Wrighton to the NAACP: Don’t Worry, There’s a School for That
BY SARAH HULL
A few weeks ago, I sat in on a debate here at the University of Cape Town, where I am currently studying abroad. The debate was in reference to the upcoming South African presidential elections. After a lot of discussion of different policies, initiatives and goals of the various parties, someone in the group asked a brave but important question—“Why do people vote along racial lines?”
This question is one that is heavy on the minds of South Africans. The two major political parties, the ANC and the DA, are undeniably segregated. An overwhelming majority of ANC voters are black and an overwhelming majority of DA voters are white. Currently, the ANC holds power, though President Jacob Zuma has received significant criticism for charges of corruption. Still, ANC supporters, regardless of their feelings for Zuma, stand with the ANC fiercely.
The first response to this complex question seemed innocent enough:
“I think the issue here is a lack of education- people don’t know better, so they vote with people who look like them”
To this, the crowd erupted with anger. A member of the audience raised his hand to comment-
“The idea that one must be educated to a certain degree to vote was also a sentiment of the national party, may I remind you.” He said, to which the crowd erupted again, this time with cheers. For those who don’t know, the National Party was the political party who, upon coming to power in South Africa in the 1940s, wrote and enforced apartheid legislation.
Another audience member responded: “The reason I am voting for the ANC is NOT because I need more education, if that’s what you are suggesting”
These harsh but true words got me thinking. What was this girl (who was white) actually saying? That if people were more educated, fewer would vote for the ANC? That all ANC voters are uneducated followers? That all of South Africa’s problems somehow stem from a lack of education among certain populations? I applied this thought process to my life at home- How often have I heard education proposed as a solution to social problems? From crime to poverty to housing shortages- education of people of color is one of the first things to be suggested as a fix-all.
My mother works for Baltimore City Public Schools, teaching second grade in a school with almost exclusively Black students. The community she works in is one where crime and poverty are commonplace. She can tell inspiring stories of how education can uplift- of that one student who found refuge from the cruel world in reading or math or science. Education is a powerful and necessary tool, and with quality education can come extraordinary opportunity. Still, thinking it over, I would never claim that it is a fix-all. Some problems just don’t boil down to a need for education. Some problems boil down to oppression, systematic racism, or economic disenfranchisement. To bring up lack of education as a reason for certain societal problems detracts attention from other insidious issues at hand. Also, in doing so, it removes responsibility from those who perpetuate the real issues and puts the blame on people of color for “not being educated enough.”
This is why when I read Chancellor Wrighton’s response to Mr. Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis NAACP, I was appalled.
Mr. Pruitt cited specific concerns about the disproportionate impact that harmful energy practices have on communities of color.
He cites a NAACP report that found that “African Americans who reside near energy production facilities including coal fired power plants, nuclear power plants, or biomass power plants, are more likely to suffer the negative health impacts of prolonged exposure to smog, lead, asbestos, mercury, arsenic, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other toxins than any other group of Americans.”
Chancellor Wrighton’s response?
He brings up charter schools and college prep programs for African American students that WashU is sponsoring.
Perhaps he didn’t mean it- perhaps he was grasping at straws, trying to think of something to say without confronting the actual claims that Mr. Pruitt made. To this, I have little sympathy. If you are going to deflect an important criticism, at least do so more carefully. Whether or not the charter schools he discusses are good or help communities is not the question- they are irrelevant to the claims Mr. Pruitt was making. To bring them up in such a short response, Wrighton suggests that sponsoring these schools is somehow relevant to Mr. Pruitt’s claims. Which is to say that the damage being inflicted upon communities of color is somehow related to educational deficiencies in the African American community. Clearly, this is untrue, hurtful, and demeaning.
I am white; I cannot speak from any identity other than my own. I recognize that not everyone who reads the Chancellor’s words will interpret them as I did. Still, I can say that I am upset. I am upset because this sounds so much like what I heard at that debate a few weeks ago. I am upset because the administration of our school continues to enable Peabody to hurt our Earth, our nation and our neighbors. I am upset because the person who I’m talking about is our chancellor, the face of an institution that claims to prioritize diversity and social justice.
I am deeply disappointed that Chancellor Wrighton would think that this is an appropriate response. He needs to be held accountable for his dismissive and disrespectful words to Mr. Pruitt as well as his dangerous inaction and complacency in regards to the actions of Peabody coal. We deserve leadership that makes it a priority to respond to injustices rather than deflect and perpetuate them. We all deserve better.