162 Minnesota school principals have joined in an effort to decenter Whiteness, called Good (Trouble) Principals. Their website reads that the principals who commit to causing Good (Trouble) will work towards decentering witness by, “Understanding that traditional organized Whiteness ensures domination through forms like PTAs and Unions. We purposefully call out and lift up historically non-represented voices of color in our spaces to hold weight and power.”
They say that the involved principals can also get in Good (Trouble) by “Dismantling practices that reinforce White academic superiority like bias in testing and the labeling, tracking and clustering that reflect an Americanized version of a caste system in our schools.”
This comes after several Minnesota principals have publicly announced their focus on “Whiteness.” As reported by Alpha News, the Hopkins Public School superintendent said in a 2020 back-to-school video that, “In our communications to staff and families, we have referenced a dual pandemic. Mr. George Floyd – rest in power – is seemingly the contemporary face of the pandemic of racial injustice. This pandemic of systemic racism has soiled this country, not just since slavery, but since the genocide of the Native Americans and the American Indians who resided on and cared for this land.”
The superintendent also remarked on Hopkins’ efforts to become an anti-racist school. She said, “Researchers who have studied what it means to be anti-racist explain that it is not the responsibility of people of color to fix racism, or to explain to White people how not to be racist. Rather, anti-racism requires an understanding of history and an understanding of how people of color have been historically and systematically impacted by racist institutional policies and human practices.”
Minnesota District 287 also reportedly said in a virtual back-to-school event for their staff that “confronting systems of Whiteness” should be the “norm.”
According to the Center of the American Experiment, this is just “the tip of the iceberg.” They wrote that they have heard of “numerous school employees and teachers that schools’ focus on ‘Whiteness,’ ‘White fragility,’ and ‘racial justice’ is undermining—and limiting—educators’ ability to prioritize academic success.”
– – –
Hayley Tschetter is a reporter with The Minnesota Sun | Star News Network and The College Fix. She graduated with a degree in Communications from the University of Northwestern-St. Paul. Send news tips to [email protected].
