Paris Texas Case Highlights Challenges Faced by Black Children Across the Country
Categories: African-American, Education
Written By: Shawn Williams
I'm going to come address the situation in Paris from three different angles:
Broken Homes
Broken Schools
Broken Justice
Disclaimer: I do not know Shaquanda Cotton nor her mother Creola Cotton. I am a graduate of Paris High School and I have two nephews and a godson currently enrolled at Paris High School. I'm bringing my own perspective to the story from news reports and anecdotal conversations over the previous months.
Broken Homes
The case of Shaquanda Cotton has become bigger than any one individual, any one school, and any one town. As a matter of fact, the article of the Cotton family's plight was one of the most popular articles at digg.com yesterday. But individual lives are at stake, the lives of our children.
One of the challenges with cases like Ms. Cotton's is that trying to understand them from any one point of view diminishes their magnitude and scope, and often leads to misplaced energy. Racism in the schools is real; I'll deal with that tomorrow. Our justice system is unjust; that's for Monday. But today, I have to talk about the broken homes in the black community and our broken kids who we are sending to school.
There is not one school district in America that is designed to educate African-American children. While districts across the country try to figure out the best way to teach our new neighbors from the south, there has not been one attempt by our government in 400 years to fashion a curriculum that serves the unique needs of black youth. As such, if a child does not go to his first day of kindergarten understanding the importance of education and that school is only a place to learn (not play and socialize), chances are they will never get it.
Parents are getting younger and younger in our community. It's amazing how many high school graduates have parents who are 35 years old and younger. So in the most influential year of a child's life, years 1-5, many of our children are being raised by children. Not only that, but more than 40% of Black children live with a single mother compared to 20% of Hispanic children and 12 % of white children. Black fathers are often absent and children our missing a vital part of their development by not having a male present. Not that children can't succeed under those circumstances, but their success is the exception rather than the rule. This is not new information, but it speaks to the unique challenges many African-American children face when they walk through the school's door.
In my days in the Paris Independent School District, there were so many ways that our brokenness manifested itself in the classroom, in the hallways, and on the bus. I remember one of my good friends who when the teachers left the room would pass gas, get up and walk around fanning his stinky behind in the face of classmates. Or my boys high school who brought crack to school in empty 35 mm film cases.
And why do our kids fight so much? I can recount the many throwdowns that occurred on the bus after school let out. There were also fights in the hallway, many times between best friends. Young black girls were the worst when it came to fighting. Hair pulling, clothes tearing, face scratching, these girls got down for theirs. I don't recall once see two white females involved in a physical altercation during my school years.
And there is still a big problem with fighting in Paris Schools. But now it's not just the kids, but sometimes the mothers jump in and it's like a tag team match. There are also instances where hundreds of kids, black and white, congregate at the park in my old neighborhood and tape street brawls. The police are slow to intervene if they respond at all. None of what I mentioned is unique to Paris. Nor is sex in the schools. I was at church here in Dallas one day and kids ran over to tell us that a young lady at the high school across the street was giving boys oral sex for a dollar while they waited for the bus.
One of my nephews was getting in lots of trouble as a freshman at Paris High School. I met with one of his teachers, who was black, that outlined the discipline problems that she was having out of him in her class. One of the most frustrating parts of this problem was that he was able to do the work, but his behavior was too often getting in the way. Fortunately for him there was a family intervention, in the second half of his 9th grade year. The path that he was on had only two outcomes: death or jail. By the Grace of God he was able to get himself on the right track his sophomore year and he is scheduled to graduate this year. There was nothing that Paris High School did, or would have done for him more than call the police to come pick him up.
We as a community must have higher expectations of our children, demand more of ourselves as parents and mentors, and have a more realistic view of public schools. Schools are not designed to motivate our kids to learn or teach our children how to act. We have to have what Henry Louis Gates refers to as a " moral revolution." Gates actually says it like this: “Unless there is a moral revolution and a revolution in attitude among our people, unless [our kids] decide to stay in school, learn the ABCs, not to get pregnant when you’re 16, not to run drugs, not to sell drugs…we’re doomed to have a relatively small black middle class and huge underclass and never the twain shall meet."
In the end, our intolerance of poor behavior will have to equal our disdain for racism and injustice. We have to hold our parents to the same standards to which we hold our teachers and our administrators. A wise and seasoned sister that I heard speak at the Tavis Smiley meeting last month put it like this, "…No Child Left Behind sucks, but we are leaving our own children behind."
March 24th, 2007 at 2:35 am
I live in Paris and I applaud your article. If a parent has a hard time just controlling their own children how can they hold teachers and schools to a different standard? Raising kids is hard. Raising kids as a young single mother is even harder. I know because I was one. If I hadn't worked hard to complete school and college I too would have been committing me and my child to a life of poverty. This is true for all people. Sir, I respect you, your experiences and your insite. I agree that alot of the school issues can be curtailed by a huge consistant dose of family values in all families. Spend time together. Give kids responsibility in the home. Make education a must. Love and laugh with one another. Find a church home where God is celebrated and reveered. I fear that we are loosing our children. Common courtesy is shrinking.
I am disheartened by all of the hateful, nasty, threatfilled blog posts that are out there concerning the Cotton young lady. Sir, I can tell you that most of the blogs and posts that I have read are partial truths and inflammatory exaggerations leaving out facts only to further "a cause." Please help me understand how inflammatory speech and calls to violence will help this child or decrease the racism so profoundly professed and demonstrated? I agree that there is still inequality in our society, however what is being done is not bridging the gaps in that inequality it is only sparking more division. Not just in the small town of Paris, but essentially across the US.
There are people in paris that do want to make a difference and change the divisions here and in our society but we do not know how to come together. What forum can black and white and hispanic and asian and indian all come together in unity to promote equality in a constructive, positive, meaningful, and significant way? Finding middle ground to discuss the issues that affectand concern us all as parents and as citizens.
Keeping drugs and alcohol away from our kids. Celebrating fathers in the home. promoting teen abstainence. Providing tutoring to students who need extra help. Helping keep marriages healthy because 2 parents is best for kids. Your imput would be grately appreciated. A moral revolution? I am in…and how can I help. I want to be part of a solution not more of a problem. Thank you.
March 25th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Interesting perspective. Thank you for sharing it. I look forward to reading the other segments you alluded to. I have placed a link to your post on my blog.
March 27th, 2007 at 4:43 am
Broken-homes yes, schools and government fixing problems like with the Cotton family: No. This is a spiritual issue to be worked out on bended-knees, and heartfelt repentence…
Heaven help us, spare us from the handiwork of the experts, the wisdom of man. Listening to them got us in this mess in the first place as far as I’m concerned…
At the drop of a hat the court in Paris can write an order deploying truckloads of “family experts”. I know I used to be one–a family lawyer…. Practicing at a legal services office, “giving the poor access to justice”, a euphemism for using the law as a vehicle for devaluing moral responsibility. ( Which is often mistaken for civil rights.)
I certainly appreciate your sense of priorities, and your understanding that the problem is much larger than Shaquanda and her mother.
I hope that I’ve not been mean spirited in my comments where Shaquanda and her mom are concerned. They each have to be held morally and legally accountable for their actions, but I also believe that those of us who have participated with our education & professions in the massive debasement of the family’s moral foundations have also to give an account….A little child shall lead them.
vashti
March 29th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I’ve just become aware of the brouhaha in my old home town of Paris, and I’ve read all the related articles on The Paris News Web site as well as several blogs I’ve found through Google. What I have not found, however, are the voices of current Paris High School students. We adults are looking at this situation through our own experiential, environmental, and educational filters, but none of us is as close to the situation as PHS students are. Where are their observations and opinions?
March 30th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Her half-brother is on death row:
http://www.dequeen.com/topstories/comments.php?id=P2150_0_6_0
Go here: http://www.integrascan.com/ type in first name Creola, last name Cotton, state TX and see what pops up.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
The Paris News
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Shaquanda Cotton to be released Saturday
Staff reports
The Paris News
Published March 30, 2007
Shaquanda Cotton is to be released Saturday from the Texas Youth Commsssion facility in Brownwood, according to a report from the Associated Press.
“We are glad she is getting out and are happy for her family but we have concerns about the way it is happening,†Lamar County District Attorney spokesman Allan Hubbard said.
Rep. Harold Dutton, the Houston Democrat who chairs the House juvenile justice committee, said the newly appointed conservator of the Texas Youth Commission told him Cotton was being freed, according to the AP report.
“This is one of those cases that is the poster child of everything wrong with the criminal justice system,†Dutton told the AP.
Dutton said he was informed of Cotton’s pending release by Jay Kimbrough, who Gov. Rick Perry appointed to investigate the agency accused of ignoring multiple allegations of sexual and physical abuse of young inmates.
“Apparently, cases that get the most public attention can grab the ear of state legislators who can simply order people to be freed from incarceration,†Hubbard said. “That sets an alarming precedent.â€
Local activist Brenda Cherry, a friend of the girl’s mother, confirmed that they have been told of Shaquanda’s release.
“She should be home by tomorrow,†Cherry said.
Dutton told the AP late today that the 15-year-old would be released to her mother on Saturday. He said Creola Cotton was unable to pick up her daughter on Friday because of bad weather.
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Copyright © 2007 The Paris News
July 27th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
[...] And to be sure, schools are a bit tougher than when Sidney Poitier experienced his Blackboard Jungle. Schools can be tough places: difficult kids, even more difficult parents, violence, and mostly drugs and alcohol. This blog from an ex-Paris resident examines an interesting, and more 3-dimensional perspective on the problems in Paris, TX that serve as the backdrop from such an overreaction. [...]