Asian students vow to continue school boycott

[Blue_Tires]

More than 50 Asian students stayed away from South Philadelphia High yesterday, as they will all week - a boycott, they said, of the school's unsafe conditions and the district's failure to deal with long-standing violence between racial groups.

School district officials, the students say, are downplaying attacks last week on about 30 Asian students and aren't taking the problem seriously.

"They promise and promise," said Duong Ly, one of the school's 900 students. "Last year, same problem, and nothing changes."

He hates to miss any school, but "we didn't come to America to fight," Ly said. "But we go to the bathroom, and we get attacked."

Michael Silverman, the regional superintendent who oversees South Philadelphia, acknowledged long-standing racial tensions, but he said that since summer the efforts of a new administration at the school had calmed things somewhat. Even before the latest violence, efforts included community meetings and mediation sessions.

Officials said last night that they erred last week in saying violence was down at the school. A district spokesman said that through the end of November, assaults were up by 32 percent, to 37 this year, and overall violence was up by 5 percent, with 43 total attacks this year.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/78749332.html

[superduperfarleft]

1. This has been going on for a long time.

Philadelphia Weekly had this as their cover story a few months ago. At least it's finally getting some attention.

[Craftsman]

2. You can't mind your lessons if you always have to watch your back

"efforts included community meetings and mediation sessions" is not the way to solve this. How many licensed, armed police officers are in this school to maintain order?

[pampango]

3. Here's the reaction from some African American students, from Philly.com.

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/78749672.html

"In the wake of Thursday's melee in which a group of African-American students attacked a number of Asian students, many griped about how they feel that black students at the school are being villainized because of the actions of a few bad apples. "It was unnecessary," John Harris, an 11th-grader, said of both the school's and his classmates' actions. "I got nothing to do with it. Just because we're black, they think we're in gangs.""

"Since last week's altercations in which, community activists said, about 30 Asian students were attacked by a group of black students, the district has cracked down, increasing the number of school police on foot patrol in the area and redeploying school security to the school's hot spots, said a district spokesman. City police also are lending assistance."

"Their sentiments were shared by many other African-American students at the school who say that only a small population of black students, who make up 70 percent of the school's population, have animosity toward their foreign-born counterparts. "They didn't deserve it," Samirah Eugene, 16, an 11th-grader, said of the Asian students who were punched and kicked repeatedly inside and outside the school on Thursday."

"The behavior of those few were malicious and could have been the result of "pack mentality," said Chad Dion Lassiter, president of Black Men at Penn. But in a society in which immigrants are seen as the "other," he said, prejudice is "deeply rooted" and "then we act out aggressively against something we don't understand.""

[Blue_Tires]

4. thanks for that update....