VOICES FROM THE INSIDE OUT by Robert Taliaferro
Beware new GED
“Why did you drop out of school?” the pre-test
application asks. “Was it due to family problems (drunk father, drug use), or
were there other reasons?” Test takers were even surprised that there were
questions that they felt alluded to other issues such as homosexuality.
When the students would query the tester about the
intrusiveness of the pre-test process, they are given the boilerplate answer of
“statistical references” as the reason behind the questions. If people
choose to stand on their right to privacy, they are denied access to the test
until they decide that their education is more beneficial than their individual
rights.
Even nature calls are treated with disdain, and if
people have to use the restroom in the middle of the exam, they are either
forced to deal with it...or fail. Upon failure, students must wait six months
before they are allowed to test again.
Students note that they do not have problems with the
harder academic standards that are required. They are upset with the one to
two-hour-long session that they had to endure to even get to the test--which
many felt intrusive enough to qualify for a national security clearance rather
than necessary items which would act as previews of their educational skills.
One of the saddest things about democracy is what people
have to be willing to give up in order to live in the culture. Since the war on
terror has begun we are informed that there is a price to freedom, and that cost
translates to one’s loss of privacy.
The loss of privacy can mean different things to
different people, however, and as such, is more acceptable to some than to
others.
To many whites it is a vision of security, a defined
view that their elected officials are taking their safety seriously. Piece by
piece they have been slowly conditioned to this intrusiveness in the guise of
protecting their homes, businesses, money, streets, or peace of mind from the
hoards of drug dealers, gangsters, and sociopaths that are supposed to be
roaming the streets.
For Blacks and other people of color, it is a vision of
more incidents of profiling and abuse. Police are defined as these heroic
knights of old who are conquering the dragons of terrorism, and if the
collateral damage includes a few Black, yellow, brown, or red faces, that is
simply the risk that one must take in the culling out process.
To the rest of the world it is the chessboard of
American imperialism stretching forth its hand with billions of dollars to play
with toys developed--but never used--during the Cold War, in a new war that will
define Bush’s presidency, but like Vietnam, will never be truly won. It allows
for him to deflect public opinion away from any real problems in his
administration.
And all the while when we fill out our taxes, take out a
library book or use the internet, use a credit card, get a driver’s license,
or take a test, the defining issue of democracy--freedom--is seeping through the
bureaucratic fissure of intrusiveness that defines our culture.
To the students who had to sit through this process, it
was felt that this was simply another form of profiling people; as one young
brother called it, “academic profiling,” that when mixed with other factors
may very well establish a criteria for test-taking workers who might get passed
over for a job, or promotion, based on the information of that pre-test query.
“Only people who have taken the GED and come from a
family that did not abuse drugs or alcohol need apply to the service jobs that
we have available.” For the others... Well, there’s always war!
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