Turning a Blind Eye to Cultural Awareness : Multiculturalism: Some parents undercut important lessons of Black History Month.

Educators devote a lot of effort during January and February to teaching children about the accomplishments of African-Americans in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and Black History Month. The lessons, they hope, will show children that contributions come from many cultures.

But how easy it is for parents to erase these efforts and sabotage the lessons.

Each year, Knox Elementary School in Southeast San Diego puts on a children’s parade for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and invites several classes from around the city to participate. The schools consider it an honor, and the children make banners and flags to carry in the parade.

But this year, when it came time to turn in routine parental permission slips, one young Asian girl said her parents would not let her attend. When quizzed further, the girl said her parents thought it wouldn’t be safe. The teacher tried to reassure her that teachers and parents would be at the parade along with police escorts. Apparently, that did not convince the parents, and the girl missed the parade she had been looking forward to.

Last year, the San Diego Children’s Museum initiated an ambitious five-year project tracing black history from Africa through modern times. Each February, the museum is putting on an elaborate exhibit explaining a different era.

This year’s exhibit tells the story of a slave and two of her children’s paths to freedom. It includes a slave’s quarters, and life-size panels of pictures and text describing the experience in children’s terms.

Comments in the guest book are full of praise. But last year, a few people wrote racial epithets, including “nigger lover.”

There have been no such written comments this year. But on opening day, one white family asked for their money back. The choir was too loud, they complained. And then, the disgruntled visitors--with children in tow, of course--left the museum, saying that the black history exhibit was not what they expected.

A table of white men at a downtown restaurant are overheard discussing the “black problem” during a recent lunch hour. Loose statistics are bandied about on the number of black families headed by women, the number of blacks in jails and the percentage of crime committed by blacks.

Then one man told of a black literature assignment his child had brought home from school. “There is no black literature,” he proclaimed, and then went on to disparage the African folk stories his child had been given to read.

Those aren’t literature, he again asserted, ignoring the fact that many European stories had roots in oral folk tales.

It was unclear what the father had actually said to his child. But, however muted his reaction, the child probably picked up that it was negative.

What lessons did the children in these families learn?

That Martin Luther King parades are held in unsafe places? That events that draw blacks are dangerous? That gospel music is objectionable? That children should not be exposed to the history of slavery? That black literature is second-rate?

One can only hope not--and be grateful for programs such as those at Knox Elementary School and the Children’s Museum.