October 12, 2009
Address to: The Valdosta City School Board of Education
Let us say first, we don't expect the sons and daughters of slave masters to feel like the sons and daughters of slaves feel. You cannot
Even though the Valdosta City School district is approximately 80 percent black, the Superintendent is white. The Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning is white. The Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations is white. The Curriculum Director for grades Pre-K-5 is white. The Curriculum Director for grades 6-12 is white. The Director of Special Education is white. The Head of Human Resources is white. The Administrative Secretary is white. The Director of Title 1, is white. The Director of Title 11, is white. The Director of Title 111 is white. The Director of Instructional Technology is white.. The Director of Nutrition is white. The Director of Personnel is white. The Director of School Social Services is white. The Director of student Information is white. The principal of the Valdosta High school, a school that is overwhelmingly black, is white. The head football coach is white. Except for one, all of the schools that bear somebody's name, are white. The receptionist is white. And and the ultimate authority that our children face, the Juvenile judge, is white.
Even though 80 percent of the children are black, 5 of the 9 school board members are white. It is obvious to the casual observer that the district lines have been gerrymandered to insure that whites would always control the education of black children.
With every position of authority, perceived and real, occupied by whites, in a school district that is approximately 80 percent black, we have created a culture of what is called the “Rightness of Whiteness;” a culture which breeds a false sense of superiority in whites, and develops a false sense of inferiority in blacks.
It is easy then for whites to believe that there is a white answer to every black question and a white solution to every black problem. And for all these years, not only did whites feel that they knew what was best for blacks, confronted by all of this whiteness, blacks believed that whites knew what was best for them. That is, until now..
October 12 presentation
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Surrounded by an all white Administrative staff, consulting only one of the three black Board members, who incidentally, was selected vice-chairman at the last Board meeting. By the way, he's been on the board longer than anybody else, but has never been appointed chairman. That itself, speaks volumes about what you really think of him.
Against this backdrop, Dr. Cason's decision not to allow the children in this school
district, 80 percent of whom are black, to watch the first African American President's back to school speech, has removed a scab from a festering wound and poured salt in it. It has ignited a fire that only his resignation can put out.
I close with the same observation that I made at your last meeting. You know, I know, and everybody in Valdosta knows that if the superintendent had been black, and the president had been white, and 80 percent of the children in his district had been white, and the black superintendent had denied white children the opportunity to watch the white president's speech, he would have been forced to resign or you would have fired him. To expect us to demand less, is both unfair and unreasonable.
Finally if you feel that we're here to blow off steam, and all you have to do is wait. We're holler loud but not long, Well, not this time. Not now. Look at this audience. They are the intellectual cream of Valdosta's African American community.: Ministers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, lawyers, former Board of Education employees. And Dr. Cason, if you love the children of this district, as you claim, and want to provide the quality education that you say you want for them, you will resign.
Thank you.
Floyd Rose
President Valdosta-Lowndes County SCLC
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