Lake Charles is woke AF

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Dear SLC students, alumni, parents, faculty, and community members:

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” George Floyd’s tragic death at the hands of the police has shaken the nation to its core, and we are writing this petition on account of our alma mater's silence. We are writing because we know this silence has gone on far too long, and because we are using our voices to demand action, and change. Racism and brutality will continue in America as long as these violent systems of oppression are not acknowledged, taught, and intentionally dismantled. And so change must start with education.

SLC was founded on the principles of the Catholic faith. The Catholic Church teaches its followers to love thy neighbor, and Pope Francis has called Catholics to speak out against injustice. And as alumni, we are asking St. Louis to break their deafening silence and do just that. St. Louis Catholic has been silent on the subject of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade (and all those who passed before and after them). We do not want to live in a world where Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is more vocal about injustice than our alma mater. We do not know what to make of the fact that SLC refuses to state plainly that Black Lives Matter—a statement so benign and so obviously true that its omission from your social media platforms speaks volumes. First and foremost, we are asking every one of you to break your silence and take a stand for what is morally correct in accordance with your Catholic faith.

We are grateful for the education we received, the lessons we have learned, and the friendships we gained during our time at St. Louis. However, we also believe our alma mater can and should be better. Many of us experienced racism and discrimination throughout our years at this school, and many of us watched our classmates suffer. And we are here to call for change. As Sirad Hassan and Dayna Valek wrote in their own recent petition, we must “reexamine how we honor Black lives in our education system [...] not simply as a reactionary means, but in direct ways that critically challenge how we frame our nation’s history.” Following their lead, we are calling on you to implement changes in order to directly address issues of inequality in order to better serve your student body.

We believe that as Christian educators, the teachers at St. Louis have a moral and professional responsibility to facilitate in-class conversations about race, privilege, allyship, and justice at every grade level. We must put a stop to the practice of teaching students to be colorblind and acknowledge that racism is not a thing of the past, nor the sole domain of hateful individuals—racism must be understood as a system that is reinforced by institutions and is reinforced through systems of discrimination, as well as implicit and explicit biases.


We want our children to receive an education that prepares them for and informs them of the real world. A lot of these issues we are met with will only be solved through deep, hard thinking in combination with structural change. Having a good heart and good values is crucial, but not a solution. We will need a good heart, good values--but also: history and philosophy and theory. Solving these systemic racial issues requires people of faith, government, the private sector, educational institutions, and individuals. Only one piece of this partnership will not suffice in tackling racial injustice.


We want our children to have a better educational experience than we did and we want to be part of the solution. And that is why we are demanding change.


We believe that the curriculum at St. Louis does not adequately or effectively teach students about systemic racism or white supremacy. While at SLC, we were taught about the Civil Rights Movement and assigned To Kill a Mockingbird. However, we did not receive formal education about modern-day systemic and institutionalized racism, police brutality, or systems of privilege.

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