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GENOCIDE AND BLACK ECOLOGY                       SINNETTE

to classroom environment, those measures that have been advocated as being appropriate for the child with MBD are, in effect, the same measures that should be implemented in providing a conducive classroom atmosphere for all children.

Drug treatment of MBD has also been advocated by some authorities. Usually one of a number of central nervous system stimulants has been recommended. Occasionally tranquilizers have also been used. As might be expected with such an ill-defined entity, the response to drug therapy is extremely variable and not totally devoid of risk. The most avid enthusiasts of drug therapy admit that as much as 60 per cent of patients do not show any significant improvement with drug treatment. Dr. Twitchell is not only unconvinced about the efficacy of drug treatment but is also disturbed about the broader implications of the widespread use of these drugs for the society as a whole. Elsewhere in his review of the book on MBD by Dr. Paul H. Wender he states "I cannot accept Wender's cavalier approach to drug treatment. He urges a trial of medication, 'in all children in whom the diagnosis of MBD is suspected'. Suspected by whom—the teacher, the parent, the guidance counselor? And Wender's concept of MBD is extremely broad. Would all children with some learning difficulty or all neurotic adolescents have a trial of amphetamines? If generally adopted, such a policy not only would enlarge the overmedicated society but also might well compound the problem of addiction by making these drugs still more readily available." Dr. Twitchell's uneasiness about drug treatment has been voiced by a number of black school teachers and parents. The black community must continue to insist that the function of the school is to teach and not to resort to spurious theories or subterfuge in an attempt to rationalize its failures.

the need for a new inquiry

Mention has been made of the fact that previous generations of black people were by no means unaware that the survival of the race was in serious jeopardy. Certainly the question figures prominently in contemporary discussions on the worldwide plight of black people. Seriously missing however is an exhaustive study of the problem in its many dimensions. We need to know more about the historical aspects of black genocide. The scholar and researcher have an obligation to project to a wider audience the analytical insights of Lawrence Guyot and Mike Thelwell, who declared in the Spring 1966 issue of FREEDOMWAYS that when the racist forces in Mississippi realized they were

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-16 16:28:20