I just submitted a review of the school, but I'm pretty convinced my review will be screened and will never be published. But here is exactly what I said...
http://www.greatschools.org/ohio/clevel ... ab=reviewsI attended this school back in 1979 when I was 11 years old and in 7th grade. At the time I lived at the Cleveland Christian Home (CCH) 14 miles away on Lorain Ave., but due to desegregation I was bussed to Charles Eliot. At the CCH I lived with an even mix of white and black kids and knew nothing of prejudice. That changed when I walked through the doors at Charles Eliot. My new name was "Hey white boy," and I lived in perpetual fear of physical violence. I feel VERY bad for kids that have to attend this school today if it is anything like it was in 1979. The students firebombed my math teachers car and destroyed it. They burned down the library completely. Several students were arrested for bringing guns to school. During the school dance, which we were forced to attend, the black kids popped and ticked to "Another One Bites the Dust" while huddled in a circle in the gym as clouds of pot smoke drifted through the air. No teacher had the balls to break that up. My geography teacher was physically challenged repeatedly to fights by one huge kid. He had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. I was suspended for a week for bringing a sharpened butter knife to school. I can go on...
My review had to be limited to exactly the number of characters I used so I was purposely brief.
But I could go on and on about the horrific experience. I'm sharing it here just because it could spark a discussion about racism. I hope it does too.
When I lived at the Cleveland Christian Home a good percentage of the kids were black. They were my brothers and sisters during those years and I experienced absolutely no racism. But then 7th grade comes and instead of walking 500 feet to Wilbur Wright Junior High I was bussed 14 miles into the ghetto of East Cleveland. In some of my classes we had as few as 2 or 3 white kids.
The black kids were incredibly racist. Not a day went by without me seeing physical violence by blacks against whites. I was threatened, pushed, tripped, robbed, verbally abused and continuously called "white boy." Even the black girls were violent towards us knowing fully well the black boys had their backs if we so much as looked at them wrong.
To elaborate on what I said in my above review... they literally blew the library up. Burned the whole damn thing down. I vividly remember walking by the burned out room and seeing the colorful bookshelves melted and dripping. From what I heard they used some sort of homemade bomb. In addition to their library handiwork they also threw multiple Molotov Cocktails into several garbage cans in hopes of burning the whole school down.
They also burned a teachers car completely. It was right outside my math class window. I think it was my math teachers but I'm not sure.
Then there was the physical intimidation of my geography teacher by a huge black kid that should not have even been in that school. He must have failed many years to still be there. This kid stood in the teachers face saying "What you gonna do?" The teacher was literally shaking in fear and humiliation while the black kids in the class laughed at him and said stuff like, "Damn, that teacher scared!" It was hilarious to them. I don't remember the teachers name but he left that day for several weeks to what we were told was a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown. When he came back he tried to be hard. He started paddling kids a lot.
Same back kid that threatened the teacher would walk through the cafeteria behind all the white kids eating their lunches and he reached over and took french fries, milk or whatever else he wanted. This happened EVERY single day and if you put your hands over your food he would hit you or threaten to hurt you. No adults would stop him.
Oh, and then there was the day one of the white teachers died. I was in the cafeteria and the principle came over the loudspeaker to share the news. She was on the Interstate driving home the day before and she started to miss her exit. So she tried to swerve over but she lost control and ran into a bridge support pillar. I shit you not at least a dozen of the black kids cheered at the news she died. She was white so fuck her.
I remember watching a black kid pick a white kid up over his head in the gym and slam his entire body down face first into an electric outlet cover-plate. Blood everywhere. That kid left in an ambulance. Not sure of the outcome. But this is 7th grade folks. We were supposed to be kids. There were armed police officers in the school daily and not a week would go by without an ambulance taking someone away.
And then there was the school dance. Everyone had to attend the dance. I believe they let us out of our classes an hour or two early and had us head to the gym for the dance. As my review said the black kids all danced in a big circle in the middle of the gym floor smoking pot. Not a single teacher had the balls to do anything about it. They knew the kids would have attacked them. On a positive note those kids could dance. Every day was entertaining. I was surprised that the song they got the most excited about was Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," but they went nuts for it.
As I've said I was pretty afraid on a daily basis. One day I sharpened a butter knife by scraping it on a window sill at the Cleveland Christian Home and then brought it to school in my pocket. I was 11 years old and not thinking. Well, in Mr. Gill's Biology class a kid named Leon saw it and pointed and said loudly, "Ohhhhh dat boy got a knife!" I was brought down to the principals office and suspended for a week.
Yes, this was stupid on my part but I had the knife because of all the talk about "bat day." At the Cleveland Indians Stadium they periodically gave away free baseball bats to the first X number of people through the turnstile. Everyone in Cleveland knew about bat day back then. Well, at Charles Eliot they came up with their own version of bat day. All the kids from a rival school were planning to bring bats to our school and attack us. I was pretty scared. It never happened but I do remember talking to my social worker at the home about my fear. He may have ordered me to stay home that day. I don't remember. But when I did go back I brought my sharpened butter knife to protect me.
Guns were found several times on students. I didn't see the arrests but the news spread like wild fire. "So and so had a machine gun in his locker." That was the word used. I'm sure it was some sort of semi-automatic whatever. But the point is...WTF are 7th graders doing with guns in school?
This post is just me venting after 34 years of bottling up my feelings.
