EDUCATIONAL DIVIDE
DOE ‘anti-racism’ meeting separated by . . . race?!
United we stand, divided we learn about racism.
City school teachers are being segregated into discussion groups based on skin color, race and ethnicity in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, but some staffers believe the separation is divisive.
More than 700 employees have signed up for a June 23 “Anti-racist Community Meeting” sponsored by the Department of Education’s Early Childhood Division.
Each has the option of joining a breakout discussion group. The choices included: “Blacks or African-American, Latinx, Middle Eastern and North African, multiracial or mixed, Native and Indigenous, Asian Pacific Islander American, White Allies.”
White allies means “anti-racist.” No other ethnic groups are marked “allies.”
“We’re not allowed to be white,” a staffer said. “You begin to feel marginalized. If we’re signing up for this workshop, they should assume we’re allies.”
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza e-mailed educators on June 3, condemning police brutality, voicing solidarity with black people and vowing to fight systemic racism “including in our public school system.”
“I am asking you to continue to urge students and colleagues to safely express their experiences and opinions and share their vision for a better world,” he wrote.
A meeting to wrestle with racism was held this month after an explosive staff seminar at PS 307 in Corona, where 95 percent of students are Hispanic, and black and white kids comprise 1 percent each.
During that June 4 session, a black teacher lashed out, “What about you, you white, privileged teachers from Long Island? Why aren’t you saying anything?” and accused “Hispanic leaders” of not standing up for blacks, a source recalled.
The participant added, “I didn’t expect to be a target in my own building, among my own colleagues.”
PS 307 Principal Cecilia Jackson, who is black, told staffers they had to become “interrupters” of racism, and if they were not on board to “please get out of my building.”
The black teacher later apologized in an “open letter” obtained by The Post, writing, “I am expressing black pain. That does not equate to all white people being evil.”
Jackson then divided staff into three groups for a second meeting on June 9: Latino/a/x/Hispanic; White/Asian/Other; and Black. She said it can be “exploitative and emotionally taxing” for people of color “to educate privileged persons about their unearned privilege and the nature of marginalized person’s oppression.” Diversity advocates defend affinity groups. “There needs to be space for white people to talk about racism, and anti-black racism,” said Matt Gonzales, a school integration advocate at NYU’s Metropolitan Center.