Leaving Ignorance Behind, Moving Tolerance Forward
We’ve been through this before. The past few years, we’ve gone through similar incidents. A student does something offensive, it goes around school, and then we move on. We forget. And, it’ll happen again.This year’s racist promposal caused more controversy than any other incident in previous years.
The controversy made national news, went viral on Twitter, and affected people around the world, aside from the PV enclave.
While the effort of groups like Be The Change are appreciated by some, apathetic students often fail to attend such activities when they, in fact, are the ones that need to learn these lessons the most. Moving forward, teachers and students need to step up.
The only way we can solve ignorance or change misguided opinions is through education and making sure every student learns what is right and what is wrong.
Teenagers at this age are taking in everything around them and forming their own opinions, even if they are based on ignorance.
Culturally relevant lessons need to be implemented into the high school curriculum.
By more thoroughly addressing global current events in students’ education, they will understand why saying the n-word, with malicious intentions or not, is unacceptable.
Another issue that must be addressed is the implementation of a zero tolerance policy.
What would that look like?
Clearer discipline procedures must be put in place, to ensure that students have accountability for their destructive actions.
Obviously, the issue of student privacy should still be respected, but that doesn’t mean that PVHS students should be shielded from rightful consequences, whether be a suspension or an expulsion.
Keeping a hush-hush attitude about these controversies is not only ridiculous, it marginalizes the experiences of minorities and other oppressed individuals.
The promposal is a wake up call. Battling racism is a 365, 24/7 movement that doesn’t end with one Diversity Week or one stray argument in class.
We at PVHS have been too complicit to the years of prejudice. Since the ball is rolling, it is now time to make real change.