Polarizing quote is taken down by Service principal
DEBATE: Provocative words had served their purpose, official says.
By MEGAN HOLLAND
mholland@adn.com |
mholland@adn.com
Published: February 15th, 2008 12:26 AM
Last Modified: February 15th, 2008 05:50 PM
The principal at Service High School on Thursday removed a prominently displayed quotation from outside the school's library that some called a racial slur against black students and others said was a motivation for action.
Principal Lou Pondolfino supported the students putting it up at the beginning of February's Black History Month but said he took it down because it had already served its purpose. Keeping it up was too hurtful to some, he said.
The debate over whether to dismantle the sign pitted blacks against each other, sparked conversations between generations about freedom of speech and made students, parents and teachers question where provocation for thought ends and racism begins.
The controversial anonymous quotation said:
"The best way to hide something from black people is to put it in a book."
The group of black students who call themselves Beautiful Colors objected to the administration removing their sign. The students displayed it to spark conversation about blacks falling behind academically. Next to the quotation was a statement by senior Alex Shaw calling for all students to rise to the challenge and fight the dropout rate in the school. At Service, while blacks are the smallest minority at 5 percent of the enrollment they are the most likely to drop out, according to the school.
"The people who are complaining are outside in the community. They don't see the kids who fall to the wayside. They don't see the kids who get lost and drop out and literally give away their life and self-hope. They don't see that. We see that every day," said Shaw.
The 18-year-old said each day the sign was up was another day that someone else would have seen it and could have proven it wrong.
Since it went on display, more black students have started showing up for after-school tutoring, several have expressed interest in taking more challenging AP courses, and the six-member Beautiful Colors group has taken a front-and-center role at the school saying all students, regardless of race, need to be concerned about their futures, said Shaw and principal Pondolfino, who supports them.
Since publicity about the quotation, however, Pondolfino and the students have been criticized from around Anchorage. One white Anchorage resident, Dan Loring, filed a complaint with the Anchorage School District calling for Pondolfino to make a public apology and attend cultural awareness training.
"This is a racial slur that is intended to insult a specific genetic group," Loring said in a phone interview. "The idea was good but the tool they used to create the discussion was not the right quote."
The Rev. Alonzo Patterson of Shiloh Baptist Church, a predominantly black church in north Anchorage, also asked Pondolfino to take it down.
Those objecting to the quotation tend to be older blacks who lived through the civil rights movement and had to endure much greater racism than what exists at Service, said Shaw and school officials.
Students, teachers and parents say there is no racial tension at the Hillside school, which has seen its student population go from predominantly white to nearly half minority within the past decade.
That the minister stepped in upset some. "You get people who say they represent the African-American community," said Service parent Aileen Green. "They don't speak for a lot of the African-American community."
Green supported the kids because she felt the display was instigating productive debate at the school.
Shaw says he regrets the way it was taken down. He and his Beautiful Colors group had planned a burial ceremony for the words. They were going to cut them up and put them in a coffin-shaped box and put that on display with a black student stepping on the box.
The black student would have been wearing a graduation cap and gown, Shaw said.
School administrators didn't want any more attention for the quotation, though, and removed it on their own.
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