The Public Lynching of a Black Mother
My nostalgic musings and serious call to action
One morning, that seemed like any other, children began flooding into the main office right after we started morning announcements. It was our late crew- a predictable bunch of night owls that never could quite make it to school on time. We were frantically trying to greet the children and write late passes, wishing them well as they hurried down the hallway, making sure that they didn’t miss morning announcements and breakfast. On this particular morning, the Principal stood at the door of the main entrance, looking surprised at the sheer amount of students entering late. It was well into the school year and the amount of students was no surprise to us, the front office crew, but this was her first time being in the main office during morning arrival. Red flag, right? As the morning announcements began, she started pointing out kids that she assumed had slipped by us. “That one is late!” “She didn’t get a pass!” She passively yelled at anyone who would listen and this peculiar display of “concern” from our school leader continued for quite some time. We ignored her awkward yelling and kept on shooing kids down the hallway. We knew how important it was for these kids to be in class, get breakfast and start their day. More importantly, we knew that, in spite of their consistent tardiness, most of them lit up (or at least smiled) every morning as we greeted them by name while they trudged in, barely awake. We made a point to make them feel welcome and celebrated when they walked through those doors. Our school leader, on her first day witnessing morning arrival on that chilly November morning, never greeted any of them and certainly didn’t know their names.
Suddenly, in a blur of events, our sing-song morning announcements were abruptly cut short and I was frantically being summoned to the Principal’s office by someone on my team. Another staff member, witnessing the cold, dismissive behavior towards our students, was very upset and needed to share her displeasure. As I entered the room, the shrill tone and flow of tears from my colleague shocked me. I knew I was asked to come in to help diffuse this confrontation and bring some peace. Not because we are both Black, but because we’re close and I tend to be pretty calm in intense situations. But as I stood there, trying to understand the situation and bring calm to my friend & colleague, it became clear that the Principal was barely listening to her poignant words. “Tardiness is a parent problem, not a student problem!” “Our students deserve to be greeted first thing in the morning!” Her passionate plea and outcry for our students was falling on deaf ears. The Principal saw right through my colleague, as tears poured down her face and her voice cracked in anguish. She was completely uncaring; an apathy that I had never felt nor witnessed before that day.
Months later, as so many other similar encounters between staff members and our school leader transpired, as I sat back and thought about that morning. I kept going back to it- it stuck with me and I was reminded of something much more sinister. I had recently studied modern African American history and the terror that we endured at the hands of White people in the early 20th century. Part of that terrorist behavior included a resurgence of lynchings in the 1920s. During my studies, I came across these pictures and was surprised by what I saw. Not only was it shocking to see a little girl smiling at the sight of someone’s hanging body, but the faces of the women were sobering. The calmness with which they looked at their hanging bodies and the half-smile that exuded their evil joy over gave me chills. These women epitomized evil and apathy in those moments. Often times, Black men were lynched because of the actions/allegations of White women- here’s a great article from the New York Times about the correlation between White women and lynchings. As I sat and thought about that morning, I was reminded of our school leader’s dismissive behavior- the weird smirk on her face while she stared blankly at my colleague, the dry tone each time she attempted to rationalize her behavior, and the lack of empathy and compassion that she displayed. There was no crime committed or any unfathomable actions taken by our Principal. But I realized that her face, demeanor, and more importantly, her heart, was eerily similar to the women in the pictures. Looking on apathetically with a half-smirk, while a Black person is in anguish.
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Our city is unlike any other city I’ve ever seen. Condensed pockets of poverty juxtaposed alongside significant wealth. This incredible wealth gap is a significant factor for our local public schools. The de facto segregation of our schools looks like something straight out of the Southern Manifesto. Instead of sending their children to public schools, White families (the aforementioned “significant wealth”) overwhelmingly send their children to private schools. Because there’s just NO WAY they’re sending their kids to school with…the others. One White mom actually told me that she didn’t want to send her kids to our local elementally school, where my children attended and flourished, because she didn’t want her kids to be “the only White kids in the class.” She couldn’t fathom her kids being in the minority. Thus, our schools are predominantly composed of Black and Latino students. The district lines created by the school board enforce this de facto segregation, and we all just keep going along to get along. We’re all silent and complicit with these obviously racially motivated decisions that affect our children.
When we opened our doors in 2017, our school was to be the first of its kind in our city. Where children from every section and subsection of this small, suburban metropolis would come together in a beautiful melting pot, and create a space that would grow, challenge, and develop their young minds in a way that would never take place at our local, zoned schools. We all came together, staff and families, excited to build this new school. We were ALL IN! We were all on board! And then it happened. The same power structure that corrupted the surrounding schools leaked into our beautifully planned utopia. We were understaffed and overwhelmed. Many of us burned out. Some of us had to leave. No support from either side and no end in sight. We cried, we got angry, and we wondered why. Years passed, but for those of us that stayed, we still had a sliver of hope for the future. Which brings me back to that fateful morning. I should have seen it. We were already too far gone- we needed healing and all we got was more of the same. Actually, even worse. We got divisiveness, apathy, stubbornness, ineffectiveness, ineptness, and to top it all off, we got a whole lot of racism.
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Summer of 2020. After the death of George Floyd and the nation’s outcry for racial justice, we witnessed a racial atrocity right here in our city; a public lynching. Before the global shutdown due to COVID-19, Black parents and staff were treated differently than their White counterparts by our school leaders. Similarly, there was no effort to embrace our Latino families; but we remained silent and complicit and pushed through. By the summer, many of us folded and had to leave under the weight of oppression. It was completely different from the first staff exodus. Our Black staff members left with disheartening stories of feeling excluded and devalued. One Black staff member, who actually left in the middle of the school year, wrote on her resignation paperwork that she was in a “hostile work environment.” Even White staff members left because of the toxic, divisive climate of our building. By July, one of the parents couldn’t stomach it anymore. She was the most active member of our PTA and knew all of us quite well. In fact, she was a founding member of the PTA. When she learned that our Parent Liaison (one of only two Latino staff members) abruptly resigned, she was beside herself. She knew why- she had already witnessed firsthand our school leader’s divisive attitude towards staff members of color. She saw how disengaged she was in anything related to our Black or Latino students. She knew that our Parent Liaison was devalued and pushed out, right along with everyone else. She went to social media to express her concerns. Using colorful language, she described her disdain for our current leadership and suggested that a petition begin for her removal. It wasn’t long before that petition was a reality and it quickly gained traction; eventually reaching over 600 signatures. However, what happened afterwards is the lynchpin to this entire story. Her treatment is why we cannot remain silent. This parent went on a lone crusade to fight for the best interests of all Black and Latino children at our school, not just for the needs of her own children. She wanted to fight for the children that have no voice- for the parents that have no voice. But it became clear that that type of behavior wasn’t tolerated in our city. Especially not from a Black parent.
This Black mother represented everything that we claim to want from a member of our school community. Active in the PTA, organized school events, volunteered in the front office, and oftentimes just dropped in with goodies to put a smile on everyone’s face. She was the epitome of the type of self efficacy that many of our Black parents are lacking- the same type of self efficacy that our power structures claim to embrace. Yet, as soon she spoke up, expressed her concerns, and rebelled against the power structure, she was squashed like a bug. The very same (mostly White) parents that she worked alongside in the PTA began plotting for her removal. They unanimously voted her out soon thereafter. The managing organization that ran the school served her with a “cease and desist” order, and gave her 7 days to take down her posts disparaging the school because it could affect “enrollment.” Her treatment was so vastly different from the treatment of White parents that had similarly written disparaging things about our school on social media, violated our children’s privacy just to “speak out” about things we were lacking, and submitted articles to our local newspaper making false claims about our school. Those parents were never served with any legal notices. Those parents were never reprimanded for their behavior. We just all hoped they would go away. But that wasn’t the case with this Black mom- she clearly posed a threat that needed to be thwarted. She was dangerous. She published her dehumanizing story in the local newspaper, and belittling rebuttals were published to discredit her. She reached out to other Black parents to no avail. She reached out to the local branch of the NAACP, but nothing came from it. Black staff members were added to “increase our diversity-” one of them quit before the school year even began.
Again, as I sat back and meditated on what happened to her, it reminded me of my studies. Reminded me of the vicious cycle of trauma Black people have had to endure every time we speak truth to power. During slavery, outspoken Black people were beaten in front of the other slaves. Severely beaten, far beyond a normal flogging. This served two purposes 1) to punish the outspoken slave and 2) to instill fear in the rest of them. Her removal from the PTA and that cease and desist order were the equivalent of her being beaten in front of an already wounded, oppressed people. I can only imagine what went on in the minds of our voiceless parents… If she can’t speak up- the exemplar, middle class, PTA mom- then we definitely can’t say anything. Everyone in leadership that participated in her removal from PTA and that signed off on that order, essentially said “Stay in your place, nigger.” And sadly, we all did. We simply watched as she was publicly beaten and lynched and were too afraid to speak up to massah. We just shook our heads and talked about it among ourselves, feeling helpless to go against the powers that be.
We can no longer remain silent and sit idly by, while Black staff and parents are being metaphorically beaten and lynched in the public eye. Toxic, inept leadership is unacceptable anywhere. But it’s definitely unacceptable with a population that is already vulnerable. White supremacist power structures have failed our children for decades, but today is a new day. We need to demand that our children have the BEST leaders, the BEST teachers, and the BEST support staff. It is unacceptable that school leaders use our schools as stepping stones to get promotions; claiming they “roughed it” for two years, and now deserve extra money. Meanwhile, our kids still can’t read, still don’t know basic math, are still labeled as behavior problems, etc. It is unacceptable. We deserve the BEST, so that we can begin to put plans in place to mitigate these dire circumstances. Placing terrible leaders and teachers in our buildings is the school board’s way of saying that they are perfectly fine with maintaining the status quo. They don’t care about our kids. They just sit there and watch- half smirking and completely apathetic- while we cry out for our children in anguish.
