CEO Superintendent of Failing Urban School District Calls Black Girls “Our Worst Enemy”

by Tracy Renee Jones

I bet you had JUST started to breathe easier now that Osama is serving as crustacean fare in the low below but low and behold…another enemy is among us and this time it’s not a real tall skinny guy wearing a turban and making Youtube videos as he searches for porn.

Nope.

It’s Not Sarah Palin

Our oldest and worst feared enemy is back… Black Girls.

Yup!

Last month the Superintendent of the Jersey City Board of Education addressed a group of clergy members during a meeting held at the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Jersey City & Vicinitylocated in what is surly a dilapidated area of Martin Luther King Drive (aren't they all?) in Jersey City. During the meeting which consisted of approximately twelve people (plus one journalist allowed to observe the meeting) Epps made the following statements:

"Young ladies" are the community's "worst enemy."

"The young girls are bad. I don't know what they're drinking today, but they're bad.”

During the discussion Dr. Epps mentioned an initiative to recruit "mentors" for Jersey City students as part of collaboration with the Big Brother Big Sisters program. I can also reassure you that these people coming from the financial big wigs of the Exchange Place areas aren’t of the darker hue. Dr. Epps doesn't sound very much like a concerned educator speaking on behalf of a group of kid whom he would like to help.

Epps is quoted as he praised staff members of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs who have volunteered as mentors to “..signed up to help even the dirty, nasty, bad kids….”.

Now his comments may have caught you off guard, as it did me, but the audience of ministers didn’t seem to be phased by the good Dr’s comment regarding his opinion of young urban girls (read: Black). You might think “of course not, because most of the audience of ministers was probably male, right?”

Wrong…

Pastor Joyce Watterman, of Continuous Flow Christian Center on Monticello Avenue, said later she was "surprised" by Epps' opinions on young girls, but doesn't necessarily disagree with him. Global oppression of women may cause some females to swing too hard in the wrong direction, Watterman said."It affects our young girls, too, so that when we rise up, we sometimes overdo it," she said. Watterman added that she doesn't encounter many girls in her community that she believes are violent. But Epps may see some in his community, she said.

Aside from the fact that this woman belongs to a church whose name reminds me of a feminine product I will also like to point out that the Monticello section of Jersey City is one of the worse areas in Jersey City. I should know since I grew up in this very neighborhood; I can still smell the stench. There has always been a lot going on; this section of the city lost any semblance of civilization long ago. But I digress..

The message in the opinion of the Superintendent and the fact that he was not challenged by his religious constituents is not surprising given that a few sentences that tie in the ills of man to the existence of vagina is an easily accepted meme in religious circles.

Let’s not forget it’s the big, bad Eve and her metaphorical vagina that’s to blame for all of this.