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Brotherhood Week and Black History Month at NW Classen


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The following are 2 emails from Joe Quigley
(Posted 1-22-03)

The bigotry war is back on.
   This week is Brotherhood Week here at NWClassen.
On Tuesday when we returned from the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, there was a flier from the Black History Club in the teachers' mailboxes announcing that January 20-24, 2003 is Brotherhood Week.
    It is defined as a week set aside to celebrate cultural and racial diversity. It points out that bias is based on ignorance or lack of knowledge, and that the goal of the week is to promote unity while still celebrating and appreciating all of us for our differences.
   After referring to Martin Luther King, it states, "It is our hope that the entire school would participate in this endeavor."
   I apparently made the erroneous assumption that that included the Gay and Lesbian Students. I say "apparently" because the principal entered my room toward the end of the day with the booklet used to evaluate teachers. This was a little odd as the contract says that evaluations of teachers on continuing contracts are to be completed by the end of the first semester, and although he had fallen short of the procedure by such things as not giving me the observation form as he left the room or immediately after, but rather the next day or hours later, but not before he had time to type and put a notification for a post observation meeting in my mailbox, or not coming in at all for the prescribed lengths of time,  I did received a favorable summative evaluation, and was not on a plan for improvement. So, this was a little odd especially from a man who is such a stickler for the procedures outlined in Paragraph J, but not such a stickler that he applies this provision equally to all as it says in the agreement which he and I signed when Paragraph J was first invented.
    He left for a minute or two during this when his pager went off, but returned for the remainder of the class period,
    After I dismissed my students he went to the door at the rear of my room.
Now, one of the week's activities is the door decorating contest. Unfortunately with the judging taking place on Thursday, the notification of the activities not being received until Tuesday, and seeing students only every other day, the class who began decorating the front door on Tuesday had some more work to do on it. In one of the meetings in the past the principal had shown a picture of one of my classroom doors during a previous Brotherhood Week covered only in paper with no display on it, and the rear door of the room with a poster I had made. In spite of my pointing out that time constraints on students, and their difficulty coming up with a concept initially had made completion of the door for competition difficult for them, while I had the luxury of time to complete a non-competition door at home, he viewed this as a well planned plot. This year to avoid this impression I insisted that the students get busy right away and sent them to various places to get the necessary materials that I did not have at hand.
    He told me to remove the poster I had hanging which consisted of the names and pictures of people from various ethnicities who happen to be Gay or Lesbian. I think it is important that as there are GLBT students on our campus, and as this was Brotherhood Week, it was a positive thing for all to see, Gay as well as Straight, that GLBT people are not by necessity perverts, but rather many have contributed to their own cultures, races and ethnicities as well as to the greater society.
    Obviously, not every group to which students belong are welcome on the campus.
Of course, there will be the arguments that I did not follow paragraph J by asking for permission to hang something, and that I should include heterosexual people as well, but no one ASKS if they can participate in a school activity when it is promoted, and besides the students' door having many pictures of multiracially and ethnically obvious heterosexual couples, other displays, some hung by teachers and not students and this without permission, do not have balance.
     The insensitivity here which is also a source of passive power and comfort for the majority, is that most people assume everyone is heterosexual, especially if the subject is of a positive nature and not of perversion, and only know this is not the case if it presented to them. Think of all the inventions in America that we found to our surprise in the early years of Black History Months were the products of Black minds when we just assumed as the majority that all great Americans were white.
     Shattering this myth was uncomfortable, and went against some basic assumptions.
     The assumption here is that Gay equals "pervert"and it is disconcerting to let people know otherwise.
     I will be quite interested to see if on those displays where someone is obviously heterosexual either because they are known to have been, or are pictured in an identifiably heterosexual situation, it will be required that an obviously Gay or Lesbian person be included. I am also interested in seeing where a display is dedicated to one particular ethnic or racial group, it will be a requirement that others be included.
     One has to wonder about the intensityapplied to preventing letting people know during Brotherthood week that GLBT people are a normal and as positive as others.
Joe Quigley

 

 

As February is approaching and Black History Month is coming, I wrote a memo to the principal on January 16, 2003 requesting permission to have a display for Black History Month. I followed Paragraph J.
On January 22, 2003 I recived a copy of my memo returned with the notation:

Please feel free to bring me the display anytime prior to your posting any Black History Month materials.

I could be catty and assume purposely that this is an optional thing as I am to "feel free" to do it, but that would be playing and this is serious.
    I am willing to do that as soon as I reassemble and recompile my list of Gays and Lesbians of African descent as the one I had stored in my room has somehow "come up missing".
   Attached to the returned copy of the memo was a copy of the Directive I had signed in August of 2001 which was the upgrade of the original Directive that had the reprimand of 1999 removed from my file. I do not see why the principal would send this to me as a reminder as I had requested permission and had referred to Paragraph J in that request.
   But in a way it was a good thing that he included it as it forced me to reread it.
The third paragraph states in part, " All faculty are being provided a copy of the new provision, and all, including you, will be expected to abide by the requirements..."
   First, it reminded me that he was to have done this a year before I signed this version if the memo addressed to "All Faculty" was, indeed, intended to be applied to all faculty and staff and not just me, and that it was odd that it took over a year to deliver it to them. And, second, as he also signed the document, would it not also bind him to fulfill the requirements of both the directive and the "new provision", something he is not doing as he is selective, almost obsessed in a single application of it?
   Later in the day, as I followed his directive to remove the Brotherhood Week poster in the presence of my building representative so as to leave no doubt that I had complied, another teacher came to me a little confused as to why she was informed I had requested permission to have a display for Black History Month. She is Black and was once the moderator of the Black History Club, but hadn't had that postion for a couple of years, and found this odd.
     It is not standard procedure for the principal to go to other teachers about a fellow teacher's wanting to or having hung a poster on any subject. But, then again, my request for a Gay and Lesbian History Month display had been referred uniquely to the Social Studies Department and then the Faculty Advisory Committee.
    So my predictions.
1) the poster will be denied because it has Gay and Lesbian people on it.
2) I will only be allowed to hang it if references to people's being Gay or Lesbian are removed ( but heterosexual aspects will be allowed on all other displays by other teachers)
3) I will only be able to hang it if I comply with the unique requirement that I also include heterosexuals even though no one else who has a display that is by implication, assumption, or intention  heterosexual will be required to include anyone obviously Gay or Lesbian, or
4) I will get some excuse that Black History Month is not related to the English Curriculum, or as a white man it is none of my business.
Any bets?

Joe Quigley

 

 

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