My prepared remarks for the Southlake Carroll ISD school board meeting tonight:
I won’t waste my brief time sharing all of the painful memories I experienced as a young person of color in this school district.
You have made it abundantly clear that your interests are not in protecting marginalized students and families here (as evidenced by this in-person board meeting during a global pandemic disproportionately harming communities of color).
Your priority is the comfort of the White opposition.
Since your bottom line seems to be, well – the bottom line, I’ll focus on what you do seem to care about.
In your refusal to pass the Cultural Competency Action Plan, you are not just condoning and perpetuating the traumatization of your underrepresented Black, Brown, and LGBTQ students, you are also putting their overprivileged White classmates at a terrible disadvantage and limiting their potential to thrive.
While you are fighting to protect an antiquated tradition, the world outside the bubble is changing. The world that one day your White students will grow up and have to participate in.
Nike, Apple, Netflix, Gucci – businesses and corporations everywhere are making public commitments to do better, advance racial justice, and say unequivocally that Black Lives Matter.
Someday… when prestigious corporations start deciding not to build their headquarters in Southlake,
or successful families of color choose to live elsewhere,
or the White students who you opted not to teach about microaggressions start losing their jobs because they were never held accountable for them,
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
This isn’t a request.
This is a courtesy- a heads up.
You can either pass the CCAP and start the hard, but rewarding process of unlearning and transformation, which will truly benefit all students…
or you can be irrelevant while the rest of the world moves forward.
Further reading: Southlake Carroll School District Gets an “F” in Racial Equity