Talking Points # 5 on Feruson

Bad Boys: Public SChools in the Making of Black Masculinity-Don't believe the hype
Ann Arnett Ferguson

I really enjoyed reading this article-it provided a lot of good incite and evidence that many people merely overlook when going by in their day to day lives. I understand that Ferguson believes that from her study it became clear to her that school labeling and isolating the black male youth in disciplinary spaces has “criminally inclined.” She went around to different individuals and interviewed them to try and find the reasons behind the punishment of these youths. When she went to evaluate at Rosa Parks Elementary school she began working for a new intervention program known as PALS-Partners at learning skills..she found out that 90% of the children in PALS were males.
She quotes in the article-“No one at the school seemed surprised that the vast majority of children defined as at risk of failing academically of being future school dropouts were mostly black and males.”
When she interviewed the children they pointed out that she would learn nothing about his peers and himself if she didn’t listen to their music. I agree with this that music says a lot about what a person believes and feels.
She states on page 12 going into page 13 a quote that she gives her view on this topic-They were natural subjects whose behavior I would interpret, rather then having to elicit interpretations from the kids themselves. I could observe them in depth almost as if they were animals in the labatory or make sense of what I perceived. They were somehow more accessible because they were less social, more biologically determined. THEY WERE NOT TOTALLY HUMAN BUT WERE HUMANS IN THE MAKING. It was me not them who was wise. -
She states that is it important to understand human culture differently and not as a set of immutable characteristics that seem to be transmitted through the genes but as a practical, active, creative response to special social and historical conditions.”

There were just some words that I didn’t understand-delineates on pg 7. and on pg 12 contravened.

This article reminds me of the Tricia Rose article called a style nobody can deal with-politics, style and the postindustrial city in hip hop. Since it is all about trying to figure out why kids act the way they do and one of the kids in this article tells her to listen to their music it will tell them a lot about who they are.

Interesting that she took on this type of evaluation and her findings are interesting. It makes a lot of sense know that I have read the article about why people are so bias about males in certain school districts and why many resort to the punishing room.