The Carson city council agreed over 2 months ago with a decision to name a new high school after the fallen LAPD SWAT officer Randal Simmons, the first ever killed in the line of duty nearly a year ago. It was taken to be a good idea since Simmons spent lots of time working with the youth in the community as a church minister. Now there are members of the Carson council and community- and it’s not the L.A. City Council for a change- making the spineless, backsliding move to rescind the support for the name change. They say that the area is majority Latino and the naming should be for a Latino, choosing Cesar Chavez as their pick.
This school will open in 20012, and maybe the leaders should go back to school to learn a little about racism. THEY are complaining about the appropriateness of naming a school after a man who is Black because the NEIGHBORHOOD is mostly Latino. What? Some of the reasoning, if you could call it reasoning, is coming from a council member Harold Williams, a Black man. He seems to be yielding to pressure more than anything else, now doing some position-changing and looking for a way to make it look like it was his choice all along. Politics- how wonderful.
What goes into naming a high school? From the story:
District guidelines say high schools must be named after dead U.S. presidents
"and other nationally as well as internationally famous men and women." A
cross-section of the community is supposed to be consulted about the name,
and a survey performed.
The guidelines don't say anything about race or ethnicity being a qualification for anything. The schools are supposed to be practicing the idea of being racially neutral or non-preferential in terms of race. That is what caused a lot of the civil protests in the 1950’s. Terms like color-blind and equal opportunity are so quickly left behind in a race to get favor with voters. We are supposed to be teaching young people to NOT base decisions on color or other factors that one has no part in choosing for himself, and instead, use character and deed for any judging to be done. At least, that is what I used to include when I was teaching. For many students, high school students, it was a novel concept that did not get their attention before, I learned. My students taught me a lot about view and conditions, and I appreciated that for my own development on issues and views held.Councilman Mike Gipson pushed the measure to honor Simmons,
who lived in Rancho Palos Verdes."We recognize his faithfulness to our community, to the children and young people who face challenges growing up and what he has given them and to making their lives better," Gipson said. "One person said Randal spent more time in Carson than his own community. He was someone who gave selflessly."
That whole picture seems to be forgotten so conveniently these days. Now, you have complaints that there needs to be a Latino selected for the naming of the school. That’s a big step in the wrong direction. The culprits here are at the local level more than the LAUSD, but you have a sure bet that under the current leadership of Monica Garcia, the scale will tip towards the naming decision to be for a Latino when it reaches them.
Julie Ruiz-Raber, a Carson ex-council member says that the Simmons choice is politically motivated, and Chavez is her first choice, claiming the process was a political ploy and was railroaded. Now, Ms. Ruiz-Raber, that "political ploy" assessment sounds strangely a fitting label for your own position, but then, I suppose it all depends on which side of the issue that you find yourself on.
Officer Simmons showed conduct of a heroic quality, and he practiced what he literally preached as a minister for youth. Now, you have a political career getting a little push by adopting the race-based approach.
The overall idea here is something most people of so-called leadership positions forget and that is that education is not all done in the classroom. The way that they handle this matter simply demonstrates for a lot of young people that there really should not be racially neutral (or ethnically neutral) for evaluating achievements or anything.
It looks more like a people-pleasing situation rather than simply being a well-deserved choice. Here, you have the lesson that race/ethnicity DOES matter. It is just another example of divisive behavior that the less-educated and the well-educated both share.
There are lots of schools named for Cesar Chavez, so the naming-honor is not something that is lacking for this figure of contemporary history. Putting the name of a local hero is has a lot in its favor. There are a lot of young people who personally knew and befitted from the man’s activities and efforts to better their lives. Choosing to name the school in this situation would be something that is relevant to the current student population and they could attach a greater connection to doing well for society, when they might not really connect with that idea where the school’s name honoree is so distant from their generation and not personal to them or their contemporaries.
I wonder what the view would be if there was an all white neighborhood in another state that said it did not want a new school named after a Latino, Cesar Chavez, because the community is all white. Would that be a right decision, and I mean "right" in a "right vs. wrong" context, not "right wing" and "left wing" orientatiions? It all depends on who is doing the judging, unfortunately. Did you ever see a game where the referees made calls that favored their own team or favorite player? It's like that now and it's wrong. The right answer should be a right answer in any examination on the topic and not change because you have different "referees." Here, they are moving to a very wrong answer if the ethnic aspect of voter demographics rules this choice.
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