It is one of those tales that I find so pathetically stupid it causes me to lose faith in humanity. A black parent has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Board of Education because her child’s school in 2017 set up a cotton field so students could learn about slavery.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
Rashunda Pitts said her 14-year-old daughter, who is referred to as “S.W.” in the lawsuit, experienced emotional distress as a result of the project at Laurel Span School that her social justice teacher said was to help students “gain a real-life experience as to what the African American slaves had endured.” The suit also names the school’s then-principal and social justice teacher as defendants. Since the project, Laurel Span School was closed, and a new school — Laurel Cinematic Arts Creative Tech Magnet — was created in its place.
Pitts noticed in September 2017 that her daughter had become “very quiet and reserved,” which was very different from before when she would “vibrantly share her day with her mother,” according to the lawsuit.
After dropping her daughter off to school, she saw that there was a cotton field right in front. This is how the mother learned about the project. Amy Diaz, the principal of the school, was unavailable so the mother called Amy Diaz. Instead, she spoke with Assistant Principal Brian Wisniewski, who told her that the class was reading Frederick Douglass’ autobiography. They created the cotton field so that the children could have a “real life experience” of slavery.
Pitts received assurances from the assistant principal that her principal would contact them. The mother requested that Diaz have the field removed within 24 hours. However, Diaz was told by the assistant principal that she would not be able to do this in the given time frame, and would instead try to get it completed the next week.
Pitt’s daughter recalled that her social justice teacher required children to “pick cotton,” but that she was not forced to participate in the activity. She did, however, have to observe other students picking the cotton as she tendered to the other crops in her garden. She claimed she did not tell her mother immediately about the project due to fear of teachers retaliating or giving her a negative grade in class.
The Times noted that “[t]he school didn’t obtain permission from parents in order for their students to participate in the project nor were they informed about the project’s existence.”
The district released a statement explaining that it regrets “that an instructional activity in the garden at Laurel School was construed as culturally insensitive.”
Note, they didn’t apologize for creating a project that was Clearly They were insensitive and only regret that others viewed it this way.
I’ve seen and written about plenty of examples of schools engaging in these types of foolish activities. This one is my favorite. It is hard to believe that anyone could think of a way to make students learn about slavery and have them choose cotton. This case has shown that stupidity is at an all-time high.
It is also interesting that this dumb experiment was conducted in Los Angeles — one of America’s bluest and most vibrant cities. Aren’t these social justice types supposed to be racially sensitive enough to know that making kids pick cotton isn’t the best of ideas? They also planned to make them sing Negro songs and then place them on blocks for slave auction. I mean, it’s been done in North Carolina, so why not?
Perhaps this is one of several examples showing that so-called progressives aren’t quite as enlightened on racial issues as they would like us to believe. Were we not surprised?
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