Charlottesville and the Bronx: Civil Rights

Asher Forman
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
7 May 2019
Charlottesville and the Bronx
     Racial inequality has been a huge problem in communities all over the world. Following these problems, many people hold protests on how there should be a safer and more equal environment for everyone, no matter what race one is. Very recently, there were online threats towards African Americans and Hispanics, which took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. When this happened, around 100 students from a local school decided to walk out of class and protest what just happened. These students made a bunch of demands, like adding an honor course for African-American history. Another one was making it so more of the staff at their school was African-American, and much more. Charlottesville High School has been working with the student protestors to help complete their demands. There was also a school called the New York’s Ethical Culture Fieldston School that had students passing around racist videos among themselves. This was met with serious reactions and responses, as teachers said they would take action to punish any kids that were taking part in this. Some of the kids didn’t think the teachers were doing a good enough job, so just like like the kids in Charlottesville, students at the Fieldston School made demands themselves about what should be changed at their school. One of them was to have more African-American students and teachers. Although, these demands weren’t met, so the students decided to participate in a lock-in to further protest the school not cooperating with their demands. Only a while after, did their school finally listen and accept what these kids wanted to do (Lockhart).
     It was incredible to learn about students taking such a strong stand at their school and going to such measures as to locking themselves in a building so that they’re demands would be met. Have many students had protests about racism and having a safer environment in schools, or was this the first time? If it wasn’t, why is it that these school protests about racism stood out and were published online? Is it because these students were asking for demands that they wanted the school to accept, while other student protests might not have done the same, or were just not as serious? All of this is interesting to think about, as it seems that many people in these schools got fed up with all of these jokes, and when someone took it too far as to making racist threats, these students decided to speak up. In schools, I think that a lot of racism is gone unseen by the teachers. Possible reasons for this is that teachers might disregard the comments, not realize it's happening, or something else. Not just that, but many students seem to ignore racist comments and don’t speak up about it. Hopefully in the future, students will speak up to their teachers about racist remarks, which teachers can then discipline the kids that are saying these horrible things. This will make it so the school environment is safer, and that racial inequality stops.





Work Cited
Lockhart, P.R. “High School Students of Color Are Protesting Racism and Inequality.” Vox, Vox, 2 Apr. 2019, www.vox.com/identities/2019/4/2/18287053/student-protest-charlottesville-fieldston-racism-inequality.

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