From our friends at The Black Star Project:
13-Year-Old Black Girl in Rochester, New York Persecuted and Forced Out of
School for Challenging White Teachers to Teach and for Challenging Her Black Classmates to Learn with Essay on Frederick Douglass
In her essay, Jada Williams quotes part of the scene where Frederick Douglass' slave master catches his wife teaching then slave Frederick to read and tells her he (Frederick) would be useless as a slave if he were able to read.
Miss Williams quoted Douglass quoting the slave master: "If you teach that nigger how to read, there will be no keeping him. It will forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master." She reflected on how the "white teachers" do not have enough control of the classroom to successfully teach the minority students in Rochester. She sees the fact that so many of the other "so-called 'unteachable'" students aren't learning to read as a form of modern-day slavery. Their illiteracy holds them back in society.
Her call to action was then in her summary: "A grand price was paid in order for us to be where we are today; but in my mind we should be a lot further, so again I encourage the white teachers to instruct and I encourage my people to not just be a student, but become a learner."
Please contact Rochester Superintendent of Public Schools Vargas Bolgen at bolgen.vargas@rcsdk12.org or call (585) 262-8100 to voice your concerns about Ms. Jada Williams being force out of school because she wants her classmates to learn.
Whoa! What happened to freedom of speach!? Does that not include black children? Why the suspension? Did she cause a riot or something? There's got to be some legit reason other than she gave her opinion and it didn't sit well with the white faculty.she spoke the truth,the only way to keep us as a viable work force is to keep us (blacks) at a certain level.and messin with someones mind and spirit is one of many ways of doing that.
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