Fighting Unfair Images
“The articles in your newspaper promoted hate. You stereotyped Muslims. This is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to teach in this school. We are teaching how to fight stereotypes. Just as teachers are trying to get rid of stereotypes, suddenly we found an incredible example of stereotyping about 7 million people in one of your articles about King Day. Some of my students looked at the articles as hate speech. That was the term they used. I only presented the situation to them. I was happy to see they have this view. For me, it was an evaluation. Contrary to what your newspaper reported, the whole Sunday program for King Day was about Martin Luther King, not anybody else. I was there. I was a member of the panel.
On Being Effective
“One of your stories mentioned me as one of the Five Mistakes on the program. What I realized from that was that I am not doing my job as a teacher the very best way. If somebody draws an analogy and calls me a ‘mistake’ in one of my roles, then I don’t know how to explain myself. I don’t know how to do my job.
“This was showing me I may have to move in a different way. I may have to be stronger, be more active than I have been. I don’t know. I will have to think about it more.
“On the other hand, your first article, from the beginning, kind of explained the situation and wondered how it is only 1 African American was on the panel (out of 6).
Postscript
“You mentioned the students. The one African American student (Jasmine LeBlanc) who was on the panel is a privileged student. She can do what many others cannot do. Out of the 28 percent of African American students, she is one of the very, very few who can present as strongly, as beautifully as she did. We are not talking about an average student. The way she talked was really nice because everything she said came from her heart. What she had to say was emotional, and it was beautiful. The article about her was emotional, and not objective in any way.”
Next: Part III
