people, even those who disagree with us, to
govern themselves in liberty.
The statecraft that America is called to practice in today's world is
ambitious, even revolutionary, but it is not imprudent. A conservative
temperament will rightly be skeptical of any policy that embraces
change and rejects the status quo, but that is not an argument against
the merits of such a policy. As Truman once said, "The world is not
static, and the status quo is not sacred." In times of extraordinary
change such as ours, when the costs of inaction outweigh the risks of
action, doing nothing is not an option. If the school of thought called
"realism" is to be truly realistic, it must recognize that stability
without democracy will prove to be false stability, and that fear of
change is not a positive prescription for policy.
After all, who truly believes, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
that the status quo in the Middle East was stable, beneficial and worth
defending? How could it have been prudent to preserve the state of
affairs in a region that was incubating and exporting terrorism; where
the proliferation of deadly weapons was getting worse, not better;
where authoritarian regimes were projecting their failures onto
innocent nations and peoples; where Lebanon suffered under the boot
heel of Syrian occupation; where a corrupt Palestinian Authority cared
more for its own preservation than for its people's aspirations; and
where a tyrant such as Saddam Hussein was free to slaughter his
citizens, destabilize his neighbors and undermine the hope of peace
between Israelis and Palestinians? It is sheer fantasy to assume that
the Middle East was just peachy before America disrupted its alleged
stability.
Had we believed this, and had we done nothing, consider all that we
would have missed in just the past year: A Lebanon that is free of
foreign occupation and advancing democratic reform. A Palestinian
Authority run by an elected leader who openly calls for peace with
Israel. An Egypt that has amended its constitution to hold multiparty
elections. A Kuwait where women are now full citizens. And, of course,
an Iraq that in the face of a horrific insurgency has held historic
elections, drafted and ratified a new national charter, and will go to
the polls again in coming days to elect a new constitutional
government.
At this time last year, such unprecedented progress seemed impossible.
One day it will all seem to have been inevitable. This is the nature of
extraordinary times, which Acheson understood well and described
perfectly in his memoirs. "The significance of events," he wrote, "was
shrouded in ambiguity. We groped after interpretations of them,
sometimes reversed lines of action based on earlier views, and
hesitated long before grasping what now seems obvious." When Acheson
left office in 1953, he could not know the fate of the policies he
helped to create. He certainly could never have predicted that nearly
four decades later, war between Europe's major powers would be
unthinkable, or that America and the world would be harvesting the
fruits of his good decisions and managing the collapse of communism.
But because leaders such as Acheson steered American statecraft with
our principles when precedents for action were lacking, because they
dealt with their world as it was but never believed they were powerless
to change it for the better, the promise of democratic peace is now a
reality in all of Europe and in much of Asia.
When I walk past Acheson's portrait upon departing my office for the
last time, no one will be able to know the full scope of what our
statecraft has achieved. But I have an abiding confidence that we will
have laid a firm foundation of principle -- a foundation on which
future generations will realize our nation's vision of a fully free,
democratic and peaceful world.
The writer is secretary of state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901711.html |
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