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Why Racism Remains Alive in Public Education
It’s not going anywhere because it’s built into the system
I am a reader and watcher of the news. Before cell phones gave us instant access to the world’s news, I was an ’80s kid watching Tom Brokaw on the evening news. He did that job from when I was eleven in 1982 until I was thirty-three in 2004. Today, the news is relayed instantly to my smartphone.
Usually, as part of my morning routine, I check my morning summary for the day’s early headlines or exciting news tidbits. One particular story caught my attention because it was about racism in a public school, and it occurred practically in my backyard—three hours from home in Illinois.
I was stunned by what I listened to in the video, but I was not surprised. A white student in a local Minooka, Illinois, high school used an app to make whipping noises toward two Black students. There was an image of a bullwhip on the phone. The teens said it made them feel uncomfortable and that the white student was yelling horrible words at them and calling them monkeys. The…
