the schools are so busy doing black this and black that (of course, no "white" stuff, THAT would be racist, yeah, right) that what chance do the kids have of thinking of themselves as people? -Mrrzy

Mrrzy, are you saying that the dominant curriculum of public schools that you are aware of in the South are Afrocentric and not Western Eurocentric?

Is the black this and black that which these schools are doing a part of the regular everyday curriculum of subjects-such as history and English literature, music, and art- or are the black this and that supplemental activities that occur on selected times of the year such as Martin Luther King Jr Day or during Black History month?

That's how it is where I come from {the North}.

And Mrrzy, are you saying that teachers in the schools that you referred to spend as much time teaching the history of West African civilizations such as Songhay and ancient Ghana as they spend teaching the history of Western European nations such as England and France? Are you saying that students in those schools would be able to rattle of the names of the capitol cities of two or more present day African nations as easily as they would be able to give the names of the capitols of two or more present day Western European nations> Ditto for famous kings, queens, artists, musicians, scientists from those two parts of the world.

I just don't think so.

As for the end part of your statement that these kids {who attend schools which are so busy doing black this and that} that they don't have time to think of themselves as people, I'm assuming that you did not mean that people of Black ancestry weren't people.

I suppose [I hope] that you meant that you wanted these students to think of themselves as "just people" without any reference to any racial grouping.

While I applaud the idealism in that sentiment, I don't think it's very realistic.

I believe that institutional racism and personal racism are still deeply rooted in American culture. I believe that most American public school curriculum focus 90% or more of the academic subjects on Anglo-American culture and Western European history and cultural achievements. Furthermore, I believe that when no racial origin is given for a subject {for instance, algebra}, students who are trained to think that everything worthwhile came from Europe will automatically assume that Europe was where such subjects were founded.

Given all of this, it's my position that there needs to be more quality, in depth and not touristy teaching of and integration of African [and Native American and Asian and Pacific Islander centered subjects and not less.

I also believe that all children {and all teens and all adults regardless of their race} should be taught and should hear repeatedly that their racial identity and other folks' racial identity should have neither positive or negative valuation.