Though Darryl White hasn’t been a school principal for years, he still remembers a particular incident that happened during his second year at Luther Burbank High in the Sacramento City Unified School District.
“Those things you don’t forget,” White said.
White, who’s Black, remembered that when he surfaced an issue regarding a white female teacher, the entire English department, which was also white, turned against him.
“The next day I had the whole English department walk into my office to explain to me that she was one of the best English teachers in the district and that I need to look closer at the students,” he said.
In the end, he said he was able to provide enough documentation that the teacher in question was not doing their job well and then departmental staff left him alone — but as a Black administrator that power struggle is something he keeps with him.
Now with the resignation of Elysse Versher, a vice principal at West Campus High School also in the Sacramento City Unified School District, White says it seems clear that the barriers Black administrators face haven’t gotten lower.
“It’s always been a very difficult situation for African Americans looking to go into school administration,” said White, who is now the chairperson of the Black Parallel School Board, a community advocacy organization.
“When you as an administrator decide to make that jump, you know that most of your teachers are going to be white, and because of that you know it’s going to be akin to walking through a minefield.”
Versher’s resignation earlier this year from West Campus was spurred by racist graffiti, written by students near her car last winter.
In a letter to the district, she detailed racist treatment that had gone on for years while she held her position.
Versher has since filed a lawsuit against Sacramento City Unified and has not returned requests for comment.
French amateur football tournament aimed at celebrating ethnic diversity is attracting talent scouts, sponsors and increasing public attention, by uniting young players from low-income neighborhoods with high-profile names in the sport.
The National Neighborhoods Cup is intended to shine a positive spotlight on working-class areas with large immigrant populations that some politicians and commentators scapegoat as breeding grounds for crime, riots and extremism.
Players with Congolese heritage beat a team with Malian roots 5-4 on Saturday in the one-month tournament’s final match, held at the home stadium of a third-division French team in the Paris suburb of Creteil. The final was broadcast live on Prime Video.
The event competition grew out of local tournaments modeled after the African Cup of Nations that have been held in recent years in suburbs and towns across France where former immigrants with African backgrounds have lived for years or generations.
This tournament, however was broader, and international in scope.
Along with teams from former French colonies in Africa, the participants included teams from European nations like Portugal and Italy. Players from France’s former colonies in Asia also competed.
The tournament, which was launched in 2019, challenges the French ideal of a colorblind republic that doesn’t count or identify people by race or ethnic background.
The ideal was intended to provide equal opportunity by treating everyone as simply French; in practice, people in places like Creteil experience discrimination and ethnic tensions daily.
HIGHLIGHT
The France team — like its World Cup-winning national team — is made up of white, Black, Arab and multiracial players that reflects the country’s diversity.
“We are Afro-descendants, we are claiming our roots and we are proud,” said tournament founder Moussa Sow, who works at the Red Cross and grew up in a Creteil neighborhood with a tough reputation.
“It’s not because we carry this heritage that we are going to erase our French identity.”
On May 14 in Buffalo, New York, an 18-year-old named Payton Gendron, armed with a semi-automatic weapon and a violent, racial ideology called the “Great Replacement” theory, opened fire at a Tops supermarket in Masten.
Gendron methodically killed 10 people and injured three. Eleven of the thirteen people shot were Black.
In conversations surrounding the shooting, sources have discussed the two-front war of white supremacy and racial segregation, but these issues are not separate.
They are one and the same, and the city of Pittsburgh harbors the same roots of systemic racism that prop up shootings like the one in Buffalo.
As details on the Buffalo shooting unraveled, it became obvious that the attack was a hate crime. Prior to the massacre, Gendron had posted a racist manifesto online.
The N-word was written on the gun he used in his attack. He had researched the local demographics to ensure that he could kill as many Black people as possible and drove over three hours to take advantage of the neighborhood’s concentration of Black people.
The shooting was a strategic move, purposefully targeting a grocery store that lay in the center of Buffalo’s Black community. But how did Black residents become so concentrated in the region?
The city of Buffalo has a long history of racial inequality and segregation within its schools, housing developments and health systems. The community is victim to abysmal school funding, lack of affordable housing and poor health outcomes because of these forms of racism.
If you are familiar with Pittsburgh’s history, then these details may sound alarmingly familiar. Pittsburgh’s history of racial inequality mirrors Buffalo’s.
Before Gendron’s attack, the community of Masten was already experiencing compounding layers of racism. The city of Buffalo is one of the most segregated cities in the United States.
As the Black population began to increase after World War l, racist restrictive covenants barred Black residents from buying homes.
An Indiana mom has says she has pulled her Black daughter out of a private school in Indianapolis after she alleged that students are bullying the teenager because of her race. They claim one of the acts of bigotry was daughter being sent a meme of a hand holding a stem of cotton bolls with a caption that read “when you ask a black girl to prom.”
Local station WISH TV interviewed the pair about their harassment claims and their decision to transfer Gabby Portis, a 15-year-old, from the International School of Indiana, a $22K-per-year language school.
Portis told the station that she’s heard the N-word used at the school and the racism she was experiencing made her look at herself, saying, “I just look in the mirror and be like, ‘I don’t see anything wrong with me.’”
Her mother, Brittany Graves, said that as soon as she was made aware of the incidents, she immediately went to the school’s administration.
She says that the school offered her daughter counseling and she declined, saying, “My daughter doesn’t need counseling.” She also claims the school suspended the offending students but when the suspensions ended the bullying intensified. Gabby claimed she started to receive text messages that made her concerned for her life.
When asked if she thinks that her peers would consider themselves racist, Portis said that they would. “They just walk around saying it proudly,” she affirmed.
She claimed an example of how casual the racism was between students emerged after one student asked Portis for money. A different student replied, “Why would you ask her for some money? She’s Black. Black people don’t have any money.’”
Now, mom has pulled Portis out of school for good, stating that she doesn’t want her child to break down mentally or hurt herself after the racialized bullying. Until the transfer is official, Graves asked the school to allow Gabby to finish out the year through its virtual learning model set up during the coronavirus pandemic.
Source: Yahoo
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The city’s Department of Buildings was hit with a civil rights lawsuit Thursday alleging widespread racial and disability discrimination in the Office of the Buildings Marshal, which encompasses the agency’s building inspection units.
The suit, filed by nine Black building inspectors (and one white supervisor) in Manhattan Supreme Court, argues that white supervisors systematically favored white employees for promotions; denied Black employees access to city vehicles and reasonable accommodations due to disability; said the N-word around Black employees; and constantly wrote up Black employees on frivolous violations while white employees got off scot-free.
Anyone who came forward faced swift retaliation, the suit claims, and eventually many Black employees felt no alternative but to leave the agency.
“If these actions were taken in the Louisiana Bayou in 1963, they would still offend,” the suit reads. “But they did not occur in 1963, but rather in the present. And right here in the Big Apple. Indeed, these actions and this systemic racism was allowed to germinate and fester under the nose of the ostensibly progressive Mayor de Blasio administration for years.”
The plaintiffs allege that Black employees were passed over for promotions to supervisor in favor of white employees with fewer qualifications, some of whom hadn’t passed a civil service exam, and in at least one case were then forced to train them.
Two Black employees allege that when they brought their concerns to the Buildings Marshal, identified in the suit as Salvatore Agostino, the supervisor brushed off their concerns and demanded they address him as “sir,” which he never asked of white employees.
Agostino also allegedly told an employee that when it comes to promotions, “all that matters is whether I like you, not whether you do a good job.”
Source: AMNY
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In a recent episode of the New York Times podcast “The Daily,” an important reality about child care permeated the discussion: that for many families, access to quality child care requires significant financial resources. This is certainly the case in Minnesota, where the average cost of child care is more than $1,000 per month.
When looking deeper, we see how a lack of access to early childhood care and education is experienced across different communities – and how structural racism impacts access and quality.
Cost limits access
Structural racism impacts a family’s ability to access a quality early childhood care and education program. We see this through the average cost of care, coupled with racial and ethnic earnings disparities, which are larger in Minnesota than in the U.S. as a whole. (For instance, Black, Indigenous, Latine and Hmong workers in Minnesota have median annual earnings ranging from $27,900 to $35,000, while white workers have median earnings of $47,900.) These income disparities mean that Black, Indigenous and other parents of color have an even more difficult time affording child care than white parents.
Role of program funding
While Minnesota has state- and locally funded programs that help with the cost of child care, many eligible families are unable to access them due to insufficient funding. Among the children eligible based on their family’s income, 83% are not receiving early learning scholarships, 52% are not enrolled in Head Start and 94% are not enrolled in Early Head Start. The problem here is not lack of parental interest, but rather lack of funding.
Structure and schedule of licensed child care programs
The majority of licensed child care programs tend to be open from early morning to early evening. These hours of operation are a good fit for parents who work during that time frame (usually considered more white-collar, first-shift working hours), but that structure makes it next to impossible for parents to find care if they work jobs that have erratic or unpredictable hours. This varied schedule is a reality for parents who work low-wage jobs – jobs that are also unlikely to include employment benefits like paid time off. And Black, Indigenous, Latine, Asian Pacific Islander and other parents of color are more likely to be in low-wage jobs compared to white parents.
Source: Sahan Journal
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A group of universities and colleges from across Canada are signing a charter to fight anti-Black racism in post-secondary institutions.
The 22-page document requires those signing it to respect certain principles as they develop their own action plans to foster Black inclusion.
Referred to as the Scarborough Charter, the document was drafted by an advisory committee that emerged from an event hosted by the University of Toronto last year as anti-Black racism was in the international spotlight.
“There was an opportune moment for us to say, ‘well, there are a lot of statements being issued, but this may be the time for us to come together and do this together,” charter committee chair Wisdom Tettey said in an interview.
The committee asked universities and colleges for their feedback to refine the charter and met with several organizations and groups, including Universities Canada and the parliamentary Black caucus, said Tettey, vice-president of the University of Toronto.
Forty-six universities and colleges, including the country’s largest post-secondary institutions, are signing the charter virtually on Thursday.
They include the University of Toronto, McGill University, York University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Calgary and the University of Waterloo.
Tettey said more universities and colleges are expected to sign the charter in the near future. There are 96 publicly-funded universities and 139 publicly-funded colleges in Canada.
“We expect each partner institution to commit to the principles of black flourishing,” Tettey said.
“The idea of black flourishing is to make sure that our institutions are places where Black people, faculty, staff, students and community members can feel a sense of belonging, can see themselves in our mission and can be supported to flourish.”
At the University of Toronto, part of the school’s plan to remove barriers faced by Black students includes providing better mental-health support for them, Tettey said.
Source: Global News
Speaking at a White House news briefing Speaking at a White House news briefing Monday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg described how the recently passed federal spending bill would allow his agency to address a number of issues and problems marring Monday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg described how the recently passed federal spending bill would allow his agency to address a number of issues and problems marring the country’s infrastructure. In response to a question, he acknowledged that that potentially meant doing away with the racism that guided past decisions on how roads and bridges were built.
The question was asked because Buttigieg has mentioned those design decisions before.
“I’m still surprised that some people were surprised when I pointed to the fact that if a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a White and a Black neighborhood,” he said, “or if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly Black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach — or it would have been — in New York, was designed too low for it to pass by, that that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices. I don’t think we have anything to lose by confronting that simple reality.”
When the Hill shared a video of Buttigieg making that claim, it quickly (again) became a focus of mockery among right-wing commentators and some Republican politicians. But in short order, Buttigieg’s comments also served as an opportunity not only to elevate the specific story to which he was referring but the utility of educating Americans about a complicated history of systemic racism.
The secretary was referring to a story from Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker,” a book that is generally recognized as one of the premier examples of journalism in modern American history. It centers on Robert Moses, a mid-century New York City official who set out to reshape how the city’s residents moved — mostly successfully. In that book, Caro describes one particular goal of Moses’s: keeping poor Black people from busing to Long Island’s Jones Beach.
Source: The Washington Post
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Frederick Douglass is regarded as one of the most prominent abolitionists the world has ever seen. Alongside his extraordinary contributions as an influential speaker, writer and human rights advocate, Douglass – who was born into slavery and gained freedom in September 1838 – also wrote openly about his struggles with suicidal thoughts.
Douglass’ writings are both revolutionary and transformative, particularly when considering that he lived during a time when several anti-literacy laws prevented enslaved Blacks from learning to read and write.
Douglass published his first autobiography – “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” – in 1845. In it, he boldly shared, “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed.”
It’s not hard to imagine why formerly enslaved persons like Douglass would consider ending their own lives. It may, however, be harder for some to understand the links between racism, discrimination and thoughts of suicide among Black Americans today.
The United States abolished chattel slavery through the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. However, Black Americans are still grappling with the effects of both structural and everyday forms of racism that permeate U.S. customs, culture and laws.
As a researcher and assistant professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice, I explore how factors like discrimination, stigma and depression contribute to suicide risk in Black Americans. I also assess how positive psychological forces – like having a sense of life purpose or receiving social support from others – may improve an individual’s mental health outcomes.
Several studies have reported that exposure to discrimination is related to negative mental and physical health outcomes in Black Americans. These can include increased rates of depression, hypertension and sleep disturbance. Fewer studies have explored how racial discrimination is related to suicidal risk.
Source: Louisiana Illuminator
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 13.4% of Americans continue to work from home or telework amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A majority of them have no desire to return to the office full-time, but that number is particularly high for Black employees.
A survey by the Slack think tank Future Forum found only 3% of Black employees polled wanted to return to full-time in-person work, compared to 21% of white employees.
Tisha Held, an auditor at a large financial institution in Seattle and the only Black woman in her department, said the numbers are not surprising.
“I think [Black] people, having gone through this past year experiencing the constant cuts from microaggressions and the fatigue of living through the pandemic, are just tired,” she said.
Held said working from home has offered employees of color a refuge from workplace racism, including everything from subtle racist jabs to being overlooked for promotions.
“After having experienced some level of relief, they don’t want to go back,” she said.
The Future Forum survey found that when the pandemic hit and increasing numbers of Black employees began working from home, their ability to manage stress soared 64%, while their sense of belonging in the workplace jumped 50%.
Held said working from home allowed her to be her “whole self” in a way that she feels she cannot be in the office.
“I don’t think people realize that as a Black person, Black woman, that there’s a lot to consider when you just go and sit in the space. There’s already an idea of who you are as you walk into the room,” she said.
“You have to always be conscious of how you present to other people. ‘Am I being too loud? Am I fitting into very specific stereotypes?’”
The Future Forum survey concluded that employers can help ease the burden on Black employees and other employees of color by embracing flexible work.
“While flexible work alone is not a panacea, it is an essential starting point for moving away from many of the structural inequities that pervade the U.S. workplace,” the survey read.
Source: King 5
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