by Jennette Barnes | February 2021
Students of color in the Falmouth Public Schools received 45 percent of the suspensions in the last school year, even though they make up only 21 percent of the student population. The Falmouth School Committee examined the data Tuesday, following recent complaints about racial disparities in school discipline. School Committee…
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Teachers] [Indigenous] [Accountability] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Black Lives Matter]
by Donna Ford | February 2021
The No. 1 reason for the underrepresentation of Black students in gifted education is the lack of teacher referrals, even when Black students are highly gifted. I definitely think stereotypes and biases hinder educators from seeing Black students’ gifts and talents. In most schools in the U.S., if you are not referred by an educator, you will not move through the identification pipeline for gifted education programs and services, as well as Advanced Placement. It starts and it stops with teachers. This is why Black families have reached out to me. They’re saying, “This predominantly white-female discipline” – meaning teachers – “is doing my child an injustice.” They’re saying, “I’m frustrated, I don’t know what to do other than pull my child out and home-school.” You don’t see a lot of Black home-schooling. If the parents are able to do it, they have the means.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Systemic Racism] [Implicit Racism] [Advocacy] [Environment] [History] [Black Lives Matter] [White Privilege]
by Zack Linly | March 2021
I don’t understand these “educators” who insist on taking slavery—the most brutal, cruel, and inhumane thing America has ever done to an entire race of people whose freedom, heritage, families and humanity were stripped from them—and turning it into some Sesame Street-ass game or activity that trivializes the centuries-long practice. Just last week, I reported on a school in Delaware in which kindergartners were being taught yoga positions that mimicked the way enslaved people were positioned on slave ships.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Slavery] [Teachers] [Black Lives Matter] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [History] [Microaggressions] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Accountability]
by J. Drew Lanham | Spring 2021
The founding father of American birding soared on the wings of white privilege. The birding community and organizations that bear his name must grapple with this racist legacy to create a more just, inclusive world. Last summer, the Sierra Club denounced its first president, John Muir, as a racist unworthy of organizational adulation. Muir is a founding father of the American wilderness movement; he also characterized Blacks as lazy “sambos” and Native Americans as “dirty.” The National Audubon Society followed suit, stating that Audubon, too, was a racist. He enslaved at least nine people. He mostly referred to them as “servants” and “hands,” but never seemed especially concerned that the people helping him could be bought, sold, raped, whipped, or killed on a whim. Then again, relatively few men of his time did. Presidents did not. Why would he? Audubon’s callous ignorance wouldn’t have been unusual for a white man. It would have been de rigueur—an expectation of race and class that he enjoyed.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Slavery] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism][-ing While Black] [Environment] [Myths] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [Implicit Bias] [Cognitive Dissonance] [Art & Culture]
by Zack Linly | March 2021
Just Saturday, I wrote in a report that “It’s about time we have a serious conversation about how a lot of white teachers have no business whatsoever teaching Black students.” I based this statement on three separate stories—all of which occurred during this Black History Month—involving white teachers being racist while downplaying and/or distorting narratives around American racism during lectures to their students. Well, now there’s a fourth story—one that doesn’t necessarily feature educators denying the cruelty of slavery; they just made a fun game out of it which parents are rightfully calling “culturally insensitive, offensive” and “disturbing,”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Slavery] [Black Lives Matter] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [History] [Microaggressions] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Implicit Bias]
by Melissa J. Gismondi | September 2018
In 2016, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) repudiated the historic “doctrine of discovery.” Although it might sound benign, the doctrine was the pernicious theory that Christians could claim and conquer land inhabited by non-Christians. It helped justify and promote the violent colonization of indigenous lands throughout the Americas. This summer, the Assembly followed up on that repudiation by issuing a report outlining specific actions the church can take to grapple with the doctrine’s legacy. They include official acknowledgments before meetings of the indigenous nations on whose land the meeting is taking place, as well as more discussion of indigenous theologies and educational resources on the doctrine.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Indigenous] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Justice System] [Denial] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Economics] [White Privilege] [Role Model] [Strategies] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]
