Posted on 10/12/2005 6:47:22 PM PDT by Gator61
City education officials are investigating the claims of a pair of boys from Oklahoma who moved to Brooklyn to experience diversity, and instead say they got schooled in racism and violence. Mom Lisa Brown, 33, told the Daily News she relocated her family from their small Oklahoma town so her husband, a Brooklyn native and social worker, could more easily find work and her sons could experience different people and ways of life.
Brown enrolled her sons, Sloan, 12, and J.T., 13, at Ebbets Field Middle School in Crown Heights. But when the boys, who are white, showed up, their mom said, they got a chilling indication of what was to come.
"Oh my gosh, we are going to have fun this year," a security guard muttered, according to Brown.
Things quickly got worse.
Sloan was beaten mercilessly, called "cracker" and "white boy," and chased into traffic by his new classmates, his family said.
The abuse got so bad that Sloan routinely bolted out of the building to find his brother and run to a nearby subway, dodging verbal and physical attacks, he said.
"It almost makes me cry," Sloan said. "I'm scared to go back."
The brothers skipped school all last week while their parents tried to sort out the mess.
"Do I have to send the National Guard in to get my children an education?" asked the distraught mom.
When Brown tried to alert Principal Marge Baker to the abuse, "the principal refused to take the calls," she charged.
Brown filed several police reports at the 71st Precinct stationhouse about the alleged abuse, but said she was ignored.
Police sources said precinct cops did take the incident seriously but believe school staff are in a better position to deal with what appeared to be a series of schoolyard fights and bullying.
The boys' stepfather, Ken Brown, requested a transfer for the boys on Sept. 28, but Education Department officials noted he can't seek the change because he is not a custodial parent.
Eventually, the fedup mom went to nearby Elijah Stroud Middle School to transfer her sons there, but said the principal told her: "They'll have the same problem here."
Education officials promised to help the Browns - after being contacted by The News.
"The principal was not sufficiently attentive to this situation," the Education Department said in a statement. "Upon learning of the situation, the region is taking immediate action to arrange a transfer for these children.
"We will fully investigate what happened, including whether racist statements, which are not tolerated, were made and take appropriate action."
Brown said the Education Department called her several times over the weekend, after The News made queries, pledging to get the kids into Elijah Stroud and chastising her for calling in the press.
Despite the principal's warning, Lisa agreed to send her boys to Elijah Stroud tomorrow.
"I'll make sure my kids are safe because it is the school system's job to make sure they are," she said.
For Sloan and J.T., escaping Ebbets Field Middle School will be a relief. The school opened in September as one of the city's many new small schools, with plans to "become the crown jewel" of Crown Heights, according to the Education Department Web site.
The Browns said their ethnically and racially diverse neighbors in Prospect Heights have embraced them, and they thought New York was "the greatest place on Earth" - until they started battling the school system.
"I was excited to expose my children to a complete variety of people," Lisa Brown said. "I thought it would be an advantage. I always told my children that children could be cruel - but not to this extent."
I've actually heard guys say that stuff to their actress/mode/musician girlfriends. It never ceases to give me the giggles.
I know exactly what you mean. I grew up in a moderate-sized city on the East Coast. I'm mixed race (half Asian, half white), and I went to day camp with the Cub Scouts in a city park. Black kids from the inner city would attend. I was picked on by some of them, who called me a "ching chong," since they thought I was Chinese. Later, in the summer after my freshman year, I was riding my bike in another park with a friend of mine, and we got jumped by a group of black middle and high schoolers. The middle schoolers provided strength in numbers, and the high schoolers took my money, and punched me repeatedly in the face, saying it was "revenge for slavery."
The funny thing is, my dad was an immigrant, my mother's mother was an immigrant, and my mother's father's ancestors were Quakers, who were obviously against slavery. So my family, and myself in particular, had nothing to do with slavery.
To this day, I have a certain apprehension with most black people.
...and your point is, what? People who live in the ghetto are imperfect? People in general are racist?
It's an adult world and the ghetto is the most adult slice of it. If you live there, then you deal with it, otherwise you'd be well advised to leave.
The little weasel did, on camera!
You are speaking rather strangely.
May I say that I have been in exactly the same position as those two boys from Oklahoma. I am speaking from bitter personal experience. Those lads will never forget living in fear for their lives and never forget their terrifying helplessness. I remember what happened to me very well, and am sixty years old.
Whatever your personal opinion is, it is unimportant in comparison.
My parents were totally oblivious to the whole affair. Intelligent people, and very, very stupid. A common malady.
And your point is?
My parents were great, kind, strong, loving parents.
And look at how a big jerk I came out! :-)
The whole of NYC isn't a ghetto, but the PC buttwiopes who run the school system have made it so, and have turned a blind eye to the racial thuggery.
An adult world? These were two kids in a public school in which "enlightened" liberal policies have created and perpetuated, penitentiary like feral behavior. You don't like the truth? Too bad.
She should be happy.
Her children experienced the "diversity" that she desperately wanted them to. In fact, I would say they got a belly full of it.
Well I sure don't say they got what they deserved...it sounds like their kids got what their parents deserved.
I don't blame the problem largely on the school, although I am all to eager to find fault with any heavily unionized activity like the Mass Teachers Association.
I blame it more on the kids families, or lack or lack of home discipline thereof. How is a school supposed to raise these kids who are sent to them flawed from the start?
But I see your point. They share blame; their system bites by all accounts.
I stand corrected!
Sure they could. I have a s-i-l who thinks this way. It must be driving her nuts because her little six year old is really conservative (reports from my daughter, my nieces favorite cousin) Heh, heh, heh,...
You live in CNY also? It's rained here for more days in a row than it has all summer (er... I mean "construction"). (May through the end of Sept)
The parents of these kids thought they were someplace where they weren't. I have no idea what you mean by "racial thuggery." Things really are what they are sometimes.
The people on this thread are talking about the stupidity of a parent sending their children to any strange school with the preponderance of children being of another race, particularly in NYC, which is noted for crime in their schools, or any large city for that matter.
It would be the same if you sent black kids into a mostly white school and expect them to come out unscathed.
The real crime is that this stupid parent isn't taking the word of the principle of the new school they are being transfered to that things will be just as bad for them there.
She should mover out of that school district or home school if she wishes her children to live out the year.
Excuse me again but you did lie. You made a statement without having the facts and you said it as fact, spoken like a true liberal, granted the above statement wasn't made to me but you certainly lied. I sent you a post also letting you know that people other than whites have shot school children, lots of them actually. If you dont' want to lie, get your facts straight before you make a statement. A lie made unknowingly is still a lie.
Sixty years old and still blaming your parents.......sheesh, get over yourself already.
BS! They moved so dad could get a job. It had nothing to do with "experiencing different people and ways of life".
That's the crap they no doubt peddaled to the boys, but I'm not buying it.
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