It was the
last straw! “
How could they print such a thing!” the
kids were saying. Suddenly,
Shaker Heights High School (40%
black 40%
white) was divided sharply along
race lines. When the
school newspaper was handed out in
homeroom that morning all of the
black students (except for maybe 1 or 2 and me ... almost) got up and
walked out of the
school. The
white students stayed.
What had happened?
The headline read: “Blacks at
Shaker Lag in
Test Scores”
The article, much like
Charles Murray’s book,
The Bell Curve could be taken to mean that us black kids were
inferior in some way. I knew the girl who wrote it and I knew that wasn’t what she meant, but there was uproar in the
hallways and it was no time to argue
semantics.
I was watching the others leave, not certain if I should go too, when I heard
Alex Lobe, the fastest kid on the
cross country team, click his teeth “You see the article
was right.” he said.
With that,
I was out the door. It was a
mob of
angry teenagers maybe 200. “
Where are we going?” I asked.
Nobody knew. Then someone shouted “To the
mayor’s office” My
blood ran cold. The mayor? We’d be
arrested! I’d never make
honour roll!
But, it was
too late we were headed down the street. We showed up on the steps of the
mayor’s office. She, to my surprise came out looking a little
amused.
“
Well, what do you want?” She said.
“We want that girl put in
prison!”
“The papers should be
burned!”
“Why is there a
gap!?”
“We aren't
dumb!”
“Let me get this right” she said “Do you guys want the
article to disappear or the
gap in test scores?”
A pause.
“The gap!”
And with that we became an army.