Schools are supposed to be a safe haven for students, a place where students come to learn and socialize with their fellow peers. Yet, when schools do not provide these spaces, America has decided to make it worse for these students.
Instead of fostering a community, conservatives across the country have been trying to maintain the status quo education system out of fear of white guilt. This is not only unacceptable but further evidence of the failures of the American education system.
Southlake
Recently, the district of Southlake, a suburb in Texas, has been the center of much controversy of racial discussions in class. The attempt to have a more inclusive school environment has been met with mass backlash from parents who disagree with the school’s stance.
Specifically, at the mention of a new diversity plan, “parents have packed school board meetings to condemn what the plan had proposed: new rules and lessons that would put more emphasis on race and diversity.”
Students, on the other hand, have been more welcoming of this change. After experiencing years of racial violence at the hand of fellow classmates, Southlake activists have recognized the need for change. However, the pushback from parents truly underscores the absurdity of modern American education.
Instead of recognizing that maybe a “viral video of white high schoolers chanting the N-word” should warrant a change in the school’s inclusion policy, parents seemed to double down on the continuation of an unsafe environment for minority students.
In fact, well-off families even funded a “local campaign to kill the diversity plan and win control of the school board” to ensure the continuation of the current system.
‘You no longer get to implement your woke agenda on Carroll ISD,’ a mother, Tara Eddins, said during public comments this spring. ‘You need to resign, or we will continue to breathe fire upon this corrupt school board.’
Clearly, the current system is failing when minority students do not feel safe to enter school as the fear of racial comments looms over each and every one of their heads.
It is even more ludicrous considering all the school wants to do is to ensure the diversity and inclusion of students who attend the school district. Yet, conservatives fail to differentiate it from real critical race theory.
Southlake serves as a prime example of the broader thesis claim of the decline in the American political system. A system that somehow politicizes the inclusion of minority students.
Conclusion
While I applaud school districts trying to make schools safe for minority students, they should not conform to racists. Southlake is the biggest example of how bigotry has infiltrated American education and that needs to change.
If we do not move away from the racism embedded in the education system, then society is no different than it was 100 years ago. We still have a long ways to go, let’s not stop short of inclusive education reform.