Spokane Public Schools publishes results of study of cotton cleaning classes

Photo: Chaplin (Shutterstock)

In May, two black twin girls had the unfortunate experience of being in a social studies class at Sacajawea Middle School in Spokane, Wash., Where they and other students were attending given the ill-considered task of cleaning cotton. Apparently the activity was meant to introduce students to the Industrial Revolution and the invention of cotton ginning in particular, but if you’re an educator who knows the history of blacks and cotton and you know you have black kids in your class, maybe stop just refer to the damn textbook on the subject.

As The Root previously reported, the twins’ mother, Brandi Feazell, pulled her daughters out of class and said they weren’t comfortable returning until the incident was resolved, so Spokane Public Schools announced an investigation. The results of this investigation have been revealed, and I am not going to lie, they are not surprisingly unsatisfactory.

Out Fox 13 Seattle:

The speaker review reported Onik’a Gilliam-Cathcart, a third party mediator hired by the district, who specializes in discrimination and retaliation claims, found that the teacher did not want to harm the girls with her social studies class.

Feazell explained that a school official offered to remove the girls from class if they felt uncomfortable, rather than addressing their concerns about racism in the classroom.

Through interviews with other students in the classroom, the investigation concluded that two students made comments that they “hated being slaves and killed themselves” in order to kill one of the twins.

“Even so, the lesson was extremely difficult to process for these 13-year-old black students with no warning and with the added element of insensitive classmates and poor coordination,” the report said.

The thing is, according to the twins, the teacher also made insensitive comments.

“The teacher kept saying: ‘We don’t need slaves any more,'” said one of the girls, as we have already reported. “That really hurt because it felt like she was saying there was a time when slavery was okay.”

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Feazell also said in May that her daughters were two of only three black children in class on the day they were assigned, and if we’re being honest, an investigation tends to be on allegations of racism, asking a white majority group if anything racist happened to an investigation where the problem is postponed to actual accountability.

ACLU Washington representative, Kendrick Washington II, appears to agree that the investigation was half-hearted.

“While we appreciate the Spokane School District’s express desire to work with the community and solicit input, it is irresponsible of the district to publish the Independent Investigator’s report without a plan to address the specific harmful experiences the girls are experiencing have suffered tackle, “Washington said, CBS reports. “While I understand the desire to put the youth in the shoes of history, we do not give slings to female students to see what it was like before accused witches were hanged in the Salem witch trials, nor do we say children that they should stand under a guillotine. ” Recreate emotions [from the French Revolution]. “

According to CBS, the school district has vaguely admitted that mistakes were made and those mistakes did harm.

“We have to be ready to have conversations that are sometimes uncomfortable but are necessary to achieve our mission of ‘Excellence for All’,” the district wrote in a letter published with the findings. “The history of the United States as it relates to race is a difficult subjective and divisive issue in our country.”

But do you know what isn’t so “difficult” or “subjective”, especially if you don’t want to be “divisive”? When you have enough common sense to know that assigning a cotton pick to black students will be a problem.

Perhaps some “educators” just don’t have to teach black students. I am sorry if this is “divisive”.