From 3rd to 5th grades.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A private school in New York City has adopted an audacious and polarizing approach to addressing racism.
The Fieldston Lower School, a $40,000-per-annum institution on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, has decided to divide the third through fifth grades into seemingly counterintuitive, racially segregated “affinity groups” where they’re supposed to discuss race amongst themselves before coming together in a mixed, racially diverse setting in order to share additional thoughts.
“The goal is to separate kids apart to get them to talk about the realities that they come from, to see the diversity within them and then to re-engage in a conversation not simply about ‘you look different than me,’ but what is the baggage and the weight that we carry into the room and how do we create a more equitable, diverse and just environment,” said L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, a professor of sociology and black studies at the City University of New York, to HuffPost Live.
According to NY Magazine, a parents’ meeting at the school in January to discuss the program led to heated outbursts from parents.
One Jewish parent who was raised in the southern U.S. said the Ku Klux Klan had burned down his synagogue when he was a child and so to have Jewish children join the “white affinity group” was to deny the prejudices that exist against Jews, the publication reported.
The mandatory class takes place once per week over a five week span.
Cristina Melendez, who identifies as “ethnically Dominican and racially black,” has a daughter in the second-grade at Fieldston and is part of a large contingent of parents who support the classes.
“I understand that parents say, ‘I don’t want my kid to pick a box.’ But the boxes are already being picked for her left and right,” she told NY Magazine.
“I want to tell you that I’m black. I’m a Latina black woman. I am going to pick, and this empowers my kid to pick. And she’s going to be perceived from that moment on, hopefully, as the person she wants to be. That’s not limiting. That’s not putting my kid in a box. That’s empowering,” she concluded.