Reply to Empowerment Club for black girls?!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the lawsuit is BS. It's going to get thrown out. Do they even have standing? It's a VA parents group suing a program in DCPS. It's dumb.

BUT as an actual parent of a DCPS student, I think this was done kind of clumsily. Sure they are saying all students are welcome, but it's billed as an empowerment group for black girls. So as a practical matter, white kids and boys are not going to participate. I would also be curious about what school this was at -- that would make a big difference. If it's at one of the very few DCPS schools where black kids are in the minority, I can see the argument that you need an affinity group for this historically discriminated agains minority group.

If it's at one of the vast majority of DCPS schools with majority black populations... I don't get it. My kid's school is like 80% black. You could just start a group focused on empowerment of girls and it would essentially be an empowerment group for black girls. A few white girls might come but it wouldn't change the tone or content and actually would probably be good for the kids to discuss issues effecting girls in a mixed race environment -- they might understand each other better and it could help with some of the racial division that absolutely happens at these schools.

I am not so worried about the lawsuit -- whatever, that's just some racist parents sticking their noses where it doesn't belong. But DCPS does have challenges with integration, with helping girls in sometimes tough environments (there are also issues for boys and we could use groups focused on boys' issues actually), and the way this was done I think probably doesn't help unless you're talking about a school with a small population of black girls who need a place to talk about their experience which is different than that of most other kids at school.[/quote]

As a white parent whose white kids attend a predominantly Black DCPS school I am comfortable with the fact that not everything is about or for me. The school has done a great job of trying to expand all cultural awareness but not every event is going to be geared towards my kid and my family. I have two boys. I'm not upset at the fact that programming aimed at boosting women in STEM exists, that's wonderful!

The hate group goes out its way to avoid naming the school but the exhibits they cite show teachers from Hearst, a school that is predominantly white and less than 20% Black. So I imagine the group is especially important in a school that is whiter than the city itself.[/quote]

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