The art wall on Valencia between 23rd and 24th street was covered in posters Tuesday afternoon communicating the reactions of seventh-grade students at Buena Vista Horace Mann school to the decision not to indict a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., for shooting a black man in an arrest.
Jeff Steeno teaches Peer Resources, a program designed to give underserved and underrepresented students a voice, at Buena Vista.
“They’re upset about it,” Steeno said. “They see the world in a simple way, kind of pure and honest. Something wrong has happened and nobody’s really paying for it…they’re kinda mad about it.”
The posters, Steeno said, were the students’ own idea. It was their way of responding to a case that happened to fall squarely into the topics addressed in their curriculum, which included a recent viewing of the film Fruitvale Station, about the 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant by BART police. Though at first they suggested protesting or marching, they eventually settled on the posters.
The program encourages students to recognize and take action against oppression in their communities. Later this year, for example, Steeno said the students are planning and hosting an informative social event designed to help newly arrived immigrants get their bearings.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Valerie, for your clear-headed, informative response.
I understand how people like me – who do not know what life is like day after day for people of color – can feel defensive. However, there is simply no argument left here for any aware citizen. If John Crawford had been a white man holding a toy gun to purchase at Walmart, he would have never, ever been shot. And if he had, that cop would be in jail for a long, long time. Sadly, this type of example could go on for pages.
Inserting politics into the classroom is not healthy. These kids are being brainwashed by their teachers into thinking that it is somehow always wrong when a cop has to shoot or kill another person. And moreover that that only matters if the shot person is non-white.
I’d take my kid out of any school that indoctrinated kids with such a biased and prejudicial account of what the reality is out there. How about a program that seeks to explore who non-whites commit so many crimes, rather than why they sometimes suffer as a result of that?
Balance.
I am a teacher at BVHM. There is no brainwashing or indoctrination going on. This was a healthy way for the kids to process how they are feeling about the events at Ferguson. No one is telling the students that all instances of the use of deadly force is wrong, or that it only matters when the victims are non-White. All lives matter.
However, there is statistical evidence of a disproportionate use of deadly force and unnecessary brutality towards Blacks and Latinos. This is not a biased or prejudicial account of the reality out there. Even Rand Paul commented, after the Mike Brown shooting, that, “Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention.”
Actually, I’m concerned about your biases and prejudices, especially when you ask why there isn’t a program in the school that explores why “non-Whites commit so many crimes.” Actually, Whites commit as many crimes (both violent and non-violent) as non-Whites, maybe even more, but they are not arrested and prosecuted at the same rates. There has been a disproportionate targeting of Black and Brown communities sanctioned by the so-called War on Drugs. I would advise you to check out the data and gets your facts right before you lob unfair accusations. A good book to read on this subject is Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color-Blindness.
In a school where the majority of the students are non-White, it was perfectly appropriate for this teacher (who is White) to provide an outlet for his students to express their concern, fear, and outrage over the recent spate of shootings of unarmed people of color.
Nice little feature article. Small note w/ a touch of irony, was the old police station.