By Chuck Sanford, LaPlace

DEAR EDITOR: On June 20, I read an article about the NAACP’s plans to file a complaint alleging racial disparities in Louisiana schools. The NAACP also stated that this performance gap falls along racial lines nationally. They blame this problem on the fact that black students are more likely to be suspended, expelled, moved into special-education programs and stuck in crowded classrooms as the main causes for this performance gap, which is absurd.

If the NAACP wants to place blame, all they need to do is look in a mirror, and they will find the people who are responsible for these disparities. The Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP and other black leaders have continually subverted the advancement of many black children by creating an atmosphere of being victims of a system that devalues their self-worth and their intelligence based solely on their color.

The Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP and other black leaders continually associate the failure of black children in public schools to a racially-biased educational system created by white Europeans. If someone within the black community could please explain to me how teaching any child how to spell and write words like cat, dog, up, down or that two plus two equals four, that five times five equals 25 or how to read is racially biased against black children, please let me know.

The government and the Department of Education have used busing, have spent millions of dollars, have lowered and adjusted academic standards, have implemented or have allowed numerous experimental teaching programs to be used to accommodate the absurd arguments made by black leaders, NAACP and the Black Caucus that black children cannot learn under the current educational system.

The problems that black students are having in some public schools has nothing to do with money spent or how subjects are taught. It has everything to do with student behavior, a severe lack of parental responsibility and most importantly, the continued propaganda by black leaders and black organizations that the educational system is racially biased toward blacks. This type of subversive propaganda has taken such a destructive hold on young, middle-aged and teen-age black children that the majority believes that they are predestined for failure, no matter how hard they try.

I would like to know what the NAACP thinks is the solution to this disparity. You tried busing and that has not solved the problem. You have segregated schools with predominately all-black teachers and you still have the same problems. You have schools with a very diverse student body and you still have the same problem. You have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on public schools and you still have a problem. You have tried God knows how many various types of teaching programs and you still have the same problem.

After all of this, what is the one central theme that still persists and has been present for the past 20 or so years? You may not want to hear this and you may call me a racist but the problem comes from within elements of the black community.

You have people in the NAACP, Black Caucus and certain black leaders that have created an atmosphere of worthlessness, distrust, self-doubt and hopelessness within the same children that you are blaming others for failing in our public schools. You cannot continue to preach hopelessness to children and then later expect them to believe in their ability to grow and advance in society. You need to look into a mirror and you will find the people responsible.