Greenwich Free Press (https://greenwichfreepress.com/letter-to-the-editor/group-letter-welcoming-african-american-black-puerto-rican-latino-studies-elective-course-at-ghs-175810/)
Open letter to the Greenwich Board of Education, submitted by, See List Below*
Connecticut Public Act No.19-12 mandates that public schools offer a course in AfricanAmerican/Black and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies alongside other social studies ELECTIVES. We welcome the addition of this course.
The history of Black and Latinx contributions to build our country, in spite of the overt oppression they have faced, is an inspiration. Their story is the quintessential American story, and one to be proud of. Our fellow Americans of color have drawn for all of us what it means to be American — pursuing rights to freedom, justice and equality even when, especially when, the state would deny those rights.
To teach the whole of Black/Latino History in one course is impossible. It took until 2022 to mandate an offering of this course. It is a long-neglected step and begins to repair the omission of that rich history in our children’s education.
The history of Black and Latino people and their experience is inextricable from the American story and any effort to make it unavailable to our students is to court ignorance and inadequately prepare our children for the future. Students of color have a valid claim that they have been excluded when their experience and that of their ancestors is confined to a chapter in our textbooks, glossed over or relegated to “elective” status. To omit this history is to deprive all students an accurate representation of our country’s complex history, a history that has deep teachings about how to forge our future as a country.
Some parents don’t want Black/Latino history to be taught because they fear their children will feel bad about their whiteness or about white supremacy’s role in the American story. This is a fallacy, a propagandistic formulation to deny racism. Do men feel guilty about the historic misogyny women have suffered and continue to suffer to this day? To refer to the culpability of men and the hegemony they have enjoyed is not to indict the individual man. Our children are smart enough to know the difference.
We all want our children to be well educated. Our children are the beneficiaries of our values, of the education we afford them and the world we leave to them. Our job as parents is to prepare them to live in that world with all the complexities and richness that come with living in a multi-racial society. All of our children already navigate that multi-racial society in their everyday lives. To deny them the facts of the entire story of America, one that includes Black and Latino history, undercuts their ability to think critically about the past so they can successfully build their futures.
Make no mistake about it — opposition to offering this course in Black & Latino history is not about Critical Race Theory. It is about curbing students’ rights to learn and limiting their potential to be engaged citizens in an evolving democracy. Students need to be able to debate our complete history and openly discuss how it has created our present world.
Our children and all students of History will benefit from the whole story of America and not a politicized whitewash.
Myra Klockenbrink, Liz Kentor, Leon Levine, Nerlyn Pierson, Marina Levine, Lorelei O’Hagan, Janet McMahon, Andrew Winston, Mareta Hamre, Scott Kalb, David Snyder, Stephen Brown, Lucy von Brachel, Mary Ellen Markowitz, Mary Flynn, Svetlana Wasserman, Jonathan Perloe, Ella Brown, Irene Driscoll, Elizabeth Mills, Dan Rosell, Alex Todorovic, Sophia Paleologou, Alexandra Benjamin, Naomi Rosell, Suzanne Hopson, Dean Brown, Nina Rosell, Sienna Hopson, Scarlett Hopson, Daisy Florin, Suzanne Donahue, Jen Barro, Mamie Lee, Margaret D. Moore, Marianne Schorer, Clifford Schorer, Allison Walsh, Brooke Cumberland, Brian Cumberland, Ali Ghiorse, Mary Alice Schulte, Ruth Sternberg, Malvika Mitchell, Don Mitchell, Sarah Rosell, Roseanne Berman, Alice Moore, Liam Mitchell, Saira Mitchell, Genevieve Moore, Joseph S Smith, James Harper, Cheryl Moss, Stephanie A. K. Norton, Joan Tracey Seguin, Hector Arzeno, Bevin Cumberland, Aldric Seguin, Elenn Seguin, Lindsay Linnemann, Anthony Moor, Dana Gordon, Joanne Steinhart, Brian Kabcenell, Mark Kordick
“BOE member, Cody Kittle, chose to focus on the issue of whether masks decrease COVID-19 transmission. His op-ed declares that the mask mandate policy is a ‘failed and anti-scientific system.’ His claim lacks merit.” – Jen Barro, Retired physician and current GPS parent
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AuthorsLive is excited to welcome Congressman Jamie Raskin to Greenwich Library’s Berkley Theater on Wednesday, February 23 at 7:00pm. Sarah Lyall, a noted journalist with The New York Times, will join Raskin in a conversation around themes found in his recently published book, Unthinkable.
Sisters Meg and Kate Fronio are eager to mark the one year anniversary of the shop they run together, “The Marketplace by Fofie & Mia’s,” a vintage and thrift shop in the heart of Byram. Sisters Meg (left) and Kate (right) Fronio, behind the counter at “The Marketplace by Fofie and Mia’s,” a vintage and thrift shop at 248 Mill St in Byram.
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