Sunday, June 12, 2005

Essay Fifty-Three

Signs of progress, signs of hope and signs of trouble with MultiCultClassics Minutes…

• Floridian Glynn Birch has been named as the first man to lead MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). They say this cat Birch is a bad mother — shut your mouth!

• Senator Barack Obama questioned Henrietta Holsman Fore, President Bush’s nominee for a State Department position, about racially charged comments she allegedly made in a 1987 speech. A newspaper article wrote that Fore said, “Blacks preferred pushing drugs to working in a factory” and “she had found Hispanic workers to be lazy.” If approved, Fore’s new responsibilities would include overseeing human resources and the civil rights office for State Department employees around the world. The references on her resume probably list Bill Cosby and Mexican President Vicente Fox.

• Philadelphia high school students will soon be required to take a year of African and African American studies. Hats off to the school district officials pioneering the effort. Dunce caps to the parents and citizens opposing the initiative.

• It’s graduation season, which means more opportunities for students to be reprimanded for acts of self-expression. Thomas Benya of Charles County, Maryland was denied his diploma after wearing a braided bolo tie honoring his Native American heritage. Nice to know our school systems are teaching young minorities early on about the discrimination they’ll inevitably face in the real world. The lesson for all students: Assimilation + Conformity = Success.

• Mike Tyson went down and probably out for good in his fight with Kevin McBride. A desperate Tyson sought to steal a victory by landing low blows, head butting and attempting to break McBride’s arm. The former champ must have thought he was tangling with Robin Givens.

No comments: