In the national reckoning that followed the police killing of George Floyd three years ago, about 2,000 protesters took to the streets in a St. Louis suburb and urged the mostly white Francis Howell School District to address racial discrimination. The school board responded with a resolution promising to do better. Now the board, led by new conservative board members elected since last year, has revoked that anti-racism resolution and copies of it will be removed from school buildings. The Francis Howell district is among Missouri’s largest, with 17,000 students, about 87% of whom are white. In 2021, the PAC described the anti-racism resolution as “woke activism” and drafted an alternative resolution to oppose “all acts of racial discrimination, including the act of promoting tenets of the racially-divisive Critical Race Theory, labels of white privilege, enforced equity of outcomes, identity politics, intersectionalism, and Marxism.”
How is marxism racial discrimination? Did they just slap all the scary buzzwords in there and call it good?
I am 100% not surprised this would go down in Missouri.
Day by day, we realize conservatives are not capable of NOT being assholes.
Next up from the Republican party platform: “Emmet Till deserved it.”
The pertinent lesson to be learned here is that democracy (especially non compulsory voting democracy) is about engagement. It’s not just about political conversation (although that’s important too) but getting out and doing something. Don’t just assume someone will do the hard yards for you. Register and go out and get others to register. If necessary join a political organisation that reflects your politics or start one. Be involved in local politics. In short: get off your arse and do something.
“woke activism”
What does that even mean?
The board’s vice president, Randy Cook, said phrases in the resolution such as “systemic racism” aren’t defined and mean different things to different people. Another board member, Jane Puszkar, said the resolution served no purpose.
“What has it really done,” she asked. “How effective has it really been?”
The new board is right. Saying some buzzwords doesn’t really help anything.
Treat students as equals, regardless of race. Provide resources to poor folk, black or white. Teach math to kids whether they’re black or white.
Pretty simple.
Yeah, that’s what the resolution was supposed to do. But regressives don’t want that, they like to exploit the racism.
How were the students not being treated as equals?
