Los estudiantes asiáticos están siendo acosados en la Escuela Secundaria de South Philadelphia, y de hecho los ataques se están propagando gracias a la impunidad.
Ongoing attacks against Asian students, obviously racial in nature are somehow being played down by a self-delusional School District thinking this is just a brawl among students hitting back at each other.
A “serious problem which has its roots in racism” remarked a seemingly sensitive Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Despite this acknowledgement though, Ackerman still managed to anger the victims trying to single out one prior incident that in her view sparked the latest retaliation. Sure, its like saying the victim somehow reaped what it sowed in the first place.
Terming them as “severe, rampant and unchecked” a New York civil rights attorney regarded the South Philadelphia High School attacks to be worse than those that took place in Brooklyn in 2004.
“Either we continue to live in sustaining or almost approving violence by not intervening,” decried commissioner Johnny Irizarry, alluding to a diversity policy adopted by the School District 15 years ago but still not enforced according to the commissioner.
“We have seen a total lack of moral leadership,” said an appalled Ellen Somekawa executive director of Asian Americans United regarding the District’s “slow and defensive reaction.”
The creation of yet another “task force” this time for “racial harmony” constitutes a monument to the School District’s penchant for red tape. There is an obvious problem of authorities being either impotent or indifferent towards school violence.
Where is the executive ability that School District authorities wax lyrical about when it comes to describing themselves? We speak of both, whether Superintendent Ackerman with her “30 years of experience in leading large, diverse urban public school systems”, or her Chief of Staff Tomás Hanna and his experience with “culturally diverse student populations”.
In Tomás Hanna’s own words true leadership requires “smart, committed and passionate people,” therefore we urge both authorities the African American and the fellow Latino to snap out of their slumber and act decisively in stemming the bigotry now aimed at Asians, a minority among minorities in Philadelphia.
