Observations of Race and Education

First, a few observations from my own educational history:
1. The only Black teacher I ever had was a high school band director. He was from a city far away and he put an 'r' at the end of my name. He was a good teacher, I thought, and he chose musical pieces to teach us that we had never heard before.
2. Even at the large public university I attended, most of the African American professors were in the African American Studies Program.
3. It was the professors from the U.K. who assigned reading by George Jackson, Malcolm X, and Alice Walker.
Second, some recollections from my teaching history:
4. Most of the Black students I taught in honors classes were from African countries or Jamaica.
5. I've taught several excellent students who happened to be African American in the college bound track.
6. Currently, my attention as a teacher is being drawn to the "achievement deficit".
7. My own daughter attends a high school where approximately half of the students are African American, but at the awards assembly, I noticed only five Black students among the 100 students with the highest academic averages in the class. Hmm...
8. My current students have a very negative attitude toward establishment institutions and values.

So, here are my questions:

1. What are we teaching? Is it of more value to one race than to another?
2. How are we teaching? Are there significant differences in cultural leaning styles?
3. Is the difference we are noticing really because of social class differences rather than racial differences?
And about my students:
4. Do my African American students mistrust every white person they encounter (including me) because it has been mostly white people who evicted them from the last apartment, arrested their uncle, or told them to leave the shopping mall or is it just a teenage thing?
5. How do I gain their trust and respect of my students?
6. I have a great track record in teaching. Why should I have to be of a different race?