During the month of March, students and 26 staff members and 19 students met virtually every week to participate in a book study on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds.

During the discussion, participants shared that they found the book to be insightful that they learned a lot. Each session, the study started with whole-group introduction, broke into four groups to talk about the different experiences with racism, equity, and equality, and then came back together to share as a whole group.

Many participants talked about brothers, sisters, and other relatives that have been discriminated against due to race. There were many different solutions to these problems, which included “sitting down to talk with them.” Also, some people shared that just to “set an example” speaking out against discrimination and racism is doing something about it “when you don’t talk about it you’re still doing nothing even if you don’t necessarily agree with it.”

There were many different ideas of how to make CrHS a better place toward the end of the meetings such as a “Cultural Day” allowing people to bring things important to them from different religious backgrounds. “Banner Day” allowing to have different flags of all the countries and different colors for respect. “Pledge” making everyone take a pledge during classroom not to be discriminatory against anyone and continue the peace with equality and equity.

There were so many different responses that counselor and facilitator Ms. Danielle Crankfield has decided to meet with students to talk about what we should do to continue the move forward and away from segregation. Specifically, the book taught about the difference between being segregationist, assimilationist, and antiracist, and more about discrimination, equity, equality, and activism. An important takeaway is that a person can be more than one of these labels in a lifetime, a year, or even a day. Many people wish to have more book studies like this in the future for CrHS as well as student input.

Stamped was an amazing story with many different powerful quotes “Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate.” Racist ideas and people were called out many times dating back to when slavery and racism first began. Powerful words have increased the impact of what that one story had on all of us.

Photo from: The New York Times