How to Expose Racists: Simply Mention Racism
I was pleasantly surprised when Education Week published Why Are We Criminalizing Black Students? by Tyrone C. Howard.
Regretfully, this blog is gorged with posts about EdWeek routinely failing the education discussion, but Howard’s commentary confronts well a hard topic in education.
And then came the comments—tone deaf at best, defensive and racist themselves as worst (first three opening rebuttals):
I’m amazed. I truly didn’t know we teachers had that much power, and the propensity to use it for evil deeds. Wow! Imagine that, we have the power to criminalize Black students. Wow, again!This is a ridiculous article and the author’s bias is so heavy handed that he’s made his argument a joke. Talk about confirmation bias.One more racist rant from a Black college professor who doesn’t have the courage to tell the truth, and one more worthless posting by Ed Week for what? A desire to show how “tolerant” they are to biased, ignorant positions regarding race and performance in the schools?
The great failure of the U.S. which has brought us to Trumplandia is, as I have pointed out often, James Baldwin’s “this rigid refusal to look at ourselves” that must be aimed with laser focus on white America.
In schools, black and brown children are disproportionately targeted and punished for the same behaviors as white children, and then in society, black and brown people suffer more inequitable treatment by police and How to Expose Racists: Simply Mention Racism | radical eyes for equity: