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
Also Read: Private preschools are teaching the future elite to be racist
Wokeness has come to New York City elite private schools. It has infested everything, from social interactions to math.
A few weeks ago, teachers at Manhattan’s Brick Church School read “Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race” to several classes. In its lessons on racism, all the racists are, of course, white.
One typical line: “A long time ago, way before you were born, a group of white people made up an idea called race.” The idea that people didn’t notice each other’s skin color or features until white people made them is, of course, absurd.
“Our Skin” aims to “empower activism in young children” and encourages them to attend protests. This is really the point of such books: to turn kids into little soldiers in the war to implement leftism.
This type of woke nonsense has been prevalent at New York elite schools for the last year. After the atrocious killing of George Floyd by a police officer, schools threw money at consultants and lesson plans to insulate them from accusations of racism.
By the way: Brick Church is a preschool. Parents report that teachers read the book to children as young as 3.
Founded in 1940, Brick Church charges $26,700. Getting admitted is difficult. Two-year-olds compete for spots.
Parents told me they chose Brick for the preparatory academic experience that would get their child ready for school and this veering into woke philosophy has them worried.
The school tried to address their concerns in a letter to parents: “As you may know, last week teachers in two classrooms read students a portion of a book, ‘Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race.’ The first part of the book reflects on skin color and supports the school’s goal to celebrate our differences, including the beautiful spectrum of skin colors represented at our school. The teachers did not read (and so the students did not hear) the second part of the book, which delves into the history of race and racism.”
Parents say this is a lie and, anyway, even the first part of the book isn’t appropriate for small children.
The woke wave has submerged private schools.
Source: New York Post
Also Read: As parents protest critical race theory, students fight racist behavior at school
During the first week of October, Brooklyn Edwards was in the school gymnasium during her lunch period when she said a classmate took a piece of cotton out of his pocket, tossed it on the ground, and told her to pick it.
Brooklyn, 15, described the incident a month later at the Johnston County, North Carolina, school board meeting. She said she’d dealt with racist bullying frequently as a Black student at Princeton Middle/High School, in a majority-white small town southeast of Raleigh. Classmates called her racial slurs, she said, including in front of teachers who failed to react. One classmate suggested she kill herself, so she might be reborn as a white girl, Brooklyn said.
“It’s bad enough we have to deal with racism in the real world. We shouldn’t have to deal with it in school,” she told the school board, pleading with them to investigate racial harassment in the district. “I’m speaking up for the ones that are too scared to speak up for themselves.”
After sharing her experiences at the board meeting, “I felt relieved and glad they finally knew what was going on,” Brooklyn said in a recent interview, “but I had a lot of doubt they were going to do anything.”
Kaiulani Moses, Brooklyn’s mother, said it was disheartening to see the Johnston County school board focused on a different issue this fall: ensuring that critical race theory, an academic concept that examines how racism is perpetuated through policies and institutions, is not taught in schools. She believes that sent the wrong message to students who bullied their classmates and the teachers and administrators tasked with ensuring safety.
“It has made these children and some personnel and administrators at this school feel protected,” Moses said. The district is one of hundreds nationwide where some parents and conservative activists demanded that schools block classroom discussions of “white privilege,” cut back on equity training for teachers and stop hiring diversity consultants. The Johnston County Board of Commissioners promised in June to release $7.9 million in school funding if the district banned critical race theory, which administrators said schools did not teach.
Source: NBC News
Also Read: ‘Racism, Violence Won’t be Tolerated’: US School Backs Teacher Targeted by Abusive Student
The scientific evidence is crystal clear: Early experiences literally shape the architecture of the developing brain. This widespread understanding is driving increased public support for universal pre-K to enhance school readiness for all children and level the playing field for kids who face adversity. But here’s something that’s less well-known by the public: Since the brain is connected to the rest of the body, early experiences affect all of our biological systems, for better or worse, beginning in utero and all the crucial years that follow.
This broader message is sending an important wake-up call: We all need to start paying closer attention to the science that explains how excessive adversity can undermine lifelong health as well as early learning. This knowledge can help us better understand why people of color in the United States are at greater risk of developing chronic medical conditions and aging prematurely than white people.
Given growing evidence of the early origins of disparities in both physical and mental health, focusing on brain development and learning alone confronts only one dimension of the pervasive inequalities linked to racism that loom over American society. Case in point: Although gaps in academic achievement between Black and white children have decreased by 30 percent to 40 percent since the 1970s, reducing racial disparities in health has been more challenging. For example, preterm birth and low birth weight, which are associated with greater risk for later cardiovascular disease and diabetes, occur at a rate that is approximately 1.5 to 1.6 times higher for non-Hispanic Blacks compared with non-Hispanic whites — and those gaps have persisted for decades.
Mounting scientific evidence is telling us that the foundations of lifelong health are built during the prenatal period and early infancy. Factors that promote positive outcomes include supportive relationships, safe physical environments and sufficient resources to meet basic needs such as food and shelter. Take away any of these protective factors or add the weight of excessive hardship or threat outside the family, and you tip the scale toward a greater risk of later problems.
Source: Knowable Magazine
Also Read: More Black families are homeschooling their children, citing the pandemic and racism
It’s a common perception that white, evangelical families are the most likely to homeschool their children. But a growing number of Black families have started teaching their kids at home — especially during the pandemic. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey found that in April 2020, 3% of Black households homeschooled their children, and by October 2020 it was up to 16%.
Those numbers may not be completely accurate, the Bureau noted, because a lot of children were learning at home in 2020. So partway through the survey period, the homeschooling question was expanded to clarify that homeschoolers did not include children enrolled in public or private school. Even so, the numbers signal a significant increase.
Joyce Burges, the founder of National Black Home Educators, said that since 2020, thousands of families have joined her organization.
“I think you’re going to see more and more parents, Black parents, homeschooling their children like never before,” Burges said.
“COVID was the catalyst”
Didakeje Griffin in Birmingham, Ala., is one of them. When she and her husband realized their kids wouldn’t be going back to public school in March 2020, they knew they had to make a change.
“It was like a light bulb moment,” Griffin said. “Ultimately, what I realized is that the pandemic just gave us an opportunity to do what we needed to do anyway, which is homeschooling.”
The mother of two said she’d always coached her kids at home to keep them on track. But three things made her decide to officially start homeschooling. First, she wanted her children to be safe from bullies. She also wanted them to understand their cultural history. The third factor was freedom.
“I want to have time to cultivate my children’s African-American, their Nigerian history and culture in them first, before anybody tries to tell them who they are,” Griffin said. COVID was the catalyst, “but it has not been the reason that we kept going.”
Source: KRVS
Also Read: Student’s racist, slur-filled video leads to school walkout and larger reckoning
Students brought their stories of sexual harassment and racist bullying Thursday night to Minnesota leaders, who promised them they were heard.
The students described groups of bullies whom they say have not been dealt with properly and who continue with their behavior, at a forum held at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Bloomington. The harrowing stories were heard by hundreds of people, including Minnesota politicians.
The event, hosted by the Minnesota Justice Coalition, was prompted by a disturbing video posted by a Prior Lake High School student depicting another student bullying her and using a racial slur several times.
Soon after the video surfaced on social media, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community condemned it and said one of the girls in the video was a member of its community.
The video also prompted students in similar situations to gather and share their experiences, asking those in power to do more to stop bullying.
At the forum, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan applauded the Prior Lake High School student for sharing her experience, calling her a courageous young woman. Flanagan, who is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and Minnesota’s first Native statewide elected official, said anti-Blackness exists in Native American and other nonwhite communities and that nuance needs to be brought to the conversation.
“We have to commit to doing everything we can in our power to ensure that no child in this state has to go to school and experience harm,” she said.
Prior Lake High School student My’a Calvert, 16, said her experiences gave her fear, anxiety and a severe eating disorder.
“Anonymous pages have been made up about me, calling me the N-word and telling me to take my life because I’m Black,” My’a said, adding other students threw objects at her because she was friends with a white boy. “I never felt safe at school after these events.”
Source: Star Tribune
Also Read: Student’s racist, slur-filled video leads to school walkout and larger reckoning
Some Black students are being told they stink while others are being called monkeys by their White peers. The n-word has been written on the walls of school restrooms as other students are the targets of racist rants on social media.
Students of color are facing racial slurs and bullying in and outside the classroom, and many who are fed up have been walking out of class, speaking at board meetings, and even suing school districts.
In Minnesota, a 14-year-old Black girl spoke in front of a crowd to condemn a video widely shared online that she said encouraged her to take her own life. Meanwhile, a community in Utah is scrutinizing a school district after the family of a Black and autistic student said she was bullied by classmates before dying by suicide.
As some lawmakers and parents attempt to limit teachings about racism and schools’ diversity and inclusion efforts are met with protests, numerous reports of racist bullying have recently surfaced in classrooms from coast to coast.
“It’s everywhere, it’s not a new thing. This isn’t something that is just now happening. It’s just now getting attention, more than it has (gotten) before,” Sean Sorkoram, a high school student in Tigard, Oregon, who was part of a walkout on Wednesday, told CNN affiliate KPTV.
Students at Tigard High School staged the walkout in protest of a video posted on social media that appears to show students using racial slurs. In October, the Tigard-Tualatin School District said reports of hate speech incidents were rising in its schools.
“Students are reporting that they have been the victim of hate speech or observed firsthand hate incidents happening in our buildings,” Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith wrote in a message to parents.
Source: Madison 365
Sandra Bullock is opening up about how she talks to her two children about race.
The actress, 57, appears on Wednesday’s episode of Red Table Talk alongside Willow Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, where she discusses how she approaches conversations about society and race with her children Louis, 11, and Laila, 8, both of whom she welcomed via adoption.
“As a white parent who loves her children more than life itself, I’m scared of everything,” she admits. “I know I’m laying all kinds of existential anxiety on them. I have to think about what they’re gonna experience leaving the home. They’re gonna have my fear. But how can I make sure that my anxiety is accurate, protective.”
“With Lou being a young Black man, at one point, sweet, funny Lou is gonna be a young man. And the minute he leaves my home, I can’t follow him everywhere, though I will try,” she continues. “I will try, and I’m joking, but I’m not. I don’t know what I will do, but I pray and pray and pray that I have done a good enough job, scared them sufficiently.”
Bullock says that she’s been “schooling” her son since he was 6 years old. “He popped that hoodie on his head, and I went, ‘Ah ugh,’ ” she recalls. “And I said, ‘Let me just explain.’ ”
“I let him see everything on television. I let him process it. He knows how the world works. He knows how cruel it is. He knows how unfair it is,” Bullock continues, adding that now daughter Laila is “knowing it” too.
The star says her daughter recently saw Bullock’s partner Bryan Randall watching Netflix’s Squid Game and “walked out of the room and she was depressed.”
“I was like, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘I don’t want Dad to watch that.’ ‘I’m not watching it. It’s violent. Of course you shouldn’t be.’ She goes, ‘No, because there’s no Black people in it,’ ” Bullock recalls. “The fact that there was fire in her belly made me so happy that she was already voicing.”
Source: People
When her 10-year-old daughter tried spraying air freshener on herself before school one morning, Brittany Tichenor-Cox suspected something was wrong with the sweet little girl whose beaming smile had gone dormant after she started the fifth grade.
She coaxed out of Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor that a boy in her class told her she stank after their teacher instructed the class that they needed to shower. It was the latest in a series of bullying episodes that targeted Izzy, who was autistic and the only Black student in class. Other incidents included harassment about her skin color, eyebrows and a beauty mark on her forehead, her mother said.
Tichenor-Cox informed the teacher, the school and the district about the bullying. She said nothing was done to improve the situation. Then on Nov. 6, at their home near Salt Lake City, Izzy died by suicide.
Her shocking death triggered an outpouring of anger about youth suicides, racism in the classroom and the treatment of children with autism — issues that have been highlighted by the nation’s racial reckoning and a renewed emphasis on student mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Utah, the suicide also intensified questions about the Davis School District, which was recently reprimanded by the Justice Department for failing to address widespread racial discrimination.
The district, where Black and Asian American students account for roughly 1% of the approximately 73,000 students, initially defended its handling of the bullying allegations but later launched an outside investigation that is ongoing.
“When I was crying out for help for somebody to do something, nobody even showed up for her,” Tichenor-Cox said this week in an interview with The Associated Press. “It just hurts to know that my baby was bullied all day throughout school — from the time I dropped her off to the time I picked her up.”
Source: Pennlive
Also Read: ‘No one wanted me there’: Family speaks up about racist bullying in Westfield schools
What good has ever come from avoiding — or forbidding — teaching and talking about history and current events in school? Not much.
Yet, over half a dozen states recently passed laws banning teachers from including vital discussions about race and racism in America. Other states and school boards are following suit.
The result: important lessons are getting shelved. For example, critics called for schools to ditch an autobiography about Ruby Bridges who integrated her New Orleans school, saying it made white students feel uncomfortable. This an important story about a part of America’s history, its progress, commitment to equality and resilience.
Likewise, critics argued a book about an immigrant family’s effort to integrate California schools promotes prejudice among children, despite its clear message: Racism is wrong.
It’s hard to believe it’s come to this. Book banning is anti-American, and these efforts threaten to seriously undermine K-12 education, the well-being of our students and democracy.
Proponents of the laws are pushing for them under the guise of opposing a legal and academic framework, Critical Race Theory. It is more likely a reactionary stance to recent racial justice movements that exposed inequities in U.S. institutions, including schools.
The research is clear that talking about race is beneficial for all students. A new resource from The Aspen Institute explains the research base surrounding race in education and why the new laws are harmful.
For starters, saying children don’t see race is simply untrue. Infants as young as 9 months old show awareness of race and ethnicity, and preschool children fully understand social categories like race and gender. A study commissioned by Sesame Workshop showed 86% of children ages 6-11 think people in the U.S. are treated unfairly based on race.
Source: cjonline
