Against Afro-centric School in Toronto

Nowadays, many Canadians come to realization of the fact that they no longer live in country ruled by reason, but rather in modern equivalent of Alice’s wonderland, where the rules of logic do not apply. For example, every time when citizens learn of unnaturally high drop-out rates, among Black and Hispanic students in Canada’s public schools, they are being told that this is not because these students simply do not feel like studying, but because “racist social environment” prevents them from succeeding in academia – once such environment is being eliminated, Black students would instantly stop listening to rap music, wearing fake golden chains around their neck and smoking crack, and instead, they would become solemnly preoccupied with avid reading, attending opera and designing computer software. Such nonsensical ideas are not just the product of one’s sick imagination – this is what Canadian governmental officials seriously talk about, while holding public speeches. Moreover, these ideas are now being actively implemented into Canada’s academic curriculum, at the expense of country’s taxpayers.

In January 30, 2008, Toronto District School Board had decided to allow the opening of so-called “afro-centric” public school, where the emphasis would be put on Black students learning how to “celebrate diversity”, as opposed to acquiring the basic knowledge of math, geometry, chemistry, biology, physics, history and literature, as it is the case in “euro-centric” schools. In her article “Questions Abound for Afrocentric School”, Natalie Alcoba provides us with the insight on how students in “afro-centric” school would learn lessons in math, by quoting school’s “affirmative action” employee Ms. Jones: “A math lesson about probability had children reaching into a bag full of colored beads that represented different races. What the students ended up finding [is] it’s not just blacks who are selling drugs or killing, it’s other cultures” (Alcoba 2008). We do not deny that using colored beads, during the course of math lessons, might benefit Black students enormously, given Africans’ traditional fascination with shiny and colorful things; however, there are simply not going to be enough beads, to help these students solving complex mathematical equations.  Also, what would happen if Black students are being asked to abstragize from the issue of drugs, while learning the principles of adding?