I just heard a story from a friend in Durham, North Carolina, who is a parent in a mixed-race family. My friend and her husband, both white, adopted their now 10-year-old son as a baby from Ethiopia. The son goes to a primarily white school that he loves. Yet, this year during a history segment of acting out Ellis Island immigration, the white teacher could only find a place for their son as a laborer “because his skin is dark, which means he works outside all the time.” The son, who has been raised to express his feelings, came home and told his mom he felt “persecuted.”

This story is an example of a mistake that well-meaning teachers without racial equity training could easily make in our dominant white culture. Without training in awareness, the very precious and beautiful opportunity that children of color have to thrive in our Vashon community could be easily lost.

Institutional racism means that racism is so much a part of our culture, it is like the air we breathe. We don’t notice the air we breathe most of the time, yet it sustains our life.

Education can transform the suffering of our history as a slave nation and give our children the chance to grow a future of true equity. I am grateful that VISD school board is implementing a racial equity policy for teachers, students and staff. This policy stands as a shining example for other mostly white communities in the US.

The boy in the story above immigrated to this country as a baby. His teacher unknowingly offered him a painful, stereotypical role. Maybe, with racial equity training, a teacher could instead creatively integrate the son’s real story into the role play role play of U.S. history.

— Karen Nelson