In a nation divided by race and reality, efforts to advance anti-racist, culturally responsive, and equitable approaches to education face great opposition from an emboldened coalition of white militants, conservatives, and conspiracy theorists who perceive race-conscious policies as anti-white, and thus, un-American. White liberals, on the other hand, continue to promote diversity and integration in urban communities—championing visions of equity and inclusion yet to be endorsed by the people of color they claim to support. Under the guise of school improvement and education reform, the 21st-century white architects of urban education have effectively defunded traditional public schools to finance their own top-down vision of how and for what purposes low-income students of color should be educated.

Horsford, 2021

I found this quote from the Horsford piece particularly interesting given a few experiences I had this week. This past weekend, members of local CECs, BLM at School, CEJ, AQE, Teens Take Charge, MORE, parents, students and community members came to together to hold a counterrally in East Harlem in response to a rally being held by the #KeepNYCSchoolsOpen group at a Harlem Jets event at Wagner Playground. The latter, a group of mostly white parents that has consistently advocated for the full reopening of schools, chose to hold their rally in East Harlem in partnership with mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, using a local community event with the Harlem Jets as a photo op and platform to tout the importance of reopening so that kids could have access to activities and team sports. A few issues here:

1. These folx are NOT from Harlem
2. Most of the families that we engaged through the counterrally had no idea that this group was partially hosting or holding a rally at this event. So essentially the families were tricked into being there and then used as props.
3. They largely ignore the data that shows that 60% of families in that district (mostly Black and Latinx) voted to remain remote through the end of the school year.
4. Most of the schools are, in fact, open, just not at full capacity. These moms are arguing for full opening so that their kids can benefit. They are using equity as a smoke screen. They never cared about access to activities or sports in Harlem before, but suddenly have become advocates.
5. This group has aligned with other parent groups in NYC that have pushed back against the fight for anti-bias, anti-racist, and culturally-responsive curriculum and instruction.

This group both clashes with and reinforces Horsford description of the white liberal. On one hand, these groups have gone into Black and Brown communities, decided what they needed and wanted despite evidence to the contrary, failed to partner with any local groups that have been working on the group in these communities since forever, and chose to be the voice of a community they do not belong to. This aligns with Horsfords’ description. On the other hand, they have actively worked against equity, anti-racism and culturally-responsive education rather than pushing for it-a departure from Horsford’s characterization. These are some of the same groups that pushed back on city-wide pooling of PTA funds for equitable redistribution and efforts to undo discriminatory school zoning and testing practices. These are the white liberal parents of NYC.

Another example came from within my own organization as the fight to promote programs that support the mostly Black and Brown children that we work with through joyful, meaningful and developmentally-supportive activities came up against white funders and senior leaders desire to prove “impact”. Impact being growth and achievement on assessments that long since been highlighted as biased and inequitable. Again, others have decided what success looks like for our kids, what kind of programming they need and determined that this needs to be proved through quantifiable measures that produce “compelling” results.

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