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Black at Boston Latin School: 'And when slavery comes up, they all turn to you'
By adamg on Wed, 01/20/2016 - 7:57am
Black students at Boston Latin School have started a campaign against the racism they say persists at the nation's oldest public school.
In a YouTube video, organizers Kylie Webster Cazeau and Meggie Noel pointed to examples that range from the annoying to the infuriating - and urge other students to post examples under the hashtag #blackatbls:
"When you're the only black student in your AP US history course and when slavery comes up, they all turn to you," Cazeau says. She continues that when she collected "racial slurs and negative things about students of color" tweeted by white BLS students and printed them out and gave that to BLS Headmaster Lynne Mooney Teta, she did "nothing about it."
Responding - on Twitter - to the campaign, Mooney Teta writes:
Thank you #BLACKatBLS for bringing your concerns forward. Eager to work together to create a better BLS climate for all.
Some other examples cited by students on Twitter:
That one time I had to do in house suspension for cutting school because a Teacher saw a black girl exiting the bldg #ItWasntMe
"Can you come to Westie to work on the group project cause my mom said I'm not allowed in Dorchester"
"I don't know how to describe you, you speak too white to be ghetto"
When your people's history is completely disregarded
when people tell you you'll get into college only because you're black
when your teacher calls you the name of three different black girls in the grade cause y'all "look exactly alike"
When your peers are shocked at your success because they've let stereotypes define our degree of intelligence
When POC are the majority at every other BPS high school except for the one with the most opportunity
When you can't even have a hashtag voicing your experiences without white people somehow taking offense
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Easier said than done
Because when black kids try to explain things from their perspective, they are met with hand waving and denials that their condition and history might be in any way troublesome.
The worst is being Irish in a room full of irish-americans
Those plastic paddies are insufferable, Everytime green beer and leprechauns are mentioned, they turn to you to provide a link to the ancestry they thought they had some kind of connection to. Then their incessant straw-man, anecdotal and fake concern trolling. It was almost enough to drive me to drink.
That's nice dear
That's nice dear. You can sit down now.
So can you
.
Naw, time to stand up again
Since when do mothers who work full time ever get that privilege for more than a few minutes?
You're funny. But, please, go right back to explaining to these kids what their experiences really are like.
A classmate said the same thing to me...
Twenty years ago when she was not allowed to come to my birthday party. I am white, and to be frank, her mother's knowledge of Dorchester was limited to shootings and gangs in the news, not the lovely section where I lived. The mother wasn't racist, but was practical and acting out of concern for her kid's safety.
Actually
It sort of sounds like she was.
How so?
n/t
Practical does not mean what you think it means.
An accepted definition would be "of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas." Not "Looks at the Map of Boston provided by some guy from Wellesley and sees the largest neighborhood in the city labeled "Beirut/Somalia/Eritrea 84"."
I could tell her that I (anecdotally) felt safe growing up in Dorchester. From fields corner, to Florida St and finally to the green quiet pastures of Neponset but she wouldn't believe me and would probably wonder why my parents couldn't afford to live in a better neighborhood.
Interestingly
I used to work at the YMCA on Huntington Avenue (5-10 years ago) and I often had parents come in and ask me a question about some program or other:
Me: Oh, we don't offer (that program/that time) here, but it's available at our Roxbury branch.
African-American Parent: No, I live closer to that branch but I come here because it's safer, I don't want my kid hanging out in Roxbury.
I always found it kind of amusing. Had I declared Roxbury an unsafe neighborhood, I'd have been slammed for being racist and privileged. Meanwhile, the families who lived there felt quite comfortable saying they did not feel it was a safe neighborhood for children, fully out in public in earshot of everyone.
(And yes, there are nice areas of Roxbury!)
A Mean Racist Teacher
In 1978, at my Massachusetts High School, my History teacher was handing out essay assignments.
He said in front of the entire class (I was the only Black student) I am giving Miss M the topic of Slavery, because she can interview her mammy and pappy, and write about the pickaninnies. He laughed, along with some students. I was so angry and hurt.
I reported him to the principal, He was made to apologise to me in the principal's office, then in front of the class.
then he gave me a D on my report because he thought I was to 'emotional' in my summary of Slavery.
I again complained, the principal read my essay and he was told to give me an A. He gave me an A- because of spelling errors.
I told him to kiss my black ass, and dared him to turn me in.
He was a racist red faced man. He would look the other way when he saw me.
I'm sure some students are facing racism and bigotry today.
Years later I saw him, and he looked old and miserable. I actually felt sorry for him and his pathetic bigotry.
He remembered me when approached him and I spoke to him.
The look on his face....priceless.
Since BLS is an exam school,
Since BLS is an exam school, does that mean whoever scores the best on the exam gets in?
Yes
When combined with grades.
BLS insider POV
To address the user who asked "since BLS is an exam school don't the students with the best test scores get in?"
In theory that is how it works, but I'm a BLS student and I can tell you that as someone that lives in a predominantly white neighborhood and went to a very white elementary school, the ISEE (the test one takes to get it) is unfair because kids from 'white neighborhoods,' for the most part, are far far far more likely to be able to either attend private schools with much better resources for test prep, or to get tutors or go to prep class that teach them how to ace the test (or both). I've also spoken to many friends who said that their schools, mostly other Boston Public Schools (usually in much less affluent and majority black and Latino neighborhoods of Boston), did not even inform them of the test at all, so they had no chance. Some of their schools even discouraged them from taking it because they were so underfunded and did not want to lose more students. My own privileged and majority white school was adamant on vigorously preparing us, so right from there I had an unfair advantage.
Assuming people will argue this all has to do with class and not race, you must not know Boston very well. The neighborhoods are (majority) extremely segregated by race, and the white ones are almost always unbelievably wealthier and have more resources than neighborhoods predominantly of people of color (especially immigrants). We were recently named the U.S. city with the most income inequality, with our average white family having a net worth averaging around $250,000 compared to around $7,000 for black families. (These and other appalling facts can be found here http://www.wbur.org/2016/01/14/boston-income-inequality-brookings-2016-u...) Class and race are clearly very much related in Boston, and this actually relates even more to the ISEE because parents forced to work longer hours or multiple jobs are often much less able to be involved in their kids' academic lives, which numerous studies have shown is a major factor in students' performance, especially at an elementary level. So the grades AND test scores, the only factors BLS considers for admittance, are essentially rigged in more privileged students' favor. And these students tend to be disproportionately white.
Boston's class and racial disparities are very much reflected at my school which, although 'public,' has maybe 2 black students in almost all of my classes. BLS doesn't look like Boston; many of my classes resemble West Roxbury. And the faculty is even less diverse, with BLS having a history of actually violating or 'adjusting' diversity quotas for staff because we don't meet them. The demographics, attitudes, and denial clearly reflect that BLS B.L.A.C.K.'s campaign is a necessary catalyst for much needed change.
To address other users:
No one is attacking white INDIVIDUALS for existing, we are attacking WHITE SUPREMACY
This city has an ugly history with racism (read: bussing circa 1974-late 1980's where students of color were called slurs, attacked, and had rocks thrown at their buses. It was ugly on both sides but the power structure supported the white schools and perpetrators. Plenty of data and testimony to back this up.)
And just because you aren't a 'Southie millennial starting race riots' (which, speaking of busing, during this time Southie race riots were a very real and very scary thing, go on youtube), doesn't mean that you aren't part of the problem if after people inform you of this all happening you feel uncomfortable and get defensive and now knowingly go on contributing to the status quo.
***sorry I made a minor typo,
***sorry I made a minor typo, last paragraph is supposed to read
...doesn't mean that you aren't part of the problem *UNLESS* after people inform you of this all happening you feel uncomfortable and get defensive and now knowingly go on contributing to the status quo.
oops edit #2, the stat I
oops edit #2, the stat I quoted about white and black family net worth is not in that article. We just had a City Councilor speak at our school for MLK day and although I am almost sure those were the numbers, (they were outrageous), I would have to double check.
Thanks, Stella...
... for sharing your "inside information."
A question for you.
Would you be willing to give up your seat at BLS and switch with a minority student from, say, Dorchester Academy?
The truth is, you wouldn't. My problem with millennials is that they're so quick to tell others what they should be doing, how to feel, what we should be comfortable/uncomfortable with, but are willing to sacrifice NOTHING. Instead, you want to pretend you know everything (when you know nothing about real life) and prove how smart you think you are (do you really think you're teaching people here something when you say that busing was very real and very scary?).
For those from elsewhere
West Roxbury is part of the City of Boston. It's more white than the city as a whole (approximately 73% versus 54% for all Boston). If the proportion of black students in a class drops from the 22% that would represent the city's demographics to 10% or less, that is notable, and deserves inquiry, but it should not be as startling as other facts about our public school system that people just seem to take for granted.
What should be more surprising to everybody is how lower schools in Boston are almost uniformly majority-minority, much farther from the demographic of the city as a whole than is BLS. The spectacle of public schools in the Boston area that are 99% Black and Hispanic should startle us much more than a class at BLS having only two black students, but it doesn't. We accept that amount of statistical divergence much more readily.
What has happened in this situation could be seen from a different optic - not that BLS is unusually racist, but that these young ladies have gone to artificially segregated schools up until this point, when they arrived at a school with a strikingly more diverse social base than their elementary schools, more similar to the rest of the city, state, and country.
Very often people seem to forget that minorities are called that because there are fewer of them. This country is roughly 80% white (Massachusetts is about 83% white). This country is about 13% black (MA: 8%). This means that in most places these young ladies go in their lives (assuming they do not stick to segregated areas like Boston's elementary schools), they will be in the minority, perhaps sometimes even the only black person. I don't mean to diminish their feeling of shock, but it's probably beneficial to them to have had this experience in high school rather than having it put off until college.
Boston's demographics were heavily affected by the busing debacle, leading to white flight, but at this point the African-American population in Boston is declining while the white population is increasing. We shouldn't expect this to be the last time someone comes up against stark demographic realities in our city's schools; in fact, I expect more conflict in the future as more public schools are desegregated.
You nail it, Stella.
Thank you for such an astute post--I really think you tackle a lot of very important points here.
The problem is from those that think they're white
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2015/09/what-ta-nehisi-coates-tau...
Guess what...
Guess what...
It's okay that ANYONE take offense. I'm thrilled that when someone hurls homophobic slurs that SOMEONE takes offense besides myself. I take offense if someone says derogatory things about people who are black, or Jewish, or Puerto Rican. Having empathy for others is a GOOD thing. You want to say nasty things about my Native American friend, about being a drunk, getting into state schools for free, well you can just go screw yourself then. Pitting one student against another based on any creed is just dividing kids in Boston city schools and it's a huge negative. Look out for one another.
Guess what?
You missed the point entirely.
Great job
Keep up the great work ladies and stay strong!!! I respect the movement... Dont let negativity hold you back n by pass the negative comments under your video.
These quotes hurt my eyes, here's why
"That one time I had to do in house suspension for cutting school because a Teacher saw a black girl exiting the bldg #ItWasntMe"
-Could happen to any other kid of a different race just as easily.
"Can you come to Westie to work on the group project cause my mom said I'm not allowed in Dorchester"
-Dorchester is a great place, but there are some bad areas. I wouldn't let my sixie daughter/son walk through Uphams Corner. There's nothing unreasonable or racist because of that.
"I don't know how to describe you, you speak too white to be ghetto"
-Just like white people are called out for speaking "white" and asian people for speaking with a "chinese accent".
"When your people's history is completely disregarded"
-It's not
"when people tell you you'll get into college only because you're black"
-Colleges take more minorities, but white people are told that they won't get benefits just because they're white, and oftentimes asian people are told they have to try harder since there are so many well-scoring asians.
"when your teacher calls you the name of three different black girls in the grade cause y'all "look exactly alike"
-At my time at BLS this has always happened with Asian students more often, and it happens with white and black students both.
"When your peers are shocked at your success because they've let stereotypes define our degree of intelligence"
-When an Asian kid gets a good grade on an assessment and people say things such as "It's because he/she is asian".
"When POC are the majority at every other BPS high school except for the one with the most opportunity"
-If you don't score high enough on the test, you don't get in, it has nothing to do with race.
"When you can't even have a hashtag voicing your experiences without white people somehow taking offense"
-If a white person wrote the same thing but replaced the word "white" with "black" they would be attacked through social media.
Thanks ...
For that most eloquent depiction of whitesplaining.
John. So true!
John. So true!
Same as it ever was..but worse
Because this is a premier exam school, and the students took their destiny into their own hands with the tools of their generation, people whose job it is to take notice are scrambling....
What about the students who don't have a voice, the parents, and the teachers? How many Black Teachers are employed at the Exam schools? When is the City of Boston going to comply with the Federal Mandate that specifically states 25% of the Teachers in the Boston Public Schools must be African American?!
Maybe if there were Black Teachers at Boston Latin, who had the respect and ear of the students, this "bru ha ha" could have been channeled more positively?
BLACK TEACHERS MATTER!
Boston High School Racism meet Lodi, California
Girls, I am a 64 year old black high school science teacher, who just resigned teaching at a white Christian high school in California. Retired after 30 years of public school teaching, I was examined for my Christian beliefs, my morality and church affiliations during the application process for this Christian school. As the only black staff member, a camera was put in my room and I was monitored by the principal in person daily. No other teachers had this done. The principal's excuse was that, I might do something to the kids behind his back. Racism is alive and growing stronger.
I have sympathy, but this situation seems overblown
Some of the complaints above are valid, but I guarantee you that ALL of them are rainbows and sunshine compared to the racist stuff people would hear at places other than BLS. People being surprised by your abilities and some teachers confusing you for another student are not worthy of a city-wide investigation. And racist remarks posted on Twitter are disgusting, but they are on Twitter. What does BLS have to do with it?
> "Can you come to Westie to work on the group project cause my mom said I'm not allowed in Dorchester"
This has nothing to do with racism. As someone from Dorchester, yes, it is more dangerous. Most of the city's shootings occur in Dorchester, especially Mattapan. Why? Poverty. It sucks for that person that no one wants to go to their neighborhood, but who could blame them? And what does a mom's preference have to do with BLS?
> When POC are the majority at every other BPS high school except for the one with the most opportunity
This is indeed an issue, but it's not BLS's fault. There's a test to get in. Black students in Boston have lower test scores on average because of systemic poverty. It's a problem, but it's not BLS's problem.
Also, "most opportunity" is a little silly. When I went to BLS, it did not have more opportunities than other schools, other than the fact that it was safer. Less bullying, less fighting, more engaged students. But if you let students in who are not engaged by disregarding test scores, then it will no longer be a school with the "most opportunity".
> When you can't even have a hashtag voicing your experiences without white people somehow taking offense
Wow, that sounds really tough. Have we really gotten so weak as a society that hearing other people disagree with our statements is on par with systemic racism?
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