Scottie Griffin, Charlottesville’s controversial schools superintendent, is out. The school board accepted her resignation last night.
M. Rick Turner, the University of Virginia’s Dean of All Things Black, has asserted on more than one occasion that criticism of the embattled superintendent was based on racism (here’s one, and here’s another). In a similar vein, at last night’s school board meeting Rev. R.A. Johnson, more in anger than in sorrow, proclaimed that “I’m ashamed of our city tonight. I’m ashamed at the majority of the School Board.” (The Daily Progress did not report what, if anything, the school board thought of Rev. Johnson.)
This was all relatively normal for the hothouse of racial and ethnic contention that Mr. Jefferson’s “academical village” has become, but I was struck by Rev. Johnson’s closing admonishment:
In looking to the future superintendent that the board will hire, Johnson said, “Don’t think you can hire somebody black and that’s going to satisfy us.”
I’m sure that’s true. It’s unlikely that anything the school board does will satisfy Rev. Johnson and friends, short of hiring Dean Turner to superintend in his spare time. But what on earth did Rev. Johnson mean here? If he thought that Supt. Griffin was criticized and then fired because she’s black, why shouldn’t he be satisfied, at least on the racism score, if the school board should hire (another) black superintendent?
I may be missing something, but this seems to be a clear reference to hiring someone whose skin is black, but who does not toe the liberal party line 100%. Now that such people have started showing up in positions of power, the dividing, and I use that term advisedly, line has been moved to [dis]accomodate this new group of blacks.
Our (majority black) schoolboard has had terrible relations with a string of (black) superintendents. (At least they’re not talking about race, although I think they would if they could. They make every other accusation they can think of.) It’s an embarrassment to try to conduct a nationwide search for a superintendent when they can read back issues of the local paper and see that they will be treated like dogs. Also, the school board spends an unbelievable amount of time and mental energy dealing with issues that have nothing to do with educating kids. We’ve got some new members now and maybe things are looking up, although during the last meeting security had to be called because of one of the older members who had a toddler-style meltdown over how the contract for school maintenance was awarded. Is it like this everywhere?
I have to wonder why Charlottesville would ever hire an administrator from New Orleans? The school system there is in complete collapse. Deloitte Consulting has been called in to try and figure out the books, The seventh system superintendent in the last 10 years just resigned, and the State just voted to approve the takeover of 4 more failing schools. I find it hard to believe that any administrator with the Orleans Parish Public School System on their resume would even get a serious look.
But what on earth did Rev. Johnson mean here? If he thought that Supt. Griffin was criticized and then fired because she’s black, why shouldn’t he be satisfied, at least on the racism score, if the school board should hire (another) black superintendent?
What he means is that it isn’t sufficient that the new hire be black. He must be the right kind of black — no Ward Connerlys, for instance.