October 14, 2022
Dear PON Members and Partners:
Anti-Blackness and anti-Indigenous sentiments, colorism, fear and rejection of anyone who is different because of their nationality, religion, or sexual orientation, and “divide and conquer” are part of the rhetoric inherited from past generations. Rooted in White supremacy and spread throughout the world through colonialism, these attitudes unfortunately are still very much alive in our communities and baked into every facet of life in America. Knowing this, we expect elected officials, public servants, and community leaders to be acutely aware of their implicit biases and to work diligently, both as individuals and within their respective organizations, to transform systems and internal cultures with the goal of improving outcomes for all the people they serve.
The racially prejudiced comments uttered by long-time Latino members of the Los Angeles City Council and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President in a private, 90-minute strategy meeting last year are particularly offensive to PON given our mission to promote equity and justice for marginalized students and families. Most harmful are the insulting remarks targeted toward a Black child. While we do question the motivation of whomever saw fit to release this recording during a contentious mayoral race and less than one month ahead of the election, the personal views it reveals are clearly indefensible. These leaders lost all legitimacy when they betrayed the public’s trust and eroded the progress Angelenos have made in improving race relations. Each of these officials must accept responsibility and be held accountable for their ill-advised discussion.
Despite this moment of shame, PON is hopeful for three reasons:
1) Ethnic Studies in High Schools — Last year the California Legislature approved AB 101, a bill requiring ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement, in effect by the 2025-26 school year for the graduating class of 2030. LAUSD students will see this course even sooner, as its Board of Education previously approved a similar policy for the graduating class of 2027. This long-awaited development provides a tremendous opportunity to re-learn history, reflect on and confront biases, and ensure that cross-cultural solidarity becomes a critical component of the curriculum for high school students.
2) Collective Public Outrage — Many community members of different ages, nationalities, and creeds attended the LA City Council meeting on October 11th to express their outrage and disgust over these recorded insults, demanding that those involved immediately resign. As of this writing, two of the four have done just that. We fully expect the others to do likewise.
3) Youth in Our Communities — The next generations are pushing us to the next frontier beyond race and ethnicity. Youth lead the way in helping society to re-think gender and other types of diversity.
In 2022, PON has prioritized exploring ways to foster cross-cultural solidarity in our programs. We want to lift up the implementation of ethnic studies courses in schools by building a broader multi-generational education campaign for families and community members. For us, this commitment goes beyond the usual, compliance-based “diversity-equity-inclusion” training, becoming instead a continuous, lifelong practice.
We invite you to join us for a dialogue on December 6th from 10 am to 12 pm to help us identify ways to heal and continue moving forward to effectively challenge the status quo systems of power and privilege. This work is messy yet necessary. We must begin individually and collectively to acknowledge every person’s humanity and fully evolve to the next level as a society.
Stay tuned for more information in the coming days. If you would like to contribute to this upcoming event with your time, expertise, or funding, please contact me at asimeon@parentnetwork-la.org.
Sincerely,
Araceli Simeón
Executive Director
