{"id":2656,"date":"2019-02-22T15:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/?p=2656"},"modified":"2019-02-22T13:59:25","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T18:59:25","slug":"blackface-video-sparks-conversation-about-racism-in-nyc-private-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/blackface-video-sparks-conversation-about-racism-in-nyc-private-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackface Video Sparks Conversation About Racism in NYC Private Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A former student and two current freshmen from the Brooklyn private school, Poly Prep Country Day School, were filmed in blackface while making monkey gestures in a video found by the <\/span>New York Daily News<\/span><\/a>.The video had been filmed two and a half years prior when the girls were in seventh grade. It went viral over the MLK Weekend after an article was posted by The Daily News. <\/span>The video originally surfaced when a freshman posted the original video to a \u201cprivate student website,\u201d the New York Times stated. T<\/span>he video\u2019s release to the public coincided with the controversy surrounding a\u00a0group of male students at The Covington Catholic High School confronting a Native American veteran, Nathan Phillips, at The March for Life in D.C. The two events have ignited a conversation about whether there is a serious racism problem in American schools.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio reacted to the video in a tweet, remarking \u201c<\/span>Poly Prep has some real explaining to do. And what\u2019s absolutely clear is that a conversation about racism at the school is long overdue.\u201d David Kirkland, the executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and The Transformation of Schools at New York University, told The New York Times, \u201cWe should not view this incident of white girls in blackface gyrating as apes in isolation. The video perpetuates the sense that black bodies don\u2019t belong in our\u00a0schools.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jennifer Slomack, a spokeswoman for Poly Prep, said in a statement that the school does not tolerate racism and that the school \u201ctook immediate action\u201d when the institution was made aware of the video. This action, however, did not involve disciplining the students. According to the student\u2019s mother, he felt that if he had gone instead to the school\u2019s authorities, they might not have done anything. When Poly Prep learned of the video, they responded by sending a letter to parents condemning the distribution of the video for violating their code of conduct. According to Talisha Ward, a senior at the school and co-President of a group called <\/span>Umoja<\/span><\/i>, which was <\/span>responsible for a sit-in about the incident<\/span><\/a>, the letter implied that, \u201cThe sharing of the video was worse than the content of the video.\u201d The mother of the boy who released the video said that unlike other students, her son had not yet received paperwork for registration for next year. Nonetheless, she is proud of her son, saying, \u201cHe just wanted to speak up. Now, he\u2019s the bad guy. I\u2019m just worried for his future.\u201d If it\u2019s true that the boy has been targeted by the school while the girls in the video have received no punishment, then this will undoubtedly spark further controversy. I reached out to a friend who goes to Poly Prep asking for an interview, but he declined. \u201cI don\u2019t want to talk about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The incident creates a difficult situation for school administrators. The video is two and a half years old, and the girls filmed were only twelve years old when it was taken. Is expulsion or suspension an appropriate response when the girls may have been ignorant of how offensive their behavior was? One of the girls submitted a statement to the New York Times apologizing for the incident, explaining, \u00a0\u201cI myself cannot look at this video without being disgusted with my actions and my ignorance at that time. Which is why I understand your anger. This email is not to tell you that you can\u2019t feel that way, I just wanted to help people understand how sorry I am for any offense this has caused.\u201d The girl\u2019s father said that she had told him that she did not understand the historical significance of blackface at the time, while the mother said that they were just being \u201ctypical twelve-year-olds.\u201d The parents said that the student had to eat lunches in the Dean\u2019s office to avoid harassment from fellow students. <\/span><\/p>\n

Within a week after the incident went viral, the girls transferred to different schools. It is unclear whether the school pressured the families to withdraw their children, although one of the mothers characterized the withdrawal as voluntary. A lot of the criticism directed at the school has been focused on their inaction in response to the video. Whether the school has handled the situation correctly or not, a conversation about race has been sparked. Umoja Co-President Ward is glad that the incident has received so much attention saying \u201c<\/span>I think it\u2019s good that there\u2019s a citywide conversation. It\u2019s good that the video is going viral. We want the girls to know that their actions have consequences. Maybe this is some form of justice.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This citywide conversation has spread to Grace, where many students have strong opinions. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A word from the editors: <\/span><\/p>\n

In light of the publishing of this article, the Grace Gazette would like to acknowledge its awareness of the current situation at Grace surrounding racial discrimination. In no way are we attempting to divert attention or ignore what happened within our own community. In fact, there will be an article formally addressing the situation published within a week. <\/span><\/p>\n

Grace will never be a place for racism. It is our basic human responsibility to ensure nothing remotely similar occurs again.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t shocked\u2026 I was like: that kinda makes sense, that’s kinda the atmosphere of that school.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

– Soleil Andrews \u201819<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t surprised\u2026 I know that there is a racist culture of really elite kids in New York. I thought the angle they chose wasn\u2019t the right one. Instead of acknowledging the blatant racism that is brewed in the environment of the school, they instead went after the social media policy, which isn\u2019t the crux of why everyone is angry about it at all.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

– Nick Russell \u201821<\/span><\/p>\n

\"large_user_4119193-1.jpg\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Poly Prep is kinda notorious for stuff like that\u2026 It’s not an environment you should have in a school\u2026. You\u2019re supposed to have a set group of values and morals and if you\u2019re teaching students that racism is ok, then you shouldn\u2019t be shocked when people slam you for that\u2026 I think it makes worse that even at such a young age you are so prideful of what you\u2019re doing. They should\u2019ve been expelled; every school should have a zero tolerance policy for that. <\/span><\/p>\n

– Nina Lipkind \u201820<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to say I am surprised just because of all of the controversial, racist things that have been surfacing in our media recently, but also because someone that I worked with also worked at Poly Prep and they talked about how the administration could not have cared less about their students of color and racism\u2026 I bet these girls are really really sorry, but they need to understand that even though they did this two and a half years ago, these actions are going to have consequences and the administration should definitely reprimand them\u2026 [in response to the boy who leaked the video] Poly Prep has no right to take out their student\u2019s actions and their negligence of reprimanding their students on a kid who spoke out against racism and brought light to this situation\u2026. I do think the girls should at least be suspended.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

– Manavi Sinha \u201821<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe administrations at private schools really deal with a lot of their issues in terrible ways\u2026 I think the school showing that they actually cared about the issue would\u2019ve been positive\u2026 I feel that if this incident happened in sixth grade, the ideas and values are still festering somewhere\u2026 They should still know the consequences of their actions no matter how old they are because they probably haven\u2019t been met with an issue like this before where they have had to be held accountable for their actions.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

– Shomari Smith \u201821<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat made them think that videotaping themselves doing that was okay? I think that there’s a lot of ignorance surrounding some of these issues that keep coming up and that these girls are very much in the wrong. Considering the amount of the attention that the incident got\u2026 there should have been a consequence. [responding about the boy who leaked the video] I see the school\u2019s standpoint in how they don\u2019t want to look bad, but at the same time punishing the person that leaked it and not the people in the actual video is not the correct way of handling it. <\/span><\/p>\n

– Malcolm Gibson \u201819<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re racist. Period. [Responding about the boy who leaked the video] That\u2019s awful and it’s not his fault that the two kids decided to be racist and do blackface and then got exposed\u2026 Don\u2019t be racist next time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

– Kaitlyn Major-Hale \u201819<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coupling of the darkened faces with makeup and then monkey movements definitely triggered me\u2026 We need to do better about educating people about the context of blackface. It\u2019s hard to\u2026 center intent because we are all good people, so\u2026 I don\u2019t think it was there intent to do that. I don\u2019t think they knew the impact, but I think that that\u2019s where the conversation needs to shift. I think the challenge for us, when it comes to making policy, especially disciplinary policy is how the \u201czero tolerance policy\u201d and the education piece at that same time. If you are talking about a twelve-year-old student, now they know, now they know. Now because of the publicity\u2026 and then incidents that happened the week after it hit headlines that same weekend with politicians in this country. It\u2019s hard to believe that someone can say I didn\u2019t know.<\/span><\/p>\n

– Mr. Andre, Diversity Co-coordinator<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs you\u2019ve in our school and other private schools like Poly Prep\u2026 we seem to be having an issue now or at least it\u2019s coming to the attention of the administration’s attention. We an issue still with racism and I wouldn’t think that in 2019 we would still have to be telling people what kind of behavior is appropriate. I think it\u2019s inexcusable. It\u2019s not like they didn\u2019t know was blackface was\u2026 We\u2019ve been talking about blackface for a while now\u2026 We learned about Jim Crow, we learned about segregation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

– Isabelle Curry-Levine \u201821<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

It was very disgusting and awful about something that people thought was funny, but it\u2019s very disgusting. That was a horrible time in history.<\/span><\/p>\n

– Victor Mahler \u201822<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  A former student and two current freshmen from the Brooklyn private school, Poly Prep Country Day School, were filmed in blackface while making monkey gestures in a video found… Continue reading “Blackface Video Sparks Conversation About Racism in NYC Private Schools”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":2664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[497,472,399,498,132,482],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-2656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-opinions","tag-blackface","tag-gcs","tag-grace-church-school","tag-polyprep","tag-racism","tag-students"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-GQ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/large_news882539_877651-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2656"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2670,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions\/2670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2656"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=2656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}