Hate Has No Home Here…they say
Your Sistah, Stefania Johnson COO and Lead Host: Ste’fire Queen of BlingSlogan:
“Keeping It Real with the Fire”#BigSistahTalk
Or…does it? This tag line sits in a school in the beautiful Mount Pocono area. You would think what you see, as a parent and students alike, helps to quell your concerns about what they stand for but, it is far from the truth. When we teach our children that hate has no home here, but yet don’t put that into action, we give them and their parents a false sense of security. It is meant to be a security blanket so that children feel wanted, assured that being bullied, mistreated, or treated unequally will not be tolerated. What are the standards you place on this slogan, how do you truly hold everyone accountable for this and measure it? You ask, why the majority class of people, greater than 53% in this school district and town, representative of persons of color and/or LGBTQ are treated as a minority and more importantly, different. It seems this School Board, mostly made up of representatives that do not represent those who are truly the majority, are making decisions that are not diverse, equal or inclusive, to assure students a place where we are fostering a healthy environment for all. The kids that did show up to share their concerns, to a School Board, during a School Board Meeting open comment session, expressed how they or their peers have been targeted, the parents and substitute teachers that spoke out for the children showed how this has yet to be a place for inclusiveness. All came with a mission to make it clear that what the school has plastered all over, “Hate Has No Home Here”, actually is the opposite of what they have encountered, with no one representing them in this school district or taking disciplinary action to put action to hate speech and rhetoric.
When you throw slogans out there, you have to mean what you say and stand for those who are bullied and mistreated; you have to have a leadership that follows the slogan, represents it with pride, by taking action and holding those accountable who do not represent it. The fact that this Board, decided by majority, to disband or re-structure the Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) program, to make it represent now a minority group that does not truly represent the parents, students, teachers and board that is trying to live to the standards of inclusiveness, diversity, and equality is deceitful, disgraceful and shows the lack of empathy, care and more importantly the assurance and security that ALL children are represented. Rather than have to worry about education, they are worrying about the trauma they are encountering but targeted attacks on them and their peers. You want to talk about trauma and having specific trainings for educators to identify and deal with children’s trauma? You are causing the very trauma you are trying to deal with by ignoring the fact that they are having to deal with it in the very school system that is trying to implement trauma training but yet masking the trauma they are causing.
Shame on you! We do not stand for complacency, we do not stand for hatred, we do not stand for non inclusiveness, we do not stand for inequality and we do not stand for a nondiverse coalition, who thinks they know what it’s like to live in world where humans are not accepted for who they are.
