Letter: Speak against school takeovers
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In 1932, in a small town in Alabama, the U.S. Public Health Service was the culprit in initiating and carrying out one of the most horrendous human experimentation projects in the history of this nation: the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
The experiment involved black, mostly poor, men of the town of Tuskegee who were not told if they had syphilis and were studied over a period of years. The study relied heavily on a black nurse named Eunice Rivers, who was used to gain the trust of the test subjects.
The irony of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment is that the white medical professionals who initiated the study considered themselves to be progressive when it came to their attitude about race. The tragedy was the test subjects were poor and black; no one seem to care about testing them. Poor and black men were widely regarded as expendable by the medical community and, to some degree, the larger community. Thus, the study continued over a 40-year period.
In Louisiana, under current state accountability laws, the state Department of Education is allowed to take over certain “failing” schools because of low school performance scores. All of these schools are populated by more than 80 percent or higher black children who are mostly poor.
Much like Tuskegee in 1932, many of those who advocate school takeover pride themselves on being progressive where race is concerned. Also strikingly similar to the Tuskegee experiment, the state power structure has found its Eunice Rivers by employing black, retired education professionals who are used to go into districts to persuade black people that the state is working in the best interest of their children.
Because many of these children are black and poor, the state considers them to be expendable and has no problem in transferring state and local money to well-connected private providers to experiment with educating, or rather “miseducating” our black children.
We cannot sit back and allow this modern-day “Tuskegee experiment” to go on with our children for 40 years or even 40 more days. The community needs to step up and speak out now. Our children are too important.
Darryl L. Robertson, member
East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, District 3
Baton Rouge
The experiment involved black, mostly poor, men of the town of Tuskegee who were not told if they had syphilis and were studied over a period of years. The study relied heavily on a black nurse named Eunice Rivers, who was used to gain the trust of the test subjects.
The irony of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment is that the white medical professionals who initiated the study considered themselves to be progressive when it came to their attitude about race. The tragedy was the test subjects were poor and black; no one seem to care about testing them. Poor and black men were widely regarded as expendable by the medical community and, to some degree, the larger community. Thus, the study continued over a 40-year period.
In Louisiana, under current state accountability laws, the state Department of Education is allowed to take over certain “failing” schools because of low school performance scores. All of these schools are populated by more than 80 percent or higher black children who are mostly poor.
Much like Tuskegee in 1932, many of those who advocate school takeover pride themselves on being progressive where race is concerned. Also strikingly similar to the Tuskegee experiment, the state power structure has found its Eunice Rivers by employing black, retired education professionals who are used to go into districts to persuade black people that the state is working in the best interest of their children.
Because many of these children are black and poor, the state considers them to be expendable and has no problem in transferring state and local money to well-connected private providers to experiment with educating, or rather “miseducating” our black children.
We cannot sit back and allow this modern-day “Tuskegee experiment” to go on with our children for 40 years or even 40 more days. The community needs to step up and speak out now. Our children are too important.
Darryl L. Robertson, member
East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, District 3
Baton Rouge
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