"Nice White Parents" - Ep. 4 Podcast Review

Episode 4 - “Here’s Another Fun Thing You Can Do”

This episode starts off with a film that explains the purpose of schools in 1951. The success of the academic elementary school underneath SIS formed this weird vision of what compliance and good behavior "should" look like. This standard was built from the white students walking in a single line formation while being told to be quiet, “like in an army” she recalled. This idea of militarism in schools is not new yet what we have here is another strange and traumatic experiences for several of the students. The SIS student talks about behavioral measures put on students of color that is more commonly referred to as the school to prison pipeline. A system of planned outcomes to be met by any means, "I'm not racist, it's okay because...". Another example of these militaristic and traumatic experiences that our students continue to struggle with is mentioned at the time stamp below...

8:20 - (A viral video of a white teacher yelling and degrading a child about math problem.)

Parent councils vs. PTA? What do you think? In this episode, we get to listen in on some conversations with a school whose Parent Council doesn’t raise money unlike at SIS.

Strange right? Wrong.

Why do we think that the way to achieve success and equality is through uniformity? The punitive, corrective, and identical measures that are forced upon the schools are weird. These relationships between young, white, women teachers provide a stark contrast to the students of color than schools that serve primarily white students. This continues to racially segregate schools by putting limits of power on white parents such as being able to choose their schools and which neighborhoods they want. Again, I go back to explaining that this system is what feeds the school to prison pipeline.

28:50 - Equality vs. Equity

Who were the people that were not taught about race and racism?

The answer...those who never had to think about it.

It's important that we understand that there are knowledge bases outside of our own, we must acknowledge that our knowledge comes from our intersectional privileges and lived experiences. Why do we believe that specific experiences are less valuable than others? Things might seem okay for one person but they don’t see the harm it causes, this is “white ignorance”.

39:00 - “Having a diverse school doesn’t mean that we have an integrated school, we need to work on that”

Students have to keep a watchful eye

This is a common experience for people of color, having to verify their existence in these different spaces to have their lives validated. These students are being forced to do the educating while experiencing the trauma from being forced to experience further segregation, tokenism and inappropriate comments.

---

Continued for the last episode.....