NYT article on LCPS high school re: racism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The NYT makes Leesburg sound like some backwards place. I don’t know whether to lol at the Loudoun Moms who think their community is so posh or be slightly dismayed by New York’s disdain for DC/Nova.

It’s the NYT. Unless you live in NYC, LA, Portland, or Seattle, you are a backwards, unwoke redneck whom they look down upon. Which is why we subscribe to the WSJ instead.

It is a redneck backwoods judging from all these racist comments about Jimmy here and the other ones defending Mimi and her great parents. People in nova want to think they’re progressive and better than others but they’re not. We are Missouri with more degrees.

+1. I didn’t even know where Loudon Cty was, but these comments are something else and reinforce the article’s description of the place. I’d never raise my black kids in a place like Leesburg.

-VA native in NW DC

Oh, this is rich, coming from a DC resident.
DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The NYT makes Leesburg sound like some backwards place. I don’t know whether to lol at the Loudoun Moms who think their community is so posh or be slightly dismayed by New York’s disdain for DC/Nova.

It’s the NYT. Unless you live in NYC, LA, Portland, or Seattle, you are a backwards, unwoke redneck whom they look down upon. Which is why we subscribe to the WSJ instead.

It is a redneck backwoods judging from all these racist comments about Jimmy here and the other ones defending Mimi and her great parents. People in nova want to think they’re progressive and better than others but they’re not. We are Missouri with more degrees.

+1. I didn’t even know where Loudon Cty was, but these comments are something else and reinforce the article’s description of the place. I’d never raise my black kids in a place like Leesburg.

-VA native in NW DC

It’s Loudoun, not Loudon, and no one really cares where you decide to raise your kids. That’s up to you. However, there are very few areas as economically segregated as NW DC, and it’s served by a public school system that makes no attempt even in 2020 to integrate the schools.

People in Loudoun for the most part still have enough common sense to look at each situation on its merits, which is why they realize that an 18-year-old boy who intentionally tries to sabotage a classmate’s future over a crude and flippant (if exuberant) 3-second comment she’d made 3 years earlier is far more worthy of criticism than the classmate. If you have a hard time with that, please do stay the hell away. We’re more than happy for you to stay on the other side of the river.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I think what you're hearing/seeing is fear. People are realizing that a girl, who made a mistake at a young age when many, many kids make mistakes is paying for in a spectacularly public and life-altering manner. That her accomplishments, character, and work ethic are essentially meaningless at this point in her life, because of this one mistake. "

+1
And i'll agree that most transgressions kids make should not have spectacularly public & life-altering penalties attached to them. Violent actions need to be punished in a way that does not allow the person being hurt to continue being hurt moving forward.

But aside from that, penalties for dumb sh-t kids do should be 95% in the moment - grounding, detention, suspension from an extra-curricular for X days/weeks - not on the order of magnitude of what has happened to this girl for literally a single really stupid (and wrong) thing she did 3 years ago when a freshman in HS.

pp here-- yes. One of the comments on the NYT article is that she used the word when she was a child (fifteen) and she's being punished for it like an adult.

It would have been better if the video was shared with the HS administration and her parents-- and meaningful, age-appropriate consequences were implemented at the time. It sounds though, like the adults were also a problem in this scenario...unwilling to address entrenched racism at the school, so there's that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the posters here are any indication of the true feelings of people in Loudoun County, I agree with the pp that I wouldn’t want to live there or visit.

-POC in PG county (so don’t condescend to me about DC)

Yeah they’re basically “if you don’t support casually racist while kids you can stay over there!” I live in Loudoun and this thread is embaraasinnnggg but also sadly predictable

Except that - ONCE AGAIN - no one is supporting “casual racism” of any kind. They are correctly pointing out that this particular punishment was grossly disproportionate to the actual offense. Which you would realize if you had any common sense at all.
DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The NYT makes Leesburg sound like some backwards place. I don’t know whether to lol at the Loudoun Moms who think their community is so posh or be slightly dismayed by New York’s disdain for DC/Nova.

It’s the NYT. Unless you live in NYC, LA, Portland, or Seattle, you are a backwards, unwoke redneck whom they look down upon. Which is why we subscribe to the WSJ instead.

It is a redneck backwoods judging from all these racist comments about Jimmy here and the other ones defending Mimi and her great parents. People in nova want to think they’re progressive and better than others but they’re not. We are Missouri with more degrees.

+1. I didn’t even know where Loudon Cty was, but these comments are something else and reinforce the article’s description of the place. I’d never raise my black kids in a place like Leesburg.

-VA native in NW DC

It’s Loudoun, not Loudon, and no one really cares where you decide to raise your kids. That’s up to you. However, there are very few areas as economically segregated as NW DC, and it’s served by a public school system that makes no attempt even in 2020 to integrate the schools.

People in Loudoun for the most part still have enough common sense to look at each situation on its merits, which is why they realize that an 18-year-old boy who intentionally tries to sabotage a classmate’s future over a crude and flippant (if exuberant) 3-second comment she’d made 3 years earlier is far more worthy of criticism than the classmate. If you have a hard time with that, please do stay the hell away. We’re more than happy for you to stay on the other side of the river.

PP here. There are parts of NW DC that are actually pretty integrated, and when it was time to buy, we intentionally chose one of these areas (note: not all of NW DC is west of Rock Creek Park). My kid plays with kids in the neighborhood from all different backgrounds. Wilson High School is also quite diverse.

Back to my point, the posters here aren't doing Loudon Cty any favors with the general tone of the commentary here. The overwhelming support for the girl and lack of empathy for black students such as Jimmy in your schools is a shame, but not surprising given what I've heard about far out areas of NoVa. I'm sure there are progressive, open-minded folks in these areas too, but for the most part, they don't see to be commenting here.

Nice spin. No wonder no one takes you seriously.
DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the posters here are any indication of the true feelings of people in Loudoun County, I agree with the pp that I wouldn’t want to live there or visit.

-POC in PG county (so don’t condescend to me about DC)

Yeah they’re basically “if you don’t support casually racist while kids you can stay over there!” I live in Loudoun and this thread is embaraasinnnggg but also sadly predictable

Except that - ONCE AGAIN - no one is supporting “casual racism” of any kind. They are correctly pointing out that this particular punishment was grossly disproportionate to the actual offense. Which you would realize if you had any common sense at all.
DP

The entire community failed both kids, and the result is this public reckoning for both of them. This actually happens all the time but because a rich white girl is involved DCUM cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you all think? Is this (racism in LCPS) as rampant as the article portrays? Is FCPS any better? Were the consequences fair to the girl?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html

LCPS is FCPS of 25 years ago. Move further out, live with more white people. So, you live that insulated, kids (unchecked) act like this. Lack of diversity doesn't inoculate a community from racism, just let people live without real consequence. Until that kid blew up her spot. Small prices compared to the number of POC that have been derailed by their public school experiences.

Do you honestly think kids don’t do this kind of stuff in FCPS? How quickly you forget about the disastrous rollout of online learning in April where kids yelled/wrote/sung the n-word in classes. It happened to my son in one of his classes and we can only assume he was targeted given he was the only Black student in the class.

It happens in FCPS but it definitely is worse in Loudoun because LCPS parents especially as you get farther out in Loudoun tend to be more likely to be okay with it. I grew up in Loudoun as the child of a LCPS administrator.

Ok? I grew up in LCPS am Black and now have two children in FCPS. FCPS is no better when it comes to this type of stuff. Before the pandemic, my son couldn’t do a week without hearing the n-word spoken by his fellow students.

+ 1 np

What is the intent? Is it being directed at him? If so, he should stick up for himself, just like white kids have to do at mostly black schools.

I’m sure you’re an expert on the white experience in black schools.

My kids look white and are in black schools where...

Everyone is nice to them.

Yeah, that has been the experience of not a single white kid going to a predominately black school. You are living in fantasy land if you don't think that ignorance and racism exist in those schools.

Alrighty. Everybody is bad, and while people are just scapegoats, right? Poor poor white people!

There is ignorance and racism in every school in this country probably, that doesn’t mean your kids can run around saying the n word, it doesn’t mean you’re a persecuted white person, and nothing is going to change your mind but life is not fair and that doesn’t make racism ok.

I think what a lot of the white people in this thread are struggling with is the concept of life being unfair. Did your parents not teach you this concept? Did you think your whiteness could always protect you from reality?

Sound like you have an axe to grind with white people. Most posters have a problem with those who want to seek revenge against someone because they were triggered by a word and their own bigoted views. You are entitled to your opinion, but you are in the minority, as there are only a couple of morons incessantly posting in support of your view. I know you came here to have your like minded views validated, but it doesn't always go your way, even on DCUM.

Most posters here. On DCUM. A site containing the most privileged who think making $150k means you’re poor.

Society has already showed who they support and it isn’t her. Hence why she had to withdraw from school.

Society is a bit larger than the UT admissions office. The bulk of opinion since this Times article has been published is of the view that the girl was callous, the boy came out looking worse because he was manipulative and vindictive, and the university over-reacted.

And yet, is she at another university? Is he still in school? Did he have to withdraw? Seems society has spoken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also he didn’t cause harm. Her actions did.

You have that exactly opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also he didn’t cause harm. Her actions did.

You have that exactly opposite.

Please. If she didn’t throw the n word out there none of this would have happened. Again, whites want to live in a world for themselves full of do-overs while denying others the same. Systematic racism at its best. White woman’s tears and the knights in white shining armor come out to defend her honor (or, in reality, defend her privilege).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the posters here are any indication of the true feelings of people in Loudoun County, I agree with the pp that I wouldn’t want to live there or visit.

-POC in PG county (so don’t condescend to me about DC)

Yeah they’re basically “if you don’t support casually racist while kids you can stay over there!” I live in Loudoun and this thread is embaraasinnnggg but also sadly predictable

Except that - ONCE AGAIN - no one is supporting “casual racism” of any kind. They are correctly pointing out that this particular punishment was grossly disproportionate to the actual offense. Which you would realize if you had any common sense at all.
DP

The entire community failed both kids, and the result is this public reckoning for both of them. This actually happens all the time but because a rich white girl is involved DCUM cares.

It might help if you could point to specific examples of black kids getting booted from flagship state universities because they’d made offensive comments when they were 15 directed at no one in particular but disparaging white kids, gay kids, Asian kids, etc. We’ll wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you all think? Is this (racism in LCPS) as rampant as the article portrays? Is FCPS any better? Were the consequences fair to the girl?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html

LCPS is FCPS of 25 years ago. Move further out, live with more white people. So, you live that insulated, kids (unchecked) act like this. Lack of diversity doesn't inoculate a community from racism, just let people live without real consequence. Until that kid blew up her spot. Small prices compared to the number of POC that have been derailed by their public school experiences.

Do you honestly think kids don’t do this kind of stuff in FCPS? How quickly you forget about the disastrous rollout of online learning in April where kids yelled/wrote/sung the n-word in classes. It happened to my son in one of his classes and we can only assume he was targeted given he was the only Black student in the class.

It happens in FCPS but it definitely is worse in Loudoun because LCPS parents especially as you get farther out in Loudoun tend to be more likely to be okay with it. I grew up in Loudoun as the child of a LCPS administrator.

Ok? I grew up in LCPS am Black and now have two children in FCPS. FCPS is no better when it comes to this type of stuff. Before the pandemic, my son couldn’t do a week without hearing the n-word spoken by his fellow students.

+ 1 np

What is the intent? Is it being directed at him? If so, he should stick up for himself, just like white kids have to do at mostly black schools.

I’m sure you’re an expert on the white experience in black schools.

My kids look white and are in black schools where...

Everyone is nice to them.

Yeah, that has been the experience of not a single white kid going to a predominately black school. You are living in fantasy land if you don't think that ignorance and racism exist in those schools.

Alrighty. Everybody is bad, and while people are just scapegoats, right? Poor poor white people!

There is ignorance and racism in every school in this country probably, that doesn’t mean your kids can run around saying the n word, it doesn’t mean you’re a persecuted white person, and nothing is going to change your mind but life is not fair and that doesn’t make racism ok.

I think what a lot of the white people in this thread are struggling with is the concept of life being unfair. Did your parents not teach you this concept? Did you think your whiteness could always protect you from reality?

NP here- I think what you're hearing/seeing is fear. People are realizing that a girl, who made a mistake at a young age when many, many kids make mistakes is paying for in a spectacularly public and life-altering manner. That her accomplishments, character, and work ethic are essentially meaningless at this point in her life, because of this one mistake. They are confusing it with the injustice...but injustice is the systemic racism and having the deck stacked against you...and the tragedies of lives and potential lost because those in power made decisions based on skin color. White parents are getting a tiny taste of the fear that black parents must regularly experience. This would be an opportunity to empathize with one another vs. upholding or attacking the characters of two young people who are a product of a society that we created.

I truly don't even think she made a mistake or if it is one, it is so trivial. If UT thinks it's a big deal it's their right, but I have less respect for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also he didn’t cause harm. Her actions did.

You have that exactly opposite.

Please. If she didn’t throw the n word out there none of this would have happened. Again, whites want to live in a world for themselves full of do-overs while denying others the same. Systematic racism at its best. White woman’s tears and the knights in white shining armor come out to defend her honor (or, in reality, defend her privilege).

You will continue to lose this argument badly, because you are just spouting an arsenal of cliches - shame on you, though, for leaving out “lived experience” - and most are reacting to the actual facts as presented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"I think what you're hearing/seeing is fear. People are realizing that a girl, who made a mistake at a young age when many, many kids make mistakes is paying for in a spectacularly public and life-altering manner. That her accomplishments, character, and work ethic are essentially meaningless at this point in her life, because of this one mistake. "

+1
And i'll agree that most transgressions kids make should not have spectacularly public & life-altering penalties attached to them. Violent actions need to be punished in a way that does not allow the person being hurt to continue being hurt moving forward.

But aside from that, penalties for dumb sh-t kids do should be 95% in the moment - grounding, detention, suspension from an extra-curricular for X days/weeks - not on the order of magnitude of what has happened to this girl for literally a single really stupid (and wrong) thing she did 3 years ago when a freshman in HS.

pp here-- yes. One of the comments on the NYT article is that she used the word when she was a child (fifteen) and she's being punished for it like an adult.

It would have been better if the video was shared with the HS administration and her parents-- and meaningful, age-appropriate consequences were implemented at the time. It sounds though, like the adults were also a problem in this scenario...unwilling to address entrenched racism at the school, so there's that.

It wasn't a video at school. The statement wasn't meant in a mean way at all. The school should have done nothing other than continue to work on diversity issues in school. It is obvious that this wasn't a real threat because the boy did nothing about it for over 3 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I think what you're hearing/seeing is fear. People are realizing that a girl, who made a mistake at a young age when many, many kids make mistakes is paying for in a spectacularly public and life-altering manner. That her accomplishments, character, and work ethic are essentially meaningless at this point in her life, because of this one mistake. "

+1
And i'll agree that most transgressions kids make should not have spectacularly public & life-altering penalties attached to them. Violent actions need to be punished in a way that does not allow the person being hurt to continue being hurt moving forward.

But aside from that, penalties for dumb sh-t kids do should be 95% in the moment - grounding, detention, suspension from an extra-curricular for X days/weeks - not on the order of magnitude of what has happened to this girl for literally a single really stupid (and wrong) thing she did 3 years ago when a freshman in HS.

There was absolutely nothing violent about this behavior by Mimi. Nothing. Get a grip.

[Anonymous]

Didn't read the past 46 pages so not sure if this has been brought up.

The phrase uttered was the lyrics of a song.