LOS ANGELES
Students walk out over school racism
By
Preston Wood
Los Angeles
Chanting "No justice, no classes," over 300 Los Angeles high
school students held a militant demonstration April 16 outside
Hamilton High School in West L.A. to protest racism in the
school system. The students say that the school tolerates
racism among some instructors and that the policies of the
school reflect a pattern of institutionalized racism. "Many of
the teachers here practice racism, and we're fed up with it,"
said 17-year-old Kwabena Haffar, a protest organizer.
In a statement of support for the students, the African
American Parent Coalition, which has been raising complaints
about the problem, maintained that some instructors "are using
race as a criteria for determining the quality of education
that they choose to provide their students. We are talking
about apartheid in the United States. Test scores are down for
students because this school has two systems--one for whites
and another for Blacks and Latinos."
Students in a special magnet program, which is predominantly
white, score 15 to 24 points higher than students in the
community program, which is predominantly African American and
Latino.
"The school has set us aside as though we're different,"
said Delanni Johnson, a senior in the community program. "We
don't need segregation."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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