Reopening Schools is racist: WaPo

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The racist effects of school reopening during the pandemic — by a teacher
WAPO

Nataliya Braginsky is a high school teacher who has been working in public schools since 2007. Based in New Haven, Conn., she teaches African American and Latinx history, and facilitates workshops in anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy development.

Dismayed by plans to reopen schools amid the growing coronavirus pandemic, she has written the following post, a powerful piece that takes up the question of why black, indigenous and Latinx students would be prone to see more deaths from covid-19 in their schools than white students.

With concrete examples and data, she analyzes unequal funding, environmental racism, and toxic stress to which students of color are exposed, showing how the comorbidity is white supremacy.

Her argument adds new dimension to the national discussion over when and how to reopen schools that have been closed since the coronavirus pandemic began to spread in the United States this past spring.

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By Nataliya Braginsky
Much to the dismay of teachers like me, governors across the country have begun broadcasting their plans to reopen schools amidst a growing pandemic. In Connecticut where I teach, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) announced that schools across the state must reopen full time and in person for all students in the fall. Lamont’s declaration was both confounding and revealing: “I wanted to make sure we had a class day and a class week that was something that employers can bank upon for their employees.”

If there were any doubts as to the governor’s priorities, with these words he made his stance abundantly clear. His gaze is fixed on keeping the machine of capitalism chugging along in Connecticut — not on keeping students, families and teachers alive.

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