‘If you want to be treated equally, that means the people who represent you have to be treated equally’
Minneapolis’ School Plan Asks White Families to Help Integrate
Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson urges all white families to speak up in favor of integration during a School Plan district visit Wednesday at Minneapolis’ Kennedy Elementary.
Johnson’s comments came during a visit to a Minneapolis school where 78 percent of students are African-American or Latino, a situation that the district says “reflects the racial makeup of the community as a whole.”
Johnson implored white parents to “open your hearts” to integration in a powerful, impassioned speech Wednesday to Minneapolis’ Kennedy Elementary. She described segregation as “the real issue.”
“We don’t see this poverty disparity, this racial inequality, this educational inequity or any of these things to be due to a wrong I have done,” she said. “We all could be better parents and better guardians.”
Johnson’s remarks came during a School Plan District visit, during which she shared her vision for an integrated Minneapolis.
Johnson spoke to an audience that included parents, parents-to-be, administrators and community leaders at the primary school’s cafeteria.
“If you want to be treated equally, that means the people who represent you have to be treated equally,” she said.
The national conversation around race and American society took a step forward during the 2017 presidential election as it emerged that many of President Donald Trump’s supporters embraced stereotypes about Latinos, Muslims and African-Americans, according to a conversation captured on video by The Boston Globe.