Skip to main content

Call It What It Is



I didn’t need to read about this on Patch. My teen daughter had already told me. The headline from the story by Elizabeth Janney reads:

Racist Social Media Post at Oakland Mills HS Under Investigation

 The school principal is quoted as saying the post was “racist in nature.” The article states that police, as well as the school system, is involved. That’s because the post wasn’t merely racist. It was violent. Yes, I’ve seen it. No, I’m not going to share it. And, folks, just because they say that Snapchat posts disappear doesn’t mean that they do. Screenshots are forever. Students are sharing it to call out and condemn it. I’m going to ask you to take my word for it.

Every time this happens it makes it harder for parents of students of color to trust that their children will be safe at school. Can they receive the best possible education if they are continually defending themselves from the million tiny cuts of micro aggressions or recoiling from racist, violent threats? Don’t just call this “racist in nature”. It’s a direct threat to the ability of the targeted students to receive the education they are guaranteed by law.

Saturday night my daughter and I went to see the Oakland Mills High School play, “Peter and the Starcatcher.” I remember thinking how beautifully diverse the audience was. It was another one of those moments when I was proud to live in Oakland Mills. In that auditorium were people of many different backgrounds and many different shades of color. They were all there to support the students on the stage and to enjoy live theatre.



I’m not proud today. And I don’t know how Oakland Mills could produce a young person with these kinds of views. It makes me both angry and sad. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more