African-American Poet Prodigy Banned in Peekskill

[obnoxiousdrunk]

March 16, 2006 · What do you do when you hear poetry that might offend you? Well, obviously you ban it... even if it was written and performed by a 7-year-old girl. Autum Ashante was invited to read a poem to Peekskill, N.Y., middle school and high school students last month. She read her work, "White Nationalism Put U in Bondage." Here's a snippet of the poem from the New York Post:

Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse.
They took the gold, the wisdom and all the storytellers.
They took the black women, with the black man weak.
Made to watch as they changed the paradigm of our village.
Yeah white nationalism is what put you in bondage.
Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan and Darwin.

Ashante also asked students to take a Black Panther pledge not to harm one another. Melvin Bolden, the teacher who invited her, said Autum is now "unofficially" banned from performing in the school district. Bolden says, " might have been a little too aggressive for what the middle-school kids are ready to handle." The school sent a voice mail to hundreds of parents apologizing.

Now, I'm not commenting on how good the poem is... but you would think middle-schoolers might be able to handle a 7-year-old's writing. I guess they'll have to miss out on Langston Hughes "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," and the speeches of Malcolm X. They might find them a "little too aggressive" as well. It wouldn't be right for our children to have their minds exposed to that at such an impressionable age.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5284018

[tatertop]

1. That poem invites intelligent discussion

I like it

[obnoxiousdrunk]

2. Don't get the

Darwin reference though ?

[Stuckinthebush]

7. Yes I was wondering about that one too

Perhaps the precursor to eugenics? I don't know.

[Bucky]

13. Maybe she misunderstood where Social Darwinism comes from

Darwin himself was a Christian humanist who tended to favor social charity causes. If he were alive today, he'd be a liberal.

[tjwash]

59. I'm thinking that it's because many people equate Darwin...

...with evolution, and hate groups like the KKK and the Aryans have tried to use evolution as a way of "proving" that whites are superior to blacks. What many people that try to use this argument misunderstand however, is that evolution is geared toward survivability and fitness in a certain environment, and has nothing to do with complexity, or superiority.

[tatertop]

64. That's what I thought, as well

Well-written poem for a 7-year-old

[MadMaddie]

3. The dumbass school basically reinforced what she was

writing about....they surpressed her freedom to speak at other performances. The poem is accurate...the truth is not pretty sometimes...Now about taking the "Black Panther" pledge may have been too much....

I wonder if a white child who wrote about how great * is or glorifying bombing Iraq-would that student be banned from other performances? Wouldn't some people be offended by this?

This is a case that will be taken on by the ACLU!!!

[goclark]

10. Well said MadMaddie

She is obviously very bright and she has the ability to be a shining star one day! Sometimes shining stars say things that are upsetting to many --- like Sister Rosa when she didn't get out of that seat!

My grandmother would always tell me, " Don't get upset if some people don't understand you when you CARE and you speak from the heart. YOU are like cream in the coffee, you'll always rise to the top!"

I love kids that think outside the box and give their perspective on life.

Sounds like the NAACP and the ACLU will be busy with this one.

However, with the Bush Crooks in office, they will have an uphill battle.

That's why the Bush Crooks will stay in office because deep inside, that is what those DIEBOLD votes were all about, suppressing freedoms.

[MadMaddie]

14. True Dat!!

:hi:

[cali]

18. So you have no problem with

the divisive nature of the event, that some children were excluded? These are kids. Had she made this presentation to HS age kids I wouldn't have a problem with it. She may well be a prodigy, but the other kids weren't.

The other problem I have with the whole thing, is I'm saddened by seeing a child of seven so immersed in hard core political ideology. Developmentally, they're really not ready to take such stuff on- no matter how bright they may be. As the parent of a so called gifted child, I was always keenly aware that his intellectual chops and seeming maturity in no way negated that he was developmentally, a kid. Autum's dad put her into a very dicey situation. It's a shame.

[goclark]

22. Cali I see your point but IMO

all parents don't understand the developmental issues related to the Gifted.

In the last 10 years I have been amazed at the way that children have been "helped" by their parents.

When I was a kid, we did our own homework. Not now, the parents DO their child's homework, it is that competitive a World in their eyes.

I have worked with a second grader doing high school Math at home on his computer. Mom let him work at it for 5 hours at a time. She wanted him to go to college as soon as possible.

Sad but true.

You are a great Mom, I can tell!

[cali]

23. Thank you.

That was kind of you. I agree that too many parents live vicariously through their "gifted" kids, pushing them in ways that don't benefit them at all. It is sad.

[petronius]

24. I agree with all your posts here (and your son's poem is great)

This girl's poem is not racist (I've heard from RW commentators) and it does seem like it would provoke some discussion, but the larger situation is inappropriate - it doesn't seem as though the event was handled well by the school, and my impression is that this girl was given too much control over the assembly - it would have been fine if she'd read her poem in an assembly where other children were giving readings, but it sounds as though the school just abdicated responsibility and gave her a soapbox. Even if the poem was appropriate for elementary school kids, the rest of it was not.

It really does seem as though she's being used by the adults around her - there is a similarity with those little white girls who sing the nazi songs (Prussian Blue).

[cali]

25. Thanks.

I hadn't thought of those two girls, and I'm not sure that there's that strong a similarity, but I can see why they came to mind.

Kids do write political poems, but usually when left to their own devices, they're a lot more free flowing than Autum's. (My son wrote a poem about how bombs were being dropped as he skied in the quiet of the woods with snow fleas hopping about. It was a riot, but also moving in a completely uncoached way.)

[petronius]

27. The similarity I was seeing

is in the use of children to express ideas that the adults want to get across - these kids are being used as mouth-pieces rather than being left to express their own thoughts, and they are being immersed in a single mindset rather than exploring and learning for themselves (not to say that children's learning shouldn't be directed, it just shouldn't be politicized and one-dimensional). I agree with the other posters who see a lot of adult input into Autum's poem, and I see the same thing with the nazi girls...

[cali]

28. Well put.

They are being immersed in a single mindset rather than being allowed to freely explore and arrive at their own conclusions.

[noiretextatique]

39. of course you know that is pure speculation

the girl is apparently a prodigy...she just might be able to think for herself, and quite possibly may be far more advanced than many adults.

[petronius]

42. Of course it is speculation

The vast majority of the threads/posts around here are heavy on speculation, since we very often have little to go on beyond a few news articles, and in this case I am expressing my personal opinion (as are we all). It is quite possible that this girl is expressing opinions that she has formed on her own, based on her own reading and analysis of history and current events, but I doubt it. In my opinion, when children begin expressing ideas and opinions beyond the norm for their age group it is often not that they are expressing personally formed beliefs, but rather that they are regurgitating what they have been spoon-fed by adults around them, and I think that's sad, regardless of the ideology or philosophy being espoused.

[noiretextatique]

44. that's quite possible

then again, i doubt you will find many black people who disagree with her take on things, so to that extent, she is not that unusual. except for her age then again...she is supposedly a prodigy.

[cali]

4. I may be the only person here

who thought her poem and her exclusion of white kids, were inappropriate and divisive. When the white kids stood up along with the rest of the children, Autum told them to sit down. I don't think she should be banned, but I don't applaud the divisiveness, either. Flame away.

[The Straight Story]

5. No Flame here - just glad it was not a poem that mentioned god

or some minor religious theme. Lord forbid, we would have demanded the school pay restitution, have the poem banned from all public places, etc.

I am all for poems talking up your race.

[Jamison]

6. I agree with you there.

I heard about the part of excluding whites. I have always thought that civil rights issues are something we should all work on together as a people. This issue was on Hannity & Colmes last night. She shouldn't be banned, but her stance is borderline racist. Hannity pretty much said that, and I'll go along with him. BTW it's VERY rare that I'll agree with Hannity on anything.

[Bucky]

15. This shows the limitations of identity politics. This 7 yr old has been

this 7 yr old has been trained to think in race-based terminology. This is the opposite of liberalism. But I think directing anger against an apparently bright kid is missing the point. Should she have told the white kids to sit down? Hell no. I'd have given a student of mine a nasty lecture for pulling a stunt like that. But at 7, the fault is the parents' for being so damnably illiberal to allow their kids to think like that. The worst thing they did is to feed straight lines to idiots like Hannity and Colmes.

This child should be nurtured. She's got a passion to write and some decent talent.

[noiretextatique]

46. there is a long tradition of radcial liberalism

in black american culture. when i was a child, the black panthers and the NOI were a part of the social and political community. i read their newsletters at a very early age, and i was a lot more radical when i was first learning about the real history, not the whitewashed version i'd been taught. if this kid is as smart as i've heard, her thoughts and writing skills will continue to develop. and surely, you are not suggesting that her parents aren't nurturing her, are you?

[noiretextatique]

32. the pledge is meant for black people

“I pledge allegiance to my Black People,” she said. “I will keep myself physically fit, building a strong body free from drugs and other substances which weaken me and make me less capable of protecting myself, my family and my Black brothers and sisters.”

as a poet, my take of this is simple: censorship.

some people have a problem with my poem, "never trust the white man," which is actually about the irony of the line being uttered by my great-grandmother, who looked like a white woman. in the poem, i share some of her life experiences so people understand why she came to believe her oft-repeated phrase was sage advice.

when i shared this poem in a creativity class in graduate school, some people took offense, and told them: you can't "take offense" to someone's real life experience, nor can you "take offense" to a view of the world that is different from yours, even though you don't want to hear it. not hearing it, and not having to hear it, has been a part of the problem this 7 year old is writing about.

much ado about very little, imho.

[cali]

36. Grad school

is not grade school. And what about the other points? That when the white kids stood up, she told them to sit down and that the poem exhibited signs of a kid indoctrinated into thinking about things in a certain way?

I don't think it was appropriate of the school to state that they wouldn't have her back, but I'd hardly call it censorship. They did host her after all. It's fine to expect adults or even teenagers to entertain perspectives they may find personally painful or offensive, I don't think it's helpful for kids.

Oh, and everyone has the right to be offended. It may be stupid but you can't tell people that they can't or shouldn't take offense. You can only explain to them why you believe they shouldn't take offense.

[noiretextatique]

38. thinking is helpful for everyone, at any age

i seriously doubt that kids in iraq would be peevish about a political poem.
and if it was an a poem that appealed more the the mainstream view of things, i seriously doubt it would have made headlines...and no one would be talking about "indoctrination." many black people share her views, at least to some extent.
perhaps she could have handled the pledge thing differently, but she is 7 years old. yeah...exclusion is a bitch, especially when you aren't accustommed to not being excluded.
was your child indoctrinated...is that how he wrote his poem?
and yes, it is censorship.

[cali]

41. I don't buy your argument

it's a logical fallacy to throw out the kids in Iraq thing. It's totally unrelated to the situation being discussed, and yes, context counts. Sure thinking is important for people of all ages, whoever said it wasn't. The question is was this presentation divisive? Did it foster understanding or learning?
I answer those questions in the negative.

Nope, my kid was not indoctrinated. He had a sort of neo hippy upbringing, lots of running free outside and a fair amount of hard work. ( I probably shouldn't have let him split kindling so young, but he managed not to chop any of his digits off) I did read him a lot of poetry starting when he was really little and continued it until he told me to knock it off. We read Shakespeare, Eliot, Yeats, Hughs and many, many others.

Exclusion is a bitch. I experienced it as a kid. I don't recommend it for children though many certainly experience it.

[noiretextatique]

43. it is not unrelated at all

this situation being discussed is a child growing up in a country where her great grandparents did not have the full rights of citizenship, and where people who look like her still aren't considered "real" citizens (katrina, anyone?). of course you don't "buy my argument"...but that's besides the point. the point is: children can think for themselves, and there are plenty of children in this world who deal with things far worse than being told to sit down by a 7 year old. and personally, i think knowing what it feels like to be excluded is a valuable, (though difficult) experience.
i think children are far smarter, and far more resilient and actually, far more intelligent than adults give them credit for.
"divise"...for whom? i suppose that is the question at hand here. exactly what harm did it cause, in your opinion? i am not sure being told to sit down by a 7 year old will scar anyone for life. and obviously, this little girl has some connection to the problems going on in some black communities, hence her desire to share that rather innocuous pledge.

[cali]

45. still not buying and if you read the

rest of my posts on this thread they'll give you a good idea of why. I think the kid is, at least to some degree, parroting doctrine. I don't think that's good for kids, and I certainly don't think it's fair. Her poem doesn't exhibit the creativity of poetry written by gifted children her age. There are plenty of books of childrens' poetry. This poem is lacking in the qualities that mark the best of them. She may or may not be a prodigy. I have no way of knowing.

Some children are tough and resilient in some ways. Some are tough and resilient in other ways. Some aren't tough and resilient at all. Some are exquistely sensitive. Generalizations about children, like generalizations about anyone else are, at best, rough estimations. Most children will experience what it feels like to ve excluded. A school assembly isn't the best place to learn this lesson. If anything, this experience could turn some children off to the perspective of others. Again, context matters.

You're right that racism in this country is still broad and deep. As you noted, this child clearly feels connected to problems in black communities. That's wonderful, but it doesn't make what happened a positive thing.

[noiretextatique]

48. it doesn't matter what you think

really, it doesn't. i can say that your kid was parroting doctrine, and that wouldn't make it any more or less true than what you keep insisting in true with this little girl.
i do with agree with you about one thing...she is expressing some ideas that are mainstream in black culture, with her particular brand of creativity. and of course, unless you have read all of her work, you cannot (in fairness), make a judgement about how gifted or creative or indoctrinated she is, now can you?
and what happened certainly wasn't a negative thing either...can you say THAT with any certainty? it was just a thing.
i agree that children are individuals, but i take issue with the notion that they need to be protected from ideas and experiences that are not inherently harmful. being told to sit down is not inherently harmful, nor is listening to a poem that makes you feel uncomfortable.

[cali]

52. LOL

It matters to me what I think, just as it matters to you what you think. You're expressing your POV about this. I'm expressing mine. Great how that works on a discussion board, isn't it?

I know little more than you about this child. (I do know that she's being home schooled and raised by a single dad). I haven't made a judgement about whether or not she's a prodigy. As I said, I have no idea if she is or isn't. I didn't judge her. I expressed an opinion about the poem, and what I saw in it. You did the same.

It's your judgement that there was nothing inherently harmful in what happened. I disagree. It's a mess. People have been hurt. None more so than the child we're discussing. Yes, that's a guess, but it's an educated one that comes form years of working with children.

[noiretextatique]

55. who has been hurt?

perhaps i missed something in the article, but i didn't see any mention of people being hurt by this 7 year old.
you may be on to something about the dad...i don't deny that something may be amiss. i would like to see more of her work before making a judgement about that though.

[cali]

58. I think it's

pretty clear that this whole brouhaha hasn't benefitted anyone. This child is in the middle of a tug a war between adults. That is NEVER good for a child. One doubts she is unaware of it. The school doesn't seem to have handled it well, but her father isn't doing such a bang up job either, if the remarks attributed to him are correct.

I already explained that my opinion re harm is an educated guess. I inferred such from the information and from my own experience with children. You are doing the same thing when you state that you don't see how harm could have come from the situation. Sauce. Goose. Gander.

[noiretextatique]

60. i am guessing that the kids handled it far better than did the adults

by forgetting about it shortly afterwards.

[GaYellowDawg]

53. Mmm.

being told to sit down is not inherently harmful, nor is listening to a poem that makes you feel uncomfortable

Neither, then, is the poet's exclusion from the school. After all, if suppressing one viewpoint in favor of another isn't inherently harmful in one setting, it's not in another, right?

[noiretextatique]

54. right...i don't think she will lose any sleep over it

since she's getting so much press from it. and i never said it WAS harmful...to anyone.
i do think they censored her because of what she said, not what she did.

[goclark]

72. Been missing you noiretblu ~~

I wish I could recall all the times that I Had to listen to outright propaganda that was forced on us by the people that came over to America...

I remember reading my history books in class and wanting to throw up but we had to sit there in silence like Raisins in the Sun.

"The cowboys were nice people that just wanted to help the Indians" - NOT

"The Pilgrims were lovely people that wanted to sit down with the Indians and share food(and the teacher would always select me to be the Indian)." ----NOT

Columbus discovered America ~ NOT

America, America, sweet land of LIBERTY ~ NOT

We are ALL CREATED EQUAL ~ NOT

George Bush won the election in 2002 and 2004 - NOT

Classic quote...
"being told to sit down is not inherently harmful, nor is listening to a poem that makes you feel uncomfortable."

[GaYellowDawg]

47. I completely disagree with part of your post.

I'd bet that you would take offense to a white supremacist's view of the world - which would certainly be different from yours. I'd also bet that you'd take offense to how a Klansman would interpret his life experiences.

If you think that your voice - or someone else's voice - needs to be heard, then by all means, speak. However, telling people how they can and can't feel about it is both arrogant and condescending. I'm quite surprised that you did that in a grad school class where the people there were your intellectual peers. That approach will only close minds to what you have to say. If you do that, what's the point in speaking at all?

[noiretextatique]

51. you misread what i wrote

what i wrote was: no one has the right to "take offense" to someone's life experiences. i have no right to be offended by the life experiences of a white supremacist or a klansman...none. i can take offense to their actions, but what is arrogant is insisting that they don't speak about their lives... unless whatever they say makes me feel good about myself, or conforms to what i think their lives should be like.
in my poem, i talk about how my great grandparents had to flee their farm because they were being threatened by the KKK...people took offense to THAT...THE TRUTH.
they had every right in the world to feel whatever the hell they felt, just no right to expect me to whitewash my truth to make them feel better. the "view of the world" i refer to in my post was my great grandmother's...i didn't expect anyone to share her view, simply to understand how and why she came to have that view, without taking it as a personal indictment. just as i understand the worldview of a white supremacist, without taking that as a personal indictment.

[GaYellowDawg]

62. I can get on board with that.

That post makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[Karenina]

68. YEE-HAW!!! Na, DUUU!!!

Sehr lang, nicht hier gesehen! :loveya:

Many may find it problematic to accept that "we," who do not fit into their preconceived ideas, exist. At 6, I was well aware of what PDR and DSM were. Daddy and I read "In Praise of Folly" together. I regularly rummaged through my parents' extensive library and read works that would not be considered "age-appropriate." I was never forbidden to read anything that captured my attention. We discussed EVERYTHING and my parents never edited their language. If I didn't understand something I was told to "GO LOOK IT UP" and get back to us.

My youngest son, at 5, began delivering monologues about the feudal Orient and how it related to current trends. He got pissed off one day at something he heard on the news, called Directory Assistance and registered his complaint with the White House operators. I caught him on the phone as he was finishing his rant and he explained, after waving me away until he'd hung up. :crazy::wow::crazy: Fortunately, his teachers realized I was to blame only insofar as he had unlimited access to MY library.

THIS says it ALL:

"not hearing it, and not having to hear it, has been a part of the problem this 7 year old is writing about."

[goclark]

75. Go Young Son, go ,go ,go!

Love it!

[skooooo]

8. Not saying I disagree with much of what she says...

...but I think someone is being exploited. Something about this seems a bit manipulative, but what do I know?

[Indykatie]

9. Agree with Skooooo

I have a hard time believing that the poem was penned by a 7 year old. I have grandaughters 8 and 13. While I can imagine the 13 year old writing a poem on a similar level I can not imaging the 8 year old doing so.

[tgnyc]

11. Anybody have trouble believing a 7-year-old wrote this poem?

Words like "paradigm" don't drip from the lips of too many 7th-graders, never mind 7-year-olds.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

12. You never know

There was a kid who finished Medical School at 17.

[Bucky]

17. Dr Hauser, I presume?

Loved that show.

But if the child has been exposed to a lot of angry political urban poetry, then "paradigm" isn't too big a word for a kid to grasp.

[goclark]

16. I see your point but

if she was raised in a family that talked about these things all the time, as many African American families do, she could have heard the words at home.

I taught Gifted children for many years and they can be amazing at any age!

Her grandmother/grandfather may have been a part of the Civil Rights struggle for all we know.

Did she have help writing her poem, I would say YES. I bet most of the other kids,even in Middle School, had help.

[skooooo]

19. It's a repetition of rhetoric, not the ideas or even words of 7 year old.

Actually, I think this is a kind of ugly thing in that, to my mind, a child is being used for some kind of political agenda by adults. Parents will teach their kids by their own beliefs, and I have no problem with that, but poems by 7 year old should be based on their own experiences and creativity. It's not a whole lot different than a KKK racist, or Fundamentalist, or any other agenda-driven adult teaching their kids to parrot rhetoric.

Will the kid ever be able to make her own conclusions when she grows up? What is the effect or outcome did the "adult" want by putting the child up to this?

[noiretextatique]

35. you might want to ask the children of iraq about that

or bosnia or afghanistan. extraordinary circumstances tend to make children a lot different than some idealized version of what some people think children should be, do and think.
what, exactly, do you think she should be writing about?

[GaYellowDawg]

61. What a fucking BULLSHIT comparison.

There is no comparison between what the children in Iraq and Afghanistan and Bosnia have suffered and this child's life experiences. Now, I suppose if she had her parents blown to pieces in front of her and watched the bloated pieces rot and stink in the sun, or had her own limbs blown off, you might have a basis for comparison.

If you wanted to say that she had a whole different set of experiences than a little white girl and turned out differently because of that, fine. Comparing her life to the extreme suffering that children have gone through in Iraq or Afghanistan or Bosnia is gross, stupid hyperbole. How the fuck can you even type that?

[noiretextatique]

63. first of all, you have no idea what her experience is

and second of all...
i can say whatever the fuck i want, and make any fucking comparsion i choose, and of course you a free to disagree. but...don't ever deign to tell me what i CAN and CANNOT say...that's not your perogative. surely you must know that there are children, right here in this country, who do have the experience of seeing someone blown to bits.

[GaYellowDawg]

69. Fine.

I never told you what you could and couldn't say and what comparisons you could and couldn't make - you know it, too, and I am intelligent enough to not be caught up in a specious "straw man" argument. I did, and still do maintain that what you said and the comparison you made comprise gross, stupid hyperbole. Saying that "I don't know how the fuck you can type that" is an expression of astonishment that someone who appears as intelligent as you do can write something that incredibly dumb.

Retreating behind "you don't know what her experience is" is argumentatively facile and weak. I can guarantee you that she hasn't undergone what the kids in Iraq or Afghanistan or Bosnia have gone through, because her neighborhood hasn't been bombed to bits, she doesn't have to wear a burka, and her father has the freedom to call government officials "racist crackers." Just about anyone can figure that one out, and I don't have any doubt that you're intelligent enough to know it, and to know when you're trying to defend a poor argument.

Which children, right here in this country, have the experience of seeing someone blown to bits? Which ones have had a military invasion and annihilation of their neighborhoods? Just about any child in the US is a child of privilege as compared to those in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Bosnia. A truth that you apparently don't want to admit - although I'm sure you grasp it - is that there are degrees of suffering, and what this child poet suffers is not even close to the degree of the suffering going on in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Nigeria, Liberia, Somalia, and so forth.

[noiretextatique]

70. you DO NOT know what her experience is

that is an ACCURATE statement. you don't know if she's one of the many children in this country who actually has seen someone blown to bits...that is also an ACCURATE statement.
seeing someone die causes the same trauma in bosnia or iraq as it does in oakland or nyc. i fail to understand why an intelligent person like yourself makes a distinction between experiencing death in nigeria or somalia or iraq via bombing or starvation or torture vs. experiencing it in new orleans because of willful government neglect, or in los angeles because of gang violence. i doubt the victims of violence here, or their families, would make the same distinction as you do.

[GaYellowDawg]

76. Nor do you.

That's just as accurate a statement.

i fail to understand why an intelligent person like yourself makes a distinction between experiencing death in nigeria or somalia or iraq via bombing or starvation or torture vs. experiencing it in new orleans because of willful government neglect, or in los angeles because of gang violence

I don't make that distinction, because there isn't one. In fact, there are horrible parallels between New Orleans and neglect in third world countries, and between the gang violence in LA and the sectarian violence in Somalia. The worst tragedy about NO is that - unlike third world countries - the Bush administration has the resources to deal with the situation and has wilfully turned a blind eye to it.

That said, you're going off track from the original argument, which is whether this poet's suffering - this specific girl's suffering - is equal to that of children in war-torn countries. I very seriously doubt it. Her incredible literacy at that young age comes from having access to extraordinary support and education - the kind that is missing in Iraq or Afghanistan. She quite clearly occupies a higher place on Maslow's heirarchy of needs than the average child in Iraq or Afghanistan or Somalia. Thus, her suffering is not equivalent. I can certainly deduce that without having to know her personally, and it's both reasonable and defensible.

[noiretextatique]

79. continuing the competition of tears, i see

why? i suppose it makes you feel better to assume suffering elsewhere is more real.

[skooooo]

74. I think you're both missing the point.

[skooooo]

73. She should write about what ever she likes..

..like I said. If you read my post, I think it's clear. I don't think she wrote that. I think she's being made to parrot something she was taught.

That doesn't mean she may not have had experiences about racism that she can express, but I don't think that's what's happening.

Of course the children of Iraq would have powerful, and genuine expression of the oppression they experience - but they would be able to express that on their own without being told what to say. (Unless they were parotting someone else because they had to memorize words like "paradigm".

[noiretextatique]

80. love poems from iraqi children

might exist...they may even include the word paradigm. would you consider those poems powerful and genuine, or would they be suspect because you would be expecting angst and horror?

[Number9Dream]

20. Agree... a second-grader wrote that? ...seriously doubt it

1. I'm against censorship.
2. It's a shame that a second-grader is already looking for the things that divide us, rather than all the things that make us similar, make us all part of the human race.

[cali]

21. I can believe a 7 year old wrote that

When my kid was 8 he wrote a poem that included the line:

"Standing in the liquid light of a late summer afternoon,
I am waiting for the world to stop. Just for a moment
Before I lose the green field, and the smell of cut grass."

[goclark]

34. Beautiful! That is brilliant and compassionate

Wow! Thanks for sharing!

[HippieCowgirl]

29. I think that's a typo. I'll bet she's a 7th GRADER

The article talked about the poem being too aggressive for middle school, and middle school is generally grades 7, 8, & 9.

That would make her roughly 12, not 7

[CBGLuthier]

31. How much would you like to bet

I can cover $1,000 of that. :-)

Took about 20 seconds on google to find that she is indeed 7 years old.

[noiretextatique]

33. she is 7 years old, and was invited to speak

at a middle school.

[DrGonzoLives]

30. It's possible

Hell, it's in Dilbert at least once a week, and has entered the popular lexicon as businesspeak.

[Iris]

66. How many kids do you know who read Dilbert?

I work in higher ed and I rarely hear the word paradigm.

[Iris]

65. yep. n/t

[rinsd]

67. I thought it very odd....(nt)

[mdmc]

26. a kick for news in my backyard!

[goclark]

37. What if a child of the Bush Crooks ,age 7, did this one...

Black oil taken from your hands, by dark skinned people with remorse.
They took the treasures, the wisdom of the ages and all the land near sites that we need for our air bases.

They praised their religion above ours.
So many of them that don't believe as we believe,in GOD we trust!

Made us watch as they insourced all our wealth to their villages.
Yes, Muslim nationalism is what is putting Amerika in bondage!

Now, let's all recite this Pledge of Alliance, put your hands over your hearts and face the flag ~ the Red, White and Blue one. YES!

[noiretextatique]

40. business as usual

white man's burden, manifest destiny...and on the other side of the equation , the noble (or horrible) savage...are themes in some so-called great literature. there has always been a cultural component to political realities, in america, the dominant culture, until fairly recently in history, controlled most of what was consumed by the vast majority of the public. as the poltical realities changed (or rather, were forced to change), the culture changed as well. the bushistas are simply the latest iteration of a consistent theme.

[GaYellowDawg]

49. Darwin?

No one could be familiar with Darwin's actual life and include him in that poem. This child needs more education. Frankly, I think she's synthesizing things that she's heard, rather than speaking independently of her own life experience. I don't take her any more seriously than I did the 10-year-old who was advocating Bush's Social Security "reform."

Also, in the face of the district's actions, her father called district officials "racist crackers." Just the kind of dialogue needed by this country, right?

[noiretextatique]

71. the type of dialogue needed

is one that is not defined by, and controlled by the dominant group. i seriously doubt she is familiar with darwin's actual life, and it goes without saying that she needs more education, since she's only 7 years old.

[GaYellowDawg]

77. Agreed, but it's not the point I was making.

Certainly, the dialogue needed is one that isn't defined by/controlled by the dominant group. That's a very legitimate point.

It also needs to be constructive, and "racist crackers" isn't a good example of that, which was the point I was trying to make.

All of us need more education, but anyone loses legitimacy with a misattribution like hers about Darwin. Had she substituted "Samuel George Morton" for "Darwin," I wouldn't have had a complaint. I hope that sometime later on, she gets to read "The Mismeasure of Man" by Stephen Jay Gould.

[noiretextatique]

81. her message was clear

even though her content wasn't. i think that is the problem with her poem. could be indoctrination, or it could be a budding sensibility coming forth at an age when many think it is not possible.

[Solly Mack]

50. 12 year old starts medical school -

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-08-24-prodigy-school_x.htm


11 year old chess prodigy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1849421.stm

Google for more examples

Yet it's hard to believe a 7 year old authored the poem? Hard to believe a 7 year old is capable of such reasoning?


Preconceived is a word that comes to mind and I betcha Autum Ashante understands that word too.

[BlooInBloo]

56. Do you really know enough about this youngster...

... to call her a "prodigy"?

Or is it on the strength of one somewhat incendiary poem that you think she deserves such a description?

(Note that I have no problem with the poem, the student, or anything - just the question of whether or not she's a "prodigy".)

[mdmc]

78. she is young an active

[BlooInBloo]

57. delete - 2x-post

[Odin2005]

82. People are giving this girl compliments for a racist poem?

This thread reeks of pollitcally correct hypocracy.

[noiretextatique]

83. what is racist about the poem

and or hypocritcal? no one in this thread has yet to articulate that, so i would appreciate it you would do so...thanks in advance. another question...how can one talk about racism and imperialism and injustice against certain groups without being labelled "racist," given the history of racism in this country? how can it be discussed without some using the "pc" excuse, i.e., the patently false belief that everything is ok now because the dominant group has declared it so?