Teachers in NYPD Shirts: Racists or Heroes?
The importance of supporting the police in the classroom.
Hi there, teachers. I’ve heard that a group of you in Staten Island have bravely taken a stand for your Freedom of Speech.
From what I’ve read, your movement started after the head of the United Federation of Teachers participated in a march against police brutality, specifically in protest of the death of Eric Garner, who died when he was put in a chokehold by an NYPD officer.
But a lot of you weren’t very happy with your Union’s endorsement of the march, especially because Al Sharpton was present:
So, a bunch of you got together and decided that, in protest, you would wear custom-made NYPD shirts to school, to show support for the police. The Union caught wind of this, and sent out an email asking you not to do this, as ‘certain t-shirt messages may appear to be supportive, but individuals (parents, students) may see a different meaning in that message.’
So, because you want to exercise your political freedoms, you’ve decided to bravely defy the Union’s orders, and actually wear the t-shirts to school. In the classroom.
So, teachers, this is a letter to you. I’m probably younger than almost all of you, but I’ve seen some things.
And I want to tell you about a few things that are wrong with your political statement.
Here’s an outline of what I’ll be talking about:
1. This is lazy and uncreative,
2. You don’t seem to know what ‘support’ means,
3. This is dangerous,
4. This is hurting the students, and
5. This looks like thinly veiled racism.
So, let’s get into it:
1. This is lazy and uncreative.
I see that a lot of you are elementary teachers. My hat is off to you, seriously.
When I was still teaching high school, I always admired elementary school teachers. See, teaching high school is pretty easy. All you have to do is show up and talk. Given a good explanation, the average teenager can grasp the concept behind the algebraic x and y, or why the French Revolution happened, pretty quickly.
But little kids need much more patience. If you want to teach them history, you’re going to need to break out the crayons and color in some pictures of Abraham Lincoln. Want to explain fractions? Better help them make a pretend pie out of Play-Doh and divide it up with them. All I had to do was tell my students stuff, whereas elementary school education requires so much creativity.
That’s why I think that you ‘rebel’ teachers might need to find another profession. You’re the most uncreative and unimaginative educators I’ve ever seen.
You say that you want to support the NYPD, and the best idea you can come up with is to wear a shirt to school? Seriously?
You’re either disingenuous, or incompetent.
There are tons of ways not only to show support for police, but to encourage that support among your students. The easiest way to do that would be to give a police officer a chance to show their support of them. Have someone in uniform come in and hand out coloring books, and spend an afternoon coloring with the kids. Have them drop in and read at storytime.
Or, set up a field trip, and take them to a police-sponsored soccer game, or a cricket game. Teachers, do your kids know about the NYPD’s cricket league? Do you? This would be a great learning opportunity.
The NYPD has dozens of people whose sole job it is to improve community relations. They’re sitting by the phones now, teachers. They’re lonely, and their department is going through a PR nightmare. This is their time to shine. Give them a call. Their number is 718–834–8855.
These suggestions, however, are based on the assumption that you are actually interested in supporting police officers. But I’m afraid that’s not actually what’s going on here.
I’m afraid that this is just simple fear and lack of empathy — but I’ll get to that in a moment.
2. I don’t think you understand what ‘support’ means.
Really, what does ‘Support the Cops’ even mean to you?
Even Al Sharpton, who is apparently the demon in this play for you, was very clear when he said:
‘We are not against police, but those police who break the law must be held accountable.’
This seems pretty reasonable to me. It sounds like he’s on your side.
So who, precisely, are you fighting against?
I mean, really, think about it: do you actually believe that there’s an element of ‘anti-police’ out there that wields some sort of threatening political power? Is there someone you personally know that does not like the idea of feeling safe? Do you know anyone that actually wants to get stabbed? Have you ever had an acquaintance dial 911 in an emergency, and mutter under their breath: ‘Man, I hope those jerks don’t pick up?’
Don’t get me wrong: I know an awful lot of activists that spend time monitoring the police. Any time there’s a perceived wrongdoing, they’re out there in the streets and in the courts, protesting. Incidentally, I also know that there are a lot of police officers out there that actually appreciate this sort of thing, because it adds pressure on departments to make changes that are difficult for them as employees to make, because they’re afraid of losing their jobs by speaking out. To them, this protest is support.
Keep this in mind: most major policy changes in laws and police tactics have come from outside pressure.
I don’t think anyone in 2014 is angry at the women’s groups in the 1960s that were ‘unsupportive’ of police mishandling of sexual assault cases, and went on to push for reforms. Nor is anyone angry at the people that were ‘unsupportive’ of police beating women that were just trying to vote. Nor is anyone angry at the people who were ‘unsupportive’ of police firing water cannons at little girls that just wanted to sit at a lunch counter.
Sometimes, the best kind of ‘support’ we can give the police is a stern nudge in the right direction.
Teachers: I know some of you teach history. Please read some.
3. What you are doing is dangerous.
Want to know who I support? Restaurant waitstaff. I know that they do a tough, and often thankless job. But it’s never occurred to me to wear a shirt broadcasting my support. Instead, I show my support through my actions: I have my order ready when they come to take it, I thank them for bringing me my food, I don’t make a mess, and I always tip well.
What you’re doing, teachers, is something akin to going to a restaurant with an ‘I Support Waiters’ shirt on and then lobbing a grenade into the kitchen.
At their best, the police are a part of the community.
They live with the people that they serve. They are viewed with a mix of respect and caution, but mostly they are a welcome part of the neighborhood.
The NYPD as a whole isn’t doing a very good job of living up to that ideal right now, but I can pretty much guarantee that there are a few street cops that do care, and that are pretty annoyed with you right now. That’s because fabricating an imaginary ‘cops versus cop-haters’ mentality — which is what you are doing — is dangerous. Things like this do nothing but breed mistrust and suspicion between the police and the community.
There’s a basic fact that most police departments understand very well: if people don’t trust the police, they won’t call the police when something happens. That’s when it becomes easier for actual criminals to get a foothold, and for things to spiral out of control.
Given the choice, police prefer to prevent crime, rather than stop it when it’s happening.
It’s easier to break up and fine a trio of drug dealers today, than to try to send in a SWAT team to shut down a violent citywide operation a few years down the line. Not only is it easier, it’s safer — for the police, and for everyone. Nobody wants to be the guy that has to knock on Mr. Johnson’s door to apologize for the stray bullet that killed his baby, and nobody wants to make the phone call to somebody’s kids to tell them why Officer Mommy isn’t coming home from work today.
But by attempting to mask your annoyance with black activists with police ‘support,’ you’re making the police seem like a universally oppressive force. Which hey, maybe that’s the world you want — but let’s at least keep up the happy charade for the kids, no?
Trust me, teachers of Staten Island: the police don’t need this kind of support from you. They’re used to a bit of occasional suspicion, just like you’re used to kids mouthing off at you before recess. It’s part of the job. And any officer that isn’t emotionally tough enough to deal with a bit of scrutiny has no business with a gun and a badge, just like any teacher that doesn’t have the empathy to understand that some of their kids might be emotionally vulnerable right now has no business in front of a classroom.
So, teachers, if you actually support the police — make their job easier. Build some bridges. Don’t burn them down.
4. This is hurting the students.
A few years ago, I was teaching a literature class in a poor neighborhood. I had a student — I’ll call him Kevin — who I liked a lot. He wasn’t the best writer, but he worked hard. He knew I expected a lot of my students, and he didn’t want to let me down.
At one point, I noticed that something was off. He had stopped turning in homework, and when he wasn’t acting up in class, he was asleep. One day after class, I pulled him aside and asked him what was up. He shook his head a few times, but I kept pushing. Eventually he looked up at me, and started crying. ‘I got kicked out of my house,’ he said. ‘My mom’s boyfriend kicked me out, and my mom can’t do anything about it because he gets violent. I’ve been homeless for a week.’
What I did or did not do for him after that isn’t relevant here. What is relevant is that Kevin felt comfortable telling me something that was absolutely terrifying to him. I was the closest thing to a trustworthy adult (I was 22, he was 17) that he knew.
That’s why, when Jamil Smith of MSNBC posted this tweet,
I got worried. I got worried because I knew that a lot of people might miss what he was saying. This isn’t about kids being unwilling to learn from a teacher they disagree with. It’s far worse.
At some point this year, one of these kids is going to have a problem at home. It might be abuse, or domestic violence. Maybe someone has a drug problem. Maybe they’re feeling rejected and alone, and are thinking of hurting themselves.
For a lot of these kids, a teacher is the only adult they can trust.
Kids have been seeing a lot of scary images on television this summer. They’ve heard about Ferguson, they’ve heard about Eric Garner. Some of them may have relatives who have had negative experiences with police. They’ve got doubts and questions, and they’re coming to school hoping to find some answers, or at least a safe space to exist.
And you’re denying them that safe space.
For the art and math teachers out there, let me show you some numbers and pictures so that you can see what I mean.
First, here’s the picture that a bunch of the teachers and staff at P.S. 220 took:
And now here are the student demographics of P.S. 220:
Does this concern you at all? It should.
By the way, I also notice that the person who started the Facebook group encouraging this protest is Kelly Carbonaro, who works at P.S. 56.
And here are the stats for P.S. 56:
Does it not occur to you, Ms. Carbonaro, that some of those black kids might be a little nervous about police right now, considering that they’ve seen the dead bodies of people that look like them on the news?
Does it not occur to you that some of these Native or Latino kids might be a little nervous about police right now, considering that their big brothers are getting hassled on the street?
Does it not occur to you that one of those Asian kids in your class might know 84-year-old Mr. Wong, who ended up bleeding all over the pavement after a police officer shoved him because he didn’t understand English?
Does it not occur to you that some of those white kids might be hearing these scary stories from their above-mentioned friends, and have a hard time understanding why you would push their friends away?
You are teachers. You are heroes.
You should understand that by wearing an NYPD shirt to class, which serves to do nothing other than alienate a kid that might be feeling frightened by police right now, you’re shutting down the possibility for conversation and learning. You’re not only hurting a kid’s chance at learning, but you may very well be putting her in harms way by burning a very needed bridge.
Teachers: this isn’t about freedom of speech or ‘politics’ or ‘support’ of one ‘side’ or another. This is about you as educators failing to understand that your profession is not simply a transfer of knowledge. It is one that requires — no, demands — that you be a hero for your students.
And you are turning your backs on the students that need you most.
5. You’re being racist bullies.
Last thing: I think this ‘support’ of police is simply a cover-up for your annoyance at black people asking America to take notice of the fact that there are some bad things happening to them.
Seriously, people: you’re elementary school teachers. You should understand the importance of context, and audience. Who is the enemy you are trying to shut down here?
You do realize that most of the people that will see your shirt on Monday still wet the bed, right?
I don’t think wearing the shirts is a great idea, but if you want to show up to a union meeting en masse with your ‘I Support the NYPD’ shirts, that would be not only fine, but it would probably be effective. That is, you’ll be able to make a statement to people that have some sort of power to make a change.
But instead, you’ve chosen a completely powerless and irrelevant audience.
What sort of statement are you trying to make to these children? Are you afraid to actually stand up to your union, and are instead taking out your frustrations on a group of children?
Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?
But yo, I understand what you are doing.
Nobody wants to be anti-anything. That’s why we have terms like pro-life and pro-choice — nobody wants to be anti-life or anti-choice. So, we hide our biases with ‘positivity,’ saying that we’re ‘for’ something, rather than admitting that we have negative feelings about something: blacks, in your case.
Really, it reminds me of the Ferguson GoFundMe controversy, where a bunch of internet nerds on 4chan baited lonely, scared racists into making international headlines by posting angry, racist messages.
The racists thought that this was an opportunity to hide their anger and fear of black people with an empty (but financial) display of ‘support’. A kind of indulgence, if you will.
And, teachers, I’m afraid you’ve fallen into the same trap. You have been lured into thinking that your inability to empathize with your fellow (young) human beings can be masked by a half-hearted ‘support’ of whatever you think the antithesis of black people is.
But it can’t.
You’re not fooling any of us. And more importantly, you’re not fooling your students. They see right through your facade, and what they see is scaring them. So, teachers, I ask you to please make a choice:
Take your job seriously, or take yourself to another job.
talk to me if you like: @dexdigi
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Header image via Al Jazeera.
