THE 
April 28, 2008 Say What? Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Update: B. Scott weighs in on Rev. Wright saying “African-American Children Are Right-Brained” (Youtube)
Take me higher lord, this is not about my support for either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama but rather this completely shocking ignorant statement that Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. (pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ and former pastor of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.) said at an event sponsored by the Detroit chapter of the NAACP over the weekend. Please read the following statement and please let me know if you agree with him that African-American children and European-American children learn with different parts of the brain. (B. Scott just shakes his head and clutches his pearls.)
“And we were coming up with more meaningless solutions like reading, writing and Ritalin. Dr. Hale’s research led her to stop comparing African-American children with European-American children and she started comparing the pedagogical methodologies of African-American children to African children and European-American children to European children. And bingo, she discovered that the two different worlds have two different ways of learning. European and European-American children have a left brained cognitive object oriented learning style and the entire educational learning system in the United States of America. Back in the early ’70s, when Dr. Hale did her research was based on left brained cognitive object oriented learning style. Let me help you with fifty cent words. Left brain is logical and analytical. Object oriented means the student learns from an object. From the solitude of the cradle with objects being hung over his or her head to help them determine colors and shape to the solitude in a carol in a PhD program stuffed off somewhere in a corner in absolute quietness to absorb from the object. From a block to a book, an object. That is one way of learning, but it is only one way of learning. African and African-American children have a different way of learning. They are right brained, subject oriented in their learning style. Right brain that means creative and intuitive. Subject oriented means they learn from a subject, not an object. They learn from a person. Some of you are old enough, I see your hair color, to remember when the NAACP won that tremendous desegregation case back in 1954 and when the schools were desegregated. They were never integrated. When they were desegregated in Philadelphia, several of the white teachers in my school freaked out. Why? Because black kids wouldn’t stay in their place. Over there behind the desk, black kids climbed up all on them.”
