‘This is absolutely not OK’: Racism in Kansas City area schools prompts town hall
Every day when Breanna Bonner walks down the hallways of Raytown South High School, she said she feels like she’s on trial.
She gets a break when she’s able to get to her classroom. But then, class is over and she has to walk through the halls again.
“It feels like we’re constantly being bullied because when you walk down the hallway, you see a police officer who’s ready to stop you if it looks like you’re doing anything,” said Bonner, 16, who is a senior. “And then if you get past a police officer you see different administrators, a bunch of different counselors, they’re constantly watching you to make sure it looks like you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”
Bonner — along with her friend Christjin Bell, another Raytown South senior — was one of the students who showed up Saturday afternoon to Equal Minded Cafe at 43rd and Troost Avenue for an emergency town hall addressing racist incidents that have taken place across several Kansas City area schools the past few weeks.
About 50 people attended the town hall, which was organized by the Kansas City Defender, the Revolutionary Black Panther Party of Kansas City and the Black Futures Coalition. Among those who participated were parents and former students from different school districts across the Kansas City metro.
Ryan X, editor of the Defender, said the town hall was organized out of concern for the lives of Black children.
“It’s critically, critically important that we say that this is absolutely not OK,” X told the crowd that had gathered. “That we say we have to do something about this right now because, basically, either you’re going to be a racist or you’re going to be anti-racist.”
There have been several racist incidents at a number of different schools in the Kansas City area since the start of the school year.
Last week, the Raytown school district announced two different investigations: One after a teacher at Raytown High School used the N-word during a discussion with students in class. The other unfolded after students in an English class received a worksheet that included the use of racial, homophobic and misogynistic slurs.
Last month, Olathe South High School’s principal told parents and students that the school would investigate an incident in which a racist homecoming proposal circulated on social media.
The sign read: “If I was Black I would be picking cotton but I’m white so I’m picking you for HOCO.”
And also in September, students at Park Hill South High School circulated a racist petition calling for a return to slavery.
Murray Woodard has two Black daughters in the Blue Springs School District. He said that “racism happens in our schools everyday and it never makes the media.”
“Racism happens with the microaggressions that happen in our classrooms,” Woodard said. “It happens when Black students are one of the fastest growing populations in our public schools, but most of them will go through K-12 educations without seeing a Black teacher that looks like them, a Black administrator that looks like them, Black (school) board members that represent and look like them.”
He wants people to be mad every day because, he said, there is a state of emergency for Black students.
“I hope that your advocacy, your anger allows you to stay in this fight when the news cameras aren’t focused on it — because they won’t be in a couple of weeks,” Woodard said. “And I hope you’re still mad.”
General Indigenous Xi from the Black Panther Party also addressed the crowd. He said it is important for people to elect school board members and vote for candidates. But he said that the work isn’t done after a vote is cast.
“A vote is a continuing thing, it’s not just one action,” Xi said.
Xi said there has to be systemic changes.
“You can’t teach out racism, we’re just going to deal with that,” Xi said. “But you can do something about the system that protects racism or racists.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2021 at 4:56 PM.
