EDUCATION MATTERS
The mission of the Racial Unity Team is “to advance relationships among people of different racial identities, increase understanding, and reduce racial bias in our communities.” Fostering a peaceful, loving, humanitarian view of the world is at the heart of our mission. Inherent in this is our focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) work within the public schools.
What does that mean in the classroom? We live in a diverse, complex, and often inequitable world. In order to help students effectively understand that world, educators must be free and encouraged to guide them in a critical and comprehensive examination of our history. Our schools must not only allow, but also, inspire a careful, honest study of history and culture.
The United States as a whole has much to be proud of, but where we find ourselves today makes it clear that the U.S. has never squarely faced the entirety of this history. While we have collectively and consistently highlighted remarkable achievements, such as developing the Bill of Rights and defeating the Axis powers during WWII, our society and its institutions have often chosen to value denial over historical accuracy, despite available evidence of historical facts. It has made that choice with respect to the causes of the Civil War, with the ways in which we frame the “discovery” and colonization of land, with how we choose to remember our Founding Fathers.
But who has traditionally had the power to decide what is included in our history and what is excluded? Our schools need a curriculum that ensures an inclusive and accurate history that is consistent with actual historical experience. Discomfort, guilt, even shame, may be a learner’s response to these historical facts, just as celebration and admiration may be responses to positive historical achievements. Both responses are legitimate in the process of becoming educated. And whatever their curricular choices, schools need to embrace and defend both intellectual honesty and respect for all available evidence.
The Racial Unity Team supports educators in their efforts to address issues around diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in the classroom. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, teaching about our complex history. While sections of the “Right to Freedom from Discrimination in Workplaces and Education” (297-298, NH House Bill 2) do not prohibit this work, the narrative among conservative groups and in some of the mainstream media is that they do. Despite what is actually written in the law, the reality is that these provisions discourage the careful examination of historical and current discriminatory practices within our schools and society.
What HB2 does prohibit is the teaching that any individual or group of individuals are inherently superior or inferior to people of another group. While this is not taught in our public schools, the prohibitions in HB2, alongside the inaccurate narrative perpetuated by those who wish to delegitimize public schools, have led to fear and confusion among educators about how and what they may teach, while encouraging complaints against them that jeopardize their licenses and careers.
The Racial Unity Team expressly denounces the actions of those, including those at the State level, which have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among educators. In turn, teachers are responding by removing from their classrooms concepts and conversations that shed light on harmful historical policies and practices. This atmosphere creates a barrier to providing students with a school experience that reflects DEIJ principles as well as a full education for protected classes of people.
We support efforts to reverse these legislative actions.
Ken Mendis, President, Racial Unity Team
The mission of the Racial Unity Team is “to advance relationships among people of different racial identities, increase understanding, and reduce racial bias in our communities.” Fostering a peaceful, loving, humanitarian view of the world is at the heart of our mission. Inherent in this is our focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) work within the public schools.
What does that mean in the classroom? We live in a diverse, complex, and often inequitable world. In order to help students effectively understand that world, educators must be free and encouraged to guide them in a critical and comprehensive examination of our history. Our schools must not only allow, but also inspire a careful, honest study of history and culture.
The United States as a whole has much to be proud of, but where we find ourselves today makes it clear that the U.S. has never squarely faced the entirety of its history. While we have collectively and consistently highlighted remarkable achievements, like developing the Bill of Rights and defeating the Axis powers during WWII, our society and its institutions have generally chosen to value denial over historical accuracy, despite available evidence. It has made that choice with respect to the causes of the Civil War, with the ways in which we frame the “discovery” and colonization of land, with how we choose to remember our Founding Fathers.
But who has traditionally had the power to decide what is included in our history vs what’s excluded? Our schools need a curriculum that ensures an inclusive, and accurate, history that is consistent with actual historical experience. Discomfort, guilt, even shame, may be a learner’s response to these historical facts, just as celebration and admiration may be responses to positive historical achievements. Both responses are legitimate in the process of becoming educated. And whatever their curricular choices, schools need to embrace and defend both intellectual honesty and respect for all available evidence.
The Racial Unity Team supports educators in their efforts to address issues around diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in their classrooms. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, teaching about our complex history. While Sections of the “Right to Freedom from Discrimination in Workplaces and Education” (297 – 298, NH House Bill 2) do not prohibit this work, the narrative among conservative groups and in the mainstream media is that they do. Despite what is actually written in the law, however, the reality is that these provisions discourage the careful examination of historical and current discriminatory practices within our schools and society.
What HB2 does prohibit is the teaching that any individual or group of individuals are inherently superior or inferior to people of another group. While this is not taught in our public schools, the prohibitions in HB2, alongside the inaccurate narrative perpetuated by those who wish to delegitimize public schools, have led to fear and confusion among educators about how and what they may teach, while encouraging complaints against them that jeopardize their licenses and careers.
The Racial Unity Team expressly denounces the actions of those--including those working at the State level—who have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among teachers, who respond by removing concepts and conversations that may shed light on harmful historical policies and practices. This atmosphere creates a barrier to providing students with a school experience that reflects DEIJ principles as well as a full education for protected classes of people. We support efforts to reverse these legislative actions.
Respectfully,
Ken Mendis
Chair, Board of Directors
Racial Unity Team
George Floyd
June 3, 2020
The horror of watching one black man’s life being choked off requires outrage. The violence and inhumanity that killed George Floyd, minute after minute, is the lens through which we see the terrible force of structural racism in our communities, our institutions and our nation. Every screen shot is witness to its brutality in what appears to have become common occurrence today - contempt for the life of a person of color.
The resulting fury — first locally, now nationally and internationally — expresses our collective grief in a moment of solidarity, but it also captures the essence of my anger and frustration and makes me ask what more can I do?
People of color, immigrants, Native Americans, people in prisons, the poor — the ones suffering and dying in greater numbers because of COVID-19 — bear the brunt of racial inequity in this country. That is why I will get up tomorrow and for as long as I can to continue the work we began as part of the Racial Unity Team in New Hampshire. And we need your help more than ever.
It is past time for much larger numbers of white citizens to stand up for the multi-racial, equitable society the United States has claimed to be. More people need to understand the country's actual history, including its complexities and its terrible burdens of racist violence and exclusion. It is those blind to racial inequity who worry us the most and to whom we also need to reach out. The Racial Unity Team needs your support and involvement in this work. Exeter needs your help, our teachers in our schools need your help, and more importantly our nation needs your help to raise up a generation of young people who are not only not racist but who are actively anti-racist.
For those of you with children and grandchildren, I call on you to start that conversation about race with your young children so we have hope for the future of this country that we all love so much.
Respectfully,
Ken Mendis
Chair, Board of Directors
Racial Unity Team
Racial Unity Team
P. O. Box 101 Stratham, NH 03885
Copyright © 2023 Racial Unity Team - All Rights Reserved.
HEADING ART: Unity, by Richard Haynes
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