Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another segment of the nonprofits.
Speaker 1: And for this segment, we are going to go down
Speaker 1: to Georgia, and apparently we're going to go back to
Speaker 1: nineteen forties Georgia and Jason Freedom's Friedman's going to take
Speaker 1: us there.
Speaker 2: What do you got for us, Jason, Well.
Speaker 3: Kelly, I've got a pretty spicy story here.
Speaker 4: So this took place at an elementary school called Honey
Speaker 4: Creek and it's in Conyers, Georgia, and the elementary school
Speaker 4: is facing a lot of backlash from parents because the
Speaker 4: students there, remember this elementary school reported seeing signs over
Speaker 4: the water fountains that said whites only and or black
Speaker 4: blacks only. Now, the school officials said that a teacher
Speaker 4: put up the signs as part of history lesson. They
Speaker 4: were teaching the students about rub Ruby Bridges, sorry, who
Speaker 4: was the first black student to de segregate the US
Speaker 4: schools in the nineteen sixties. Now, the story it's from
Speaker 4: The Independent, and it's via Yahoo News, and it's by
Speaker 4: Katie Hawkinson and it was put out April twenty four five. Now, Kelly,
Speaker 4: I'm going to shoot it back to you man.
Speaker 3: So cool.
Speaker 1: Thanks, Jason, I want to. Actually, I'm going to shoot
Speaker 1: it back to John and I. John, I know you're
Speaker 1: totally against racism in any form. Now do you feel
Speaker 1: that this lesson was racist in any way?
Speaker 2: John, we can't hear you tell me.
Speaker 5: I'm not. Oh gosh, Okay.
Speaker 4: Well luckily it did, so we can go right off
Speaker 4: of Kelly's question and then John can start.
Speaker 1: Okay, John, count the three first. I'll go one, two, three,
Speaker 1: and three.
Speaker 5: Okay, one, two, three, Okay. Well, I really think that
Speaker 5: anytime there's an authority figure like a teacher or a
Speaker 5: school administrator or principal, who does something that is offensive
Speaker 5: to somebody, that that is a racist and it has
Speaker 5: to be dealt with. However, I am not against good education.
Speaker 5: I just think that this was not a good educational moment.
Speaker 5: It was too young as and it was just I
Speaker 5: don't think that these kinds of issues should be thrown
Speaker 5: in a kid's face as a role play, like putting
Speaker 5: signs up for them. You're there, they don't. They're not
Speaker 5: going to get anything out of LARPing this except traumatic experiences.
Speaker 5: So you know, I just feel like they should have
Speaker 5: done a little bit more forethought, or the teacher should
Speaker 5: have done a little bit more forethought and knows that
Speaker 5: the way this explodes is because children can be as cruel,
Speaker 5: crueler than most adults with their peers, and that some
Speaker 5: kid is going to make fun of you or going
Speaker 5: to slam your head into a fountain or something like
Speaker 5: that because of these signs. And I think that that
Speaker 5: that's where it gets to be to me, to be
Speaker 5: just something that needs to be dealt with, something that
Speaker 5: needs accountability. And I don't think just educating that the
Speaker 5: people involved is going to do that. This is something
Speaker 5: that came up from somebody's unconni is an okay thing
Speaker 5: to do when it wasn't, and we need to know
Speaker 5: where that came from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Yeah, you're absolutely right though about kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I'd rather face one mean drunk
Speaker 1: at a bar than ten sarcastic haunting children on a playground. Jason, Jason,
Speaker 1: I'm going to throw it back to you here for
Speaker 1: a second. Do you think this lesson was warranted in
Speaker 1: the way I was taught?
Speaker 3: All Right, So I'm gonna go out on a few limbs.
Speaker 4: I fully understand that the school is stating, and I
Speaker 4: believe them that the teacher went outside to prove curriculum,
Speaker 4: you know, And I understand that this type of thing
Speaker 4: is definitely going to make people feel some kind of way,
Speaker 4: you know, and I'm pretty sure they shouldn't have done
Speaker 4: this at an elementary school. I'm going to say all
Speaker 4: that that said, I mean, isn't it important that we
Speaker 4: remember history so we don't repeat it? As a Jewish
Speaker 4: person with a Jewish partner, Jewish family, I can understand
Speaker 4: doing let's say, an exercise in maybe high school or
Speaker 4: college that involves things like wearing armbands and doing role play,
Speaker 4: maybe in a psyche collegies. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 4: depends on protocols, but if there's controls involved and things
Speaker 4: like that, like I understand, like the need to feel
Speaker 4: like we're talking a hair, you know, a hair of
Speaker 4: what those people felt like. We had the Holocaust Museum
Speaker 4: here in Houston, right, And it's because we need to
Speaker 4: see those things, we need to feel those things. We
Speaker 4: need to sit through our we need to sit through
Speaker 4: our discomfort, you know, because our discomfort pales in comparison
Speaker 4: to the actual suffering, right, And we need to confront
Speaker 4: those demons and make it a fucking.
Speaker 3: Reality so sorry.
Speaker 4: There are people, Look, there are people who are still
Speaker 4: alive that promoted segregation. There are people walking around people
Speaker 4: John's John Kelly's age that all people y'all grew up
Speaker 4: around that literally lynched people, lynched people who are still homeowners,
Speaker 4: no justice being served. Took pictures next to, you know,
Speaker 4: the burning bodies of dead children. They're walking free, living
Speaker 4: next to us. And what those people want most of
Speaker 4: all is for us.
Speaker 3: To forget what they did.
Speaker 4: But it was the re past, you know, and and
Speaker 4: it's the people who were affected by it are still
Speaker 4: going through it.
Speaker 3: So look, it was bad taste to do it in
Speaker 3: elementary school. Was it evil? Malicious? Racist? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to make that judgment because I
Speaker 4: don't know person involved. But in my opinion, I think
Speaker 4: a simple environment change and given the right protocols, blah
Speaker 4: blah blah what I said before, I think a teacher
Speaker 4: doing this could make a very valid solid point and
Speaker 4: force some shit into people's faces to show we're still
Speaker 4: dealing with this today.
Speaker 3: This isn't so It's like if.
Speaker 4: We put like signs gladiators and slaves and this wouldn't
Speaker 4: affect us, right, This is Rome two thousand and no
Speaker 4: thing would well, the slaves things, so yeah, but I'm
Speaker 4: trying to think of like, yeah, the slaves, but I'm
Speaker 4: trying to think of like whatever that I don't know.
Speaker 4: Plebeing Libyan said yeah, okay, thank you. You've got to
Speaker 4: work it out of my brain. So that wouldn't have
Speaker 4: any effects on anybody, nobody all hah, I'm a gladiator,
Speaker 4: it know, people would act like idiots. But something like
Speaker 4: this that I think it's telling. I think it's a projection.
Speaker 4: It's still going on, it still exists. It is still
Speaker 4: very whites only, blacks only.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. I like art.
Speaker 4: Art pulls shit out of people. I think this was
Speaker 4: an art project, just maybe in the wrong gallery. That's
Speaker 4: in my opinion. I'm sure someone will get mad at
Speaker 4: me about it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Along these lines, there was a quote in the article
Speaker 1: from one of the parents, and I'm going to quote it.
Speaker 1: My son was over a water fountain drinking and there
Speaker 1: was a four colored only sign above and he was
Speaker 1: made fun of by the other children. To me, that's
Speaker 1: not a history lesson. And I thought to myself, really,
Speaker 1: isn't that the very fucking lesson?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 1: I might not agree as you did, Jason.
Speaker 2: I do not agree with the way it was.
Speaker 4: Ethical, that's right, sadly, but it was still an ethical
Speaker 4: because those weren't willing to participants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think it.
Speaker 2: I know it was that people.
Speaker 1: Because they were singled out for something that had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with them. It was a condition of their birth.
Speaker 1: That's the lesson, right. And now the way it was
Speaker 1: taught was horrible. It should never ever have been taught
Speaker 1: to elementary children the way it was, that's my thought.
Speaker 1: But that was the very lesson they were trying to teach,
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't make people feel this way, and that
Speaker 1: people were made the field. This is the way people
Speaker 1: were made the feel just because they were born into
Speaker 1: the wrong body.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree that, like the challenge being made fun
Speaker 6: of for using the water, because I was in my
Speaker 6: notes too, because I thought that, like, if this had
Speaker 6: stopped at the teacher putting up the signs, and then
Speaker 6: at the school was like, hey, this is bad, take
Speaker 6: them down, that would have been inappropriate. I think there's
Speaker 6: merit in using shock value to teach when it's done
Speaker 6: appropriately in the appropriate setting. And this is neither of
Speaker 6: those things, right, but so, but like so for the
Speaker 6: kid being made fun of for you using that water fountain,
Speaker 6: I don't think is quite the same as the actual
Speaker 6: like the the same. It teaches a lesson of being othered,
Speaker 6: but not in the same way that people who were segregated.
Speaker 1: Were, Like Jason said, we're not you know, you're only
Speaker 1: getting a small bite of the actual experience. Yeah, that's right, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: But at the same time I think that like as
Speaker 6: you mentioned, I think Kelly like or no it was
Speaker 6: Jason again, like Ruby Bridges is still alive, Like the
Speaker 6: first girl to desegregate a white shoes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was six six exactly.
Speaker 6: So you could have Ruby Bridges or like anybody that's
Speaker 6: her age come and talk to the class and say like, yeah,
Speaker 6: you see this nice new water fountain that is like
Speaker 6: clean and the jet comes out as like substantial or
Speaker 6: like per appropriate amount, so you don't have to put
Speaker 6: your mouth on the faucet to get water where everybody
Speaker 6: else is putting their mouth. This would have been the
Speaker 6: white people found in and there's one over here that
Speaker 6: is like older and rusty and doesn't work and isn't
Speaker 6: really connected to the water system at all. That's the
Speaker 6: one that I would have had to use, and then
Speaker 6: the kids would have been like, well, who.
Speaker 3: Would fix it?
Speaker 6: I don't know whoever is willing to fix a black
Speaker 6: people color or the water fountain like the good luck
Speaker 6: finding somebody.
Speaker 1: That's That's an amazing way to teach that lesson.
Speaker 3: I think. So.
Speaker 6: I'm not an educator though, so I know.
Speaker 2: So, John, you haven't said much.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think this was an attempt to
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you say something now. Do you think
Speaker 1: there was an attempt to say whitewash the history of
Speaker 1: racism in the USA?
Speaker 5: I don't think it was that.
Speaker 2: I think it was intended.
Speaker 5: I don't think it was intended as.
Speaker 2: Me saying whitewash was intended by me?
Speaker 5: Okay, I don't know. I don't know where you were
Speaker 5: going with.
Speaker 1: You know, was this an attempt to whitewash history?
Speaker 5: Well? So, in certain circumstances it always is. But you know,
Speaker 5: one of the things that struck me about that is
Speaker 5: that the casualness with which the schools said, oh well,
Speaker 5: it was inappropriate, and we you know, and we took
Speaker 5: the signs down and almost like they're handwaving it away.
Speaker 5: But I think it's a little more serious than that,
Speaker 5: and I think it needs to be at least considered
Speaker 5: when it comes to educating small children that they, you know,
Speaker 5: they don't need to be confronted with the absolute evils
Speaker 5: that their society has been in, you know, when they're
Speaker 5: that age, when they're an appropriate age to where they
Speaker 5: can understand it, rather than have to sit there and
Speaker 5: kind of say, wow, we're bad people for that. No
Speaker 5: you're not. You're not them, You weren't the ones who
Speaker 5: did it. They have to be of an age where
Speaker 5: they can understand that it's where the responsibility lies and
Speaker 5: so and elementary school just is in that place. Middle
Speaker 5: school towards high school. Yes, their brain has developed enough
Speaker 5: at that point to be able to make those kinds
Speaker 5: of distinguishments. But you know, that's the only problem I
Speaker 5: had with this. But I really get angry at people
Speaker 5: in charge when they handwave something way instead of at
Speaker 5: least investigating it a little bit. You know, that just
Speaker 5: bothers me because they're not taking it seriously.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, they denied any evolment, placing the entire blame
Speaker 1: on the teacher, right, claiming the teacher didn't submit the
Speaker 1: signs as part of her lesson plan. And that may
Speaker 1: well be true. My ex wife was a teacher. She would,
Speaker 1: you know, submit her her lesson plans, and she was
Speaker 1: pretty positive nobody ever looked looked them over, So it
Speaker 1: could and that could have happened here. It could be
Speaker 1: that the signs were in the lesson plan and nobody
Speaker 1: ever actually bothered to read through the whole election plan
Speaker 1: from every teacher. And it's with me the something first
Speaker 1: time that someone's laziness is the cause of many of
Speaker 1: life's problems, never yours, of course, it's always somebody else's laziness.
Speaker 1: It's your laziness, right, But you have to wonder how long,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, how long were these signs up before
Speaker 1: someone who that mattered even noticed them?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: They had to have been up for quite.
Speaker 1: A while if there were that many complaints about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, an administrator, a visiting parent, another teacher that
Speaker 1: could have any of them could have reported it to
Speaker 1: the front office.
Speaker 2: So they were. But they were.
Speaker 1: Apparently long enough up long enough for children to be
Speaker 1: teased over them, which is another fucking problem in its
Speaker 1: own right. What parents are teaching their kids that it's
Speaker 1: all right to tease someone over race. Are we still
Speaker 1: living in the fucking nineteenth century right.
Speaker 5: Well, they are in Georgia, apparently.
Speaker 4: Well I had to pull I had to pull my
Speaker 4: kid out of a public school, which I hate that
Speaker 4: I had to do that, especially in Texas, you know,
Speaker 4: because we need to focus on the public schools. But
Speaker 4: one of the biggest problems was the amount of racial
Speaker 4: and this is middle school, you know, sixth grade classes.
Speaker 4: The amount of extreme amounts of racist terminology that was
Speaker 4: used by six grade students at the teachers, at other
Speaker 4: students on a daily basis. So this is apparently a
Speaker 4: thing again now like within that age group that like
Speaker 4: things like blatant racism are trendy and popular now and
Speaker 4: on the surge. So it's it makes sense to me
Speaker 4: just having a kid of that age who's you know,
Speaker 4: was only in elementary school two years ago, that that's
Speaker 4: something that goes on. Was going on in the elementary
Speaker 4: school was racism. And I agree with you, Kelly, there
Speaker 4: is because of the age. They are modeling behaviors. Right
Speaker 4: at that age, you know, up until about twelve ish,
Speaker 4: you know, loosely, they are modeling behaviors, and they're modeling
Speaker 4: what they see at home from their direct you know,
Speaker 4: socialization agents, and they're more or less immediate second circle
Speaker 4: environment so that you know, it's funny when somebody says that, it's.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, what they know, they're not modeling it.
Speaker 4: No, literally, that's what they do is model. So the
Speaker 4: environment that they're around and who they're around, they're in
Speaker 4: an antike, antagonistic environment and they're just carrying it over
Speaker 4: at their school and it's a shame and they're probably
Speaker 4: the ones that get targeted and spoken through that way.
Speaker 1: Well maybe maybe one bright spot in this and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it is or not, but a
Speaker 1: lot of children become the opposite of their parents. And
Speaker 1: let's face that these are young. This is elementary school.
Speaker 1: These are kids who are still idolizing their parents, and
Speaker 1: maybe as they get older, like the high school ages,
Speaker 1: that that ideal, that idealizing will take it swing the
Speaker 1: other way.
Speaker 5: But what scares me about that, Kelly, is that it
Speaker 5: also did you You your grandchildren are more like your
Speaker 5: grand their grandparents. So I mean, look at you and
Speaker 5: me and think about that for a minute. Do we
Speaker 5: really want that to happen?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 6: I think too though, that like the like Jason was saying,
Speaker 6: it's taking these ideas that these kids are learning, like
Speaker 6: at home or elsewhere, but now that it's in the
Speaker 6: school too, like it's concretizing it in print in front
Speaker 6: of these kids that are getting these ideas and these
Speaker 6: like inputs and and these impressions that make them think
Speaker 6: it's okay to behave this way or like that this
Speaker 6: is just the default way that you should behave and
Speaker 6: like yeah, of course, like people of different colors are
Speaker 6: worse than me, Like why wouldn't they be? And then
Speaker 6: now it's conquered. Now the school is concretizing that and
Speaker 6: then putting it in print and giving them just that
Speaker 6: much more justification to behave and think and act and
Speaker 6: talk that way. So I'm not optimistic that they will
Speaker 6: you know, turn it around.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, And I could see where kids would
Speaker 1: interpret this in the wrong way, right, you know. The
Speaker 1: lesson is to get them to understand how bad it
Speaker 1: was for you for people to be treated this way.
Speaker 1: But then yeah, you know, they got theirs their waterfun
Speaker 1: and we got ours, and that's the way it should be.
Speaker 2: That's that's what they just taught us, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Kids going to misinterpreting the whole lesson right, Your friends
Speaker 4: are going to fuck with you anyway they can't. I mean,
Speaker 4: don't forget that, terms like moron an idiot were medical terms,
Speaker 4: and then it became other terms that we can't say,
Speaker 4: and then other terms we can't say. So kids are
Speaker 4: just gonna take whatever medical term there is a time,
Speaker 4: and anytime their friend runs into a wall or trips
Speaker 4: over a gravity pocket or or whatever, that's what they're
Speaker 4: gonna do.
Speaker 3: So I call it.
Speaker 4: The reason I say it's unethical is because it seems
Speaker 4: like a really shitty psychology experiment that they ran on
Speaker 4: kids who weren't old enough to consent, and there were
Speaker 4: no controls put in place. So of course, any teacher
Speaker 4: who has is worth their weight, or is actually I
Speaker 4: say that is getting paid decent, because you got to
Speaker 4: think these teachers are probably fucking overworked and underpaid. I say, probably,
Speaker 4: just because there might be one that isn't you know
Speaker 4: it's Zach guy. Yes, over there in that place.
Speaker 1: You know it's find a contract forty years ago and
Speaker 1: they still have to fucking out.
Speaker 3: Oh That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So it blows my fucking mind. Because like, this was
Speaker 4: not a this was not a smart move. This was
Speaker 4: this was a recipe for disaster, And of of course
Speaker 4: some people are going to get pissed, and of course
Speaker 4: it was going to end up with kids getting meal
Speaker 4: fucking with each other because that's what good at what
Speaker 4: that's what kids do. Yeah, man, of course that's what's
Speaker 4: going to happen, is some kids going to get targeted,
Speaker 4: and sadly, a lot of times it's in groups that
Speaker 4: are doing the fucking with you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's the way it was happening at my kids school.
Speaker 4: A lot of the a lot of the kids like
Speaker 4: who are people of color? They would go after each
Speaker 4: other and it was so vicious and just the words
Speaker 4: use and like the kids would go after the teachers
Speaker 4: who were like similar ethnicity, and it was insane. This
Speaker 4: what was happening there, And it was heartbreaking just to
Speaker 4: see it happening because it was a lot of in
Speaker 4: group quote group in group attacking and it's sad. I'm
Speaker 4: sure that's what happened there. I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the NAACP got involved, man, Yeah, local, state
Speaker 5: and local, So that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's
Speaker 5: a good thing.
Speaker 4: But I don't I don't know why that's a good thing.
Speaker 4: I don't feel like this is like a campaign that
Speaker 4: anybody's doing against these students.
Speaker 3: Somebody made a bad fucking choice.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, But I think when you when you get
Speaker 5: attention to it, that is a form of accountability. You
Speaker 5: know that that is a form of transparency. You know,
Speaker 5: you can't deny that it happened at that point, you know, So,
Speaker 5: which is all together very common, you know, is for
Speaker 5: the people in authority to say, oh, that never happened,
Speaker 5: you know, and we probably hates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can probably argue, yeah.
Speaker 5: We could. We could go back and forth on that, so.
Speaker 2: I'll give you a minute to go back and forth.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's I don't know, because like for me
Speaker 3: ina a c P. It's like I would think.
Speaker 4: That the resources would be suited for people who are
Speaker 4: like being actually targeted and campaigns are being run against them,
Speaker 4: or being called groomers or you know, you're trying to
Speaker 4: trans or kid or somebody who's.
Speaker 1: Actually systemic racism instead like individual or a racist student
Speaker 1: organization or a racist teacher who is blatantly like you know,
Speaker 1: I I.
Speaker 4: Think in this case, this teacher fucked up. I wouldn't
Speaker 4: be so, I mean, I don't I don't know if
Speaker 4: it matters. But if this person, the teacher, was a
Speaker 4: person of color, maybe she was just trying to do
Speaker 4: something to highlight what's who knows, you know, I mean, he.
Speaker 2: Just didn't think it through, right, dude.
Speaker 3: It was a dumb fucking move. It was fucking stupid.
Speaker 3: It was a dumb funck move, all right.
Speaker 1: I know what you want to hear something I almost
Speaker 1: named my podcast Kelly's Coffee Clutch with all k's.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that wouldn't It would have been a dumb move.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that would have been bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody would have been happy about that.
Speaker 1: You think about stuff like right off the bad. So
Speaker 1: maybe she wasn't thinking that.
Speaker 4: Way, right, Yeah, So maybe you know, the real problem
Speaker 4: is that she was a new shitty teacher something. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know, who knows, or she was just sick
Speaker 4: of everybody's ship. Who knows? But n double a c P. Like,
Speaker 4: I mean, there's I know, some other ship that's going
Speaker 4: on that they could probably help out with, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know that seems like.
Speaker 5: They're busy people. No, doubt they.
Speaker 6: Can do more than one thing.
Speaker 2: I really think she didn't think it all the way through.
Speaker 1: And you're thinking, we want to know what you think,
Speaker 1: so drop us a line, drop you know, leave a
Speaker 1: comment below, or drop us a slide at TV. At
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Speaker 2: Get an email from you,