“Eight protesters stood in front of John Hopkins and chanted as classes let out Wednesday.”
Pinellas School Board chairwoman Janet Clark is coming under firefor using the term “hoodlums” to describe a small group of chronicallydisruptive students in county schools.
Board members Mary Brownand Linda Lerner criticized Clark at Tuesday night’s board meeting. Andnow Ray Tampa, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP,said Clark’s refusal to apologize has made things worse.
“I was disgusted with her response,” Tampa said Wednesday.
TheInternational People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement — better known as theUhurus — called for Clark to resign for the statement, which it viewedas racist. Clark is white. Tampa said he thought the comment wasinappropriate, but not racist. (Who cares if it was “racist?” — Ed.)
Tampa said he was considering filing a complaint against Clark, whohas a teaching certificate, with the Florida Department of Education’sOffice of Professional Practices, which handles complaints againstteachers.
“The (teacher) code of ethics says you can’t embarrass kids or make disparaging remarks about kids,” he said.
Clarkmade the comment at a board workshop last week in a wide-rangingdiscussion about chronically disruptive students at John Hopkins MiddleSchool and other Pinellas schools.
“So much time is taken up withaddressing hoodlums, with kids who don’t want to be in school,” shesaid. She also said, “We are talking about a small number of children.”
Brown and Lerner weighed in Tuesday night.
“Theymight be disruptive. They might be in gangs. They might be many things,but they are not hoodlums,” Brown said. “I feel that that statementshowed insensitivity to our children, and it certainly did not offergood guidance to our staff.”
“There are people upset out thereabout the comment, different kinds of people, including employees,”Lerner said. “We have to be careful as board members when we speak.”
Beforethe meeting, Clark said the statement had nothing to do with race. “Imade no mention of race,” she said. “There are hoodlums of all racesand colors and ethnic backgrounds.”
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But Clark may have stepped into a situation where the same word conjures up different images, depending on who hears it.
Itdoes not appear the origins of the word “hoodlum” have any ties to raceor ethnicity. It is an adaptation of a German word that meant”ragamuffin” or “good for nothing,” said Michael Adams, an associateprofessor of English at Indiana University and author of the 2009 book,Slang: The People’s Poetry.
But the meanings of words canchange, Adams said. Over time, “hoodlum” may have become a moreracially identifiable word, in part because of the slang term “hood,”short for neighborhood, and also because hood and hoodlum began to beapplied to African-American youths by white people, he said.
“Hoodlum,when you look it up in the dictionary, doesn’t look so bad,” Adamssaid. But when people in the black community hear it, “they associateit with words and meanings other than (those from) 1871 or whenever itwas the word first appeared in print.”
The professor said thecase reminds him of the uproar from a 1999 incident when a WashingtonD.C., city official used the term “niggardly” to describe how he wasmanaging budget cuts. It means “miserly,” but another employee took itas a racial slur.
Said Adams: “What people hear always means something more than what a word may mean historically.”
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At Tuesday’s meeting, Clark told board members that she knew people were upset, but would not apologize.
“Wecan’t continue making excuses when children don’t behave and disruptthe educational environment for teachers and students,” she said.”That’s all I can say on that matter.”
The next day, the Uhurusstaged a small demonstration in St. Petersburg. Eight protesters stoodin front of John Hopkins and chanted as classes let out Wednesday.
Theytook aim at Clark, the school district and St. Petersburg police, whohave arrested 84 John Hopkins students this school year — the mostarrests by far in any city middle school.
“Janet Clark! Must Go!” they chanted. “School board! Must go!
“First they fail black children! Then they jail black children!”
Thegroup’s president, Chimurenga Waller, said he blames the school’stroubles on the adults who run the school system, not the children whogo there. “We don’t have a John Hopkins crisis,” he said. “We have asystematic crisis.”
Asked how he would describe the unrulystudents blamed for the daily fights and misconduct that has plaguedJohn Hopkins this year, Waller declined to answer.
Billie Blackshear, 64, whose nephew attends John Hopkins, said Clark’s word choice was impolite — but not inaccurate.
“At the time I thought it was wrong,” he said. “But it describes the kids who are doing this kind of stuff.”
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873.