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Math Prof Apologizes for Test Question

Submitted by ptcruiser on April 20, 2006 - 4:02pm.
Condoleezza tosses a watermelon into the air

A community college math instructor has apologized for a test question invoking Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that students complained was racially insensitive.

Peter Ratener, 60, who has taught at Bellevue Community College for more than 25 years, said Wednesday night at a trustees meeting that the question on an exam last month was an "egregious mistake."


Watermelons? I'm sure that many folks will disagree with me but I am having a hard time understanding why people are so angry with this instructor. The  head of the local Urban League is calling for this instructor's dismissal because he placed a watermelon in Condi's hand on a test question. Folks are getting wind in their jaws about this issue? Give me a break.

Lots of people, some of them are black, eat watermelons. I'm sure that Condi Rice has eaten or may still eat watermelons. I eat watermelons. When I lived in Boston I used to buy a half dozen at a time at the Public Market because they were shipped in from Texas, where the best watermelons in the United States are grown.

This story reminds me that the symbolism attached to watermelons and black folks is so potent that in the 1940s and early 1950s white members of the American Communist Party who made the "mistake" of serving watermelon at a backyard barbecue or picnic were actually purged from the party or subjected to severe criticism. Sixty years later the black middle class is still denying that they eat watermelons and white people are so confused that they think putting a watermelon in Condi's hands has something to do with black people.
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The instructor said he wrote
Submitted by Quaker in a Basement on April 20, 2006 - 4:30pm.
The instructor said he wrote the original question using the name Gallagher and then changed it to Condoleeza because he "likes the name." Couldn't he have also changed "watermelon" to "a pair of Ferragamos"?
In Condi's case,  Manolos
Submitted by ptcruiser on April 20, 2006 - 4:39pm.
In Condi's case,  Manolos or Guccis might have worked better if he wanted to use shoes but he didn't. I don't think the guy should be dragged on the carpet for using a watermelon. As I wrote below, I use to put six at a time in the trunk of my car and I did not care what anybody thought my behavior symbolized.
I'm hardly mad at the
Submitted by qusan on April 20, 2006 - 6:07pm.
I'm hardly mad at the instructor and am definitely NOT denying that I eat watermelon. But I posted earlier this week about my experience with white people and the whole watermelon "thing."
I didin't write about
Submitted by Prometheus 6 on April 20, 2006 - 9:55pm.
I didn't write about this...I didn't write about the radio dude that Freudian slipped and called her a coon.

See, I know white folks use that kind of language when I'm not around...more accurately, when are good and comfortable with the person they're talking to. Most Black folks have had the white friend that thought they were so cool he slipped and called different Black person "nigger"...followed by, "Oh, YOU know what I mean..."

So when all the beefing goes on in public, I get exactly as concerned as white folks do when they hear Black folks bitch about all the N-word variants we use. In fact, I probably shouldn't say this while white folks are listening, but "negro" can be deeply offensive...or defiant. All a matter of context.
Oh, and one of the quickest
Submitted by Prometheus 6 on April 20, 2006 - 9:59pm.
Oh, and one of the quickest ways to lose a whole hand is to try to steal my watermelon. Especially the seedless ones...cuz I'm lazy. Shiftless, too...
The term Negro can also be
Submitted by ptcruiser on April 21, 2006 - 6:20am.
The term Negro can also be deeply embracing and loving too as when used, for example, by Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray or Wynton Marsalis.
If, after 350 years, the
Submitted by ptcruiser on April 21, 2006 - 6:31am.
If, after 350 years, the very best that any white person can do to offend me is call me a "nigger" then they can't do very much to me. I want to stop granting them power that they don't have over me and address the areas where they do have power and I can change it. White folks will never stop calling us niggers but only a relative handful will say it to our faces. That's okay with me.
White folks will never stop
Submitted by Prometheus 6 on April 21, 2006 - 7:07am.

White folks will never stop calling us niggers but only a relative handful will say it to our faces. That's okay with me.

Exactly. Folks have said you can't legislate morality, and this is true. But we legislate behavior all the time.

The term Negro can also be deeply embracing and loving too as when used, for example, by Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray or Wynton Marsalis.

Yup.

Those who choose to do so
Submitted by Temple3 on April 21, 2006 - 9:15am.

Those who choose to do so will do so in comfortable quarters. That is tremendously significant, but I digress. I think anything that allegedly links Condi to black folks is absolutely hilarious - especially if it's supposed to be derogatory. After all, she's fluent in Russian. Kinda like OJ. I really can't stop ROTFLMBAO!!!!!!!!!! OJ, Condi, Clarence Thomas...seedless watermelons - in my dreams!! LOL