Ugh. Adolphus Pruitt, head of the St. Louis NAACP, has been silent over the crumbling of my city’s schools but now after their latest problems are making national headlines, Pruitt sees an opportunity for press. Pruitt, if you recall, was the same NAACP head who organized the presser wherein victim of union violence Kenneth Gladney was called an “Uncle Tom” and deemed not black enough for NAACP assistance. Pruitt and his SEIU associates had profiled Gladney as a conservative simply because he sold merchandise outside of Obama events and townhalls.
Now Pruitt is trying to garner headlines by exploiting the unfortunate education meltdown in Riverview Gardens and Normandy, whose ongoing situation I’ve written about before.
Pruitt hops on the NYT train and compares the problems in these poorly-run districts to 60s segregation in the south. Basically, Pruitt surmises with this logic, the problems in these districts are because of all you silly white people out in the county.
Pruitt said the school battle reminds him of the days the NAACP waged another black and white war.
“One big history piece has been about desegregating education. It seems to me we are right back where we were,” said Pruitt.
He sounds completely out of touch with the parents who were not able to send their children to another district this year.
The Edwards don’t’ want to burden other school districts with their children.
“You don’t want to put a strain on somebody else’s children because another district is not doing it right,” said Stephen.
Pruitt’s baiting is also rejected by longtime community leaders from the area.
Where has the St. Louis NAACP been these past decades? I’ve family in rural parts of the state where mismanagement is running predominately white districts into the ground as well, they are just as deserving of criticism as districts where mismanagement is running predominately black districts into the ground. The difference? The NAACP won’t criticize black administrators, even at the expense of the students’s academic well being. Is this not inherently racist if race is to be an issue? The soft bigotry of lowered expectations where school administration is predominately black? Why is race even a factor? You either can run a school district or you cannot. The problem isn’t race, the problem is ideology. The problem is the trifecta of impact: school administrators, parents, and community leaders having positive effect in classrooms. In these areas, administrators are dropping the ball, parental engagement should be increased, and community leaders should stop making excuses based on race and start offering constructive criticism and encouragement.
