Hey, Cami Anderson–don’t run away, answer the question
I’ve listened to the tape many times and, as best as I can determine, Natasha Allen said this to Cami Anderson at Tuesday night’s Newark school board meeting: “I’m trying to figure out, like, do you not want for your brown babies what we want for ours?” That’s when the superintendent abandoned her responsibility and ran away.
I spoke to Ms. Allen afterwards and asked her to repeat what she said and she offered a fairly close paraphrase. Ms. Allen was not speaking from a script, she was speaking extemporaneously and from anger, so the words might have been a little different when she repeated them to me.
I took it as a sincere question from one young mother to another that really meant this:
Why can’t you understand we want for our children what you want for yours?
I found nothing offensive about the remark. I found it poignant and honest and direct–and maybe the most important challenge thrown at Ms. Anderson the entire evening. And I am seriously puzzled by why the superintendent chose that moment to run away from her responsibility to explain her disruptive plans to the residents of