This is a grand, great nation. Do not blame it if you choose not to live up to its standards.

TorontoSun.com - Michael Coren - Not black and white

The reason is that black children do extraordinarily badly in our education system. Shock. Horror. Never mention race unless it is to play the guilt game and apologize for wrongs committed centuries ago or to claim that every problem within the black community is the fault of white people.

But the facts are open and obvious. And they differ little from the black experience in the United States or United Kingdom. Before the usual zealots complain that this is terribly racist or just a colossal lie, the people who are making these statements are themselves black. They see exclusively black schools as a way to deal with the problem.

What they fail to recognize is that the problem is not within the schools. The problem is within the black community. Canadian public schools offer a good, fair and colour-blind education to every child in this country. Teachers are not racist and if anything the trend of teaching and teaching theory is acutely liberal and leads people to bend over backwards, or leftwards, to accommodate all minorities and reject the host culture.

Nor can we blame the old regular of poverty for the apparent failings of one particular community. There are poorer ethnic groups whose members do well in schools and even children with English as a second or third language who manage to cope and sometimes excel.

The fundamental, of course, is the existence of a nuturing family. Meaning a mother and a father who value education, value family and support and encourage their children. It is insulting to assume that no such units exist in black Canada, but realistic to ask why they seem so relatively rare.

If these schools are created, the perception will be that they are failing schools, attended by kids who couldn't make it in the mainstream system. The idea that graduates will be welcomed by employers and universities is ludicrous.

There is also the danger that their so-called "Afro-centrism" becomes a euphemism for rejecting white culture and rejecting Canada. Less than 40 years ago Irish Catholics were told they need not apply for all sorts of jobs and there were university quotas to restrict the number of Jewish students. Cry me a river for kids who live in a country with free health care, social security, welfare democracy and freedom. This is a grand, great nation. Do not blame it if you choose not to live up to its standards.

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