Around Town
Letter: NCHS Grad’s ‘Rabid Rejoinder’ Speaks To Need for Change
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To the Editor:
A fellow NCHS graduate, Griffin Hall ’16, recently published a rabid rejoinder to the proposals made by an alumni group at a Board of Education meeting on June 15. In doing so, however, he unwittingly presented a perfect example of why our group’s proposal is so desperately needed. Mr. Hall’s assertion that he would “cringe to imagine…discussions in which the only acceptable conclusion is when white teenagers…finally give in and accept their responsibility as ‘oppressors’ ” reflects unwillingness among many individuals to acknowledge their complicity in systemic racism. In stark contrast to Mr. Hall’s Orwellian depiction, however, our goal is not to foster indoctrination but awareness of the ways in which white people and even non-black minorities inadvertently contribute to systemic racism. Willfully choosing to ignore this and resisting the “indoctrination” of exposure to multiple perspectives reduce racism no more than closing one’s eyes makes a brick wall less solid.