Julie List, a licensed clinical social worker, is a graduate of Kings Highway Elementary, Bedford Junior and Staples High Schools (Class of 1974).
After Princeton University she earned a master’s in social work. A longtime clinician and psychotherapist, she now works at Montefiore Hospital, and is on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Julie still follows news from her hometown. She writes:
As a devoted Westporter and Staples graduate, I was extremely upset reading about the racism a Black family experienced in local schools.
The distraught parents, Dr. Carol Felder and Mr. Richard Anderson, recounted to the Board of Education their daughters’ experiences at Bedford Middle School and Staples High School.
I immediately posted the article on the Staples High School Alumni Facebook page, a group with about 6,000 members. I assumed everyone would want to know about it.
Julie List
Nearly a dozen people responded with the disappointment and outrage I imagined they would, and expressed shame about the town.
However, one of the site’s admins shut down comments, because he deemed it a “political post.”
When I objected privately he cited the rules of the group. Then, completely out of context, he posted a poll asking members if they wanted the site to include “political posts.” He did not say this was in reference to the horrible racist incidents occurring at Staples.
A large majority of the members who responded said “no.” In their comments they waxed rhapsodic about the good old days at Staples, preferring to hear about old friends, strolls on Compo Beach, or their former sports teams.
They kept referring me elsewhere, where people were “allowed” to write about current Westport events.
They did not want to hear about the pain the Black parents were feeling about the freedom some students feel they have to use the “n”-word, and other offensive interactions.
Racism is not something that can be whitewashed or ignored. Once it takes root, the entire system breeds more race-related discrimination.
Many Facebook users wrote that what happened was merely “bullying,” perhaps not understanding the enormous difference. They wanted the post and any allusions to current happenings at Bedford or Staples removed from their sweet memories.
Carol Felder spoke at a Board of Education meeting earlier this month. Her husband, Richard Anderson stood by her side.
Westport has always been a primarily white town. My mother, a Westport News and Fairpress journalist, used to tell my sister and me, “you should know this is not real life. Living here among mostly white people is not how the world works.”
When I went through the school system from 1st through 12th grade, maybe 4 Black families sent their kids to the public schools. Perhaps this lulled white students into thinking racism was not a problem.
One person wrote: “We put too much emphasis on race, religion and national origin… When we grew up in Westport I don’t think that really mattered (emphasis mine). But [what’s going on now] is part of an agenda that is being pushed down our throats.”
The underbelly of the so-called liberal or progressive town was openly revealed in these posts by people who had no interest in the extreme pain the Felder-Anderson family expressed at the Board of Ed meeting.
As a white person who has studied and taught anti-racism in mental health clinics and in a medical school for several decades, I have learned that the fact that many white people don’t want to talk about racism is because they think they don’t have to. Systemic, structural and institutional racism permeate our culture on all levels.
Here we have parents who asked for help to improve the school system to protect their daughters and other Black families in town. It’s fine if alumni don’t want to get involved with looking for solutions. But if they can’t even read about it and have a dialogue, there is something genuinely amiss.
I don’t care if this post is on the Staples High School Alumni Facebook site. I do care how speedily it was dismissed, and deemed “inappropriate” for alumni to read.
Going forward, how are those of us who are eager to brainstorm with the school system to educate and train teachers, administrators and students going to help?
I believe we all have to take some responsibility for what happened to the Felder-Anderson children. The children who acted in a racist manner should not just be scolded or grounded, nor should they be castigated for “bullying.” This is a much bigger and deeper problem.
“The most difficult thing” she has ever done, Dr. Felder said, “is to raise Black children in Westport, Connecticut.”
The mother of a biracial 3rd grader described his plea for more books that represent him.