Dear Teachers, Administrators & Staff, 

We hope this email finds you well. Some of us attended your discussion on Marianapolis’ racist practices and how your perpetuation of racism has impacted and harmed black students on your campus. While this may be a good start, we will not accept lip service. As Malcolm X has told us, “the white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and real justice.” Following a restorative justice framework, you have called a meeting with us, the perpetrators and the victims. As you have stated, this is a continuous conversation that must be had in order to make amends for your racist past and create a more promising future for BIPOC students. We are not asking for revenge, we are asking you for justice. Please show us this justice in your actions. We have provided just a few suggestions below, some of which you are already making steps towards. Do not dismiss black womxn and folks by saying we are aggressive, we are being assertive and these truths are valid. 

List of Suggestions

We are imploring that you DO BETTER for the black students you currently have attending our school and do better for the other black students that will come after them. Make it a place they can look back on with respect knowing that their voice was a priority.

1) In order to do better, We are asking that more black faculty be included in Marianapolis. We need to see that we are being represented the way that you preach the school to be. In everything that we do, we preach diversity at Marianopolis, but it is in no way represented on our faculty. This does not mean hire one black teacher or administrator. It's not just a representation issue, it's a systemic issue that makes black students, teachers, and administrators feel unsafe and unwelcome.

2) We are also asking that we push the recruitment of more African American students as well as black International students. In some cases this may mean giving out more financial aid. We are aware of black students who had siblings, but their families could not afford to send both at the same time. It is a privilege to attend an elite highschool like Marianapolis, however, it is not one shared equally among equally deserving black students. In order to lessen the equity disparity we implore you to consider offering greater financial aid or scholarships to black students. We shouldn’t be lauded only for our ability on the sports field, but in the classroom as well. (We are valuable in ways other than basketball.)

-Black students who were one of few at the top of their class were told by other students that they were only chosen because they were black and that white students worked harder for that position. It’s not just a student problem, the school, administration, and teachers breed these ideas in their students. You are to blame as well. It is not a few bad apples, it is a larger structural issue that tells black and white students that black students don’t deserve to be there. That we don’t fit into the picture of your institution except in your brochures to prove that you are not racist. We are not your poster children. Stop trying to look better, and instead understand, listen, and then do better.

3) As children, we need to learn things from when we are younger, the good and the bad, so we can do better than those that came before us. More literature by black authors and about black history need to be incorporated into the curriculum. [Mr. Shafer’s 21st century course included a diverse selection of reading. This same approach should be used when considering book lists for future years. Also black literature should not only be slave or reconstruction era narratives. We have a deep and rich history. Learn to respect and honor that.) Ensure that history lessons are going over the true history of America and not the glorified version America has had everyone believe for centuries. Slavery is a horrific act of humans! Do not dismiss it as existing only in the past or that humans are no longer capable of such barbaric, appalling behavior (as this fact has been proven countless times to be true of the 20th and 21st century (the armenian genocide, the holocaust). (Slavery still exists in many forms!) This is a disgusting misrepresentation of history.
Ex. of books (We should not just be reading books by black and white authors. We have other BIPOC at this school as well.)
-Killing the Black Body, Dorothy Roberts
-Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor 
-Are Prisons Obsolete, Angela Davis
               -Honestly any books by Angela Davis. We believe she is an approachable writer with clear messages and theories that are targeted towards laypeople.   
-Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, Harriet A. Washington
-Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
-Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde 
-The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
-Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison 
-Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
-The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
-I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, Austin Channing Brown
-Kindred, Octavia Butler 
-The Underground Railroad, Coleson Whitehead
-Go Tell It On the Mountain, James Baldwin
-Passing, Nella Larsen
-The Sellout, Paul Beatty
-The Farming of Bones, Edwidge Danticat 
-Las Negras, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro (English Version)
-Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi
-For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow was Enuf: a choreopoem, Ntozake Shange
       *Feel free to email us if you need more, but this is a good place to start! 

4) Bring back the poster project recognizing the accomplishments of BIPOC in science and math.

5) Do not show us videos of black people being murdered by the police in classrooms for shock value. You are using it as trauma porn to shock white students into believing that racism exists, and yet students will still play devil’s advocate. Additionally, over exposure to the murder of black individuals conditions white people to regard these murders as a norm.

-Hannah Listerud was made to watch the murder of Eric Garner in their AP English Language class. They cried. You do not understand the emotional impact of this habit on black students. That is not a tool to wield but a human life that could have been ours. Please be more respectful of our lives and experiences. 

6) Please keep taking Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Day off. When many of us were students at this school we were told by WHITE teachers that he would have not wanted us to have this day off to lay around and do nothing while we just continued classes as normal. This is a national holiday, and yes black students and people of color need days off to process and accept that this school is not following his message, and deal with the school’s lack of care and respect for its black students. Don’t make assumptions about our plans for that day. White students may not have plans but don’t deprive the Black students of this day and the family traditions it entails. It is a tradition in the Listerud-Prescod family to attend a day MLK day service in Boston with our grandfather, a tradition that we were deprived of due to your assumptions. Stop protecting whiteness. We have sat through lectures from WHITE history teachers in school assemblies. This is just disrespectful. We will not accept white-washed presentations on black leaders (especially when these “leaders” are NBA basketball players). We do not understand how you thought  this was okay. Asking black students to speak is not that much better. It is not our job to teach you about racism and the very racism we face at the hands of you. Do you understand how hypocritical and tone deaf that is? You have no right or authority to speak on this issue. 
          -STOP teaching binary histories that depict Malcolm X as misguided and    violent and MLK as the epitome of peace, that lacks nuance and true understanding. 

7) We don’t know why we have to say this, but please do not use the N-Word and do not let non-Black students use the N-Word in or out of the classroom. It is not a free speech issue, it is hate speech that has no place at Marianapolis and should not be tolerated. We have sat by while teachers look past this overt racism and say nothing. You do realize that folks do not need a reason to dismiss black voices. Use your privilege and authority to correct students and each other and turn it into a learning opportunity. (This means do not come up to us privately after an incident and apologize instead of checking these students.) There is no excuse for letting this happen. 
       -This practice extends to racist jokes as well. Some of us have heard jokes about eating watermelon or fried chicken. Identifying black people as trout lips  is unacceptable. I think we can agree that this is a hard no. 
       -This also applies to marijuana jokes. It is racist to assume that black people automatically participate in drug use. It is appalling to hear this coming from students we have witnessed ingesting cocaine, amphetamines, and lean. 
        -We think the practice of racial and colorist hierarchies in the school is more than uncomfortable. White students rank black students by skin tone. You have the power to punish this behavior. 
        -In classrooms, it can be easy to liken the N-Word to “man” and use that to replace this racial slur. 
-Suggesting that we are closer to whiteness because we are intelligent is racist. 
This includes:
    -Oreo
    -“Are you really black?”
    -“Oh you are half white… that makes more sense.”
    -“Do you have white parents?’

       -Comparing yourself to racist students as a teacher also turns black students off from you, and invalidates your input. 
             -In Hannah’s AP Literature class, the teacher shared that he was just like a student who was clearly and overtly racist and had a history of calling Black students the N-Word openly in the school. (This student was known by students and faculty to be racist.) This immediately shut Hannah down and destroyed the trust that they had in this teacher. This comment and others like it place Black students on alert and makes them question their teacher and their ability to fairly treat students.

8) Avoid racial gaslighting (pulled from multiple sources). This includes phrases like: 
-“Just hypothetically, what if…”
-“All Lives Matter”
-“How can we say for sure that it was racially motivated?”
-“Genuinely just curious what others think...”  
        -Folks are actually dying and you are turning that into and opportunity for an intellectual exercise.
-“While you are protesting, there are kids dying in Africa?”
-“What about all the senseless Black on Black murders?” 
-“Would any of you be upset if a white guy was murdered by police in the exact same way?”
-“If we protest/said it peacefully, more people would listen to you.”
-“It was a joke, just calm down.”
      -It is not okay to invalidate our anger.
           1: Historically Black folks have been labeled as angry and aggressive to dismiss their voices. 
           2: We are literally dying. We think it is okay to be angry about murder. 
-“What I said/did was not racist.”
-“Why is it always about race?”
-“______ people are racist too.”
-BIPOC folks cannot be racist. (We can be prejudiced and bigoted.) Racism is all about power. 
         -Racism = Power + Prejudice
-“This other Black person said that racism is not real/they have not experienced racism.” 
-“We live in a post-racial society, so…”
-“How can I be racist, I have Black friends/students/colleagues/peers?”
-This includes playing devil’s advocate when it comes to black lives. We do not want to sit a hear you defend the economics of slavery. When you explain how our people deserved to be captured, sold, and enslaved, it is invalidating of our very existence. 

9) Please acknowledge AAVE as a valid dialect. It is its own form of English with its own rules and common practices. It is important to not call the dialect that you speak “proper English,” as the use of this term is harmful and discredits this dialect that African American folks have cultivated for centuries. We are not speaking improperly, but carrying on remnants of a history of slavery that prevented black people from learning their slave masters’ English. It is okay to not speak the dialect of our slave masters, and we should not be punished, demeaned, or invalidated for not speaking your dialect. AAVE was created because we were not allowed into white education systems, so we should not be judged for something that black people created to deal with discriminaiton to survive. 

10) Colorblindness is not a thing. When you see us, see us. Our race is very important and integral to our experience. It is an indication of how we are perceived and regarded in society, and therefore an insight into our lives.

11) Do not ask Black people to recount their racist experiences. These are instances of trauma and can be triggering to us. Please be respectful of our energy and health. 

12) Saying “I hope things will change” or “there is so much hate in the world” when it comes to racism makes it seem like an abstract enigma that cannot be pinned down and evades blame. It also suggests that you are not responsible for improving the conditions in which Black folks can attain human flourishing. Explain in plain terms that racism is a system of white supremacy that can also be perpetrated through interpersonal interactions. It has roots from before slavery, but is present in imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism (and rooted in capitalism). 
It is not just hate, but police officers murdering Black folks. It is murder. (Even Black people resisting arrest should not end in death.) 

13) Please refrain from racist college advising.

-Hannah had two college advisors during their time at Marianapolis. Before the advisor looked at their grades, the advisor suggested that the schools would probably be out of their reach. After they pulled up Hannah’s grades, they completely changed their language and were supportive of their college recommendations. This interaction seemed racialized, as Hannah later found out that other students had not experienced this initial response. It sends a message that black students are automatically unqualified. It only replicates how black people are treated in society and further amplifies their experiences with imposter syndrome. 

If these suggestions seem harsh or aggressive, we think it’s the perfect time to do some self-reflection in order to acknowledge your own role in our experiences and strive to make sure this pattern does not repeat itself with future black students. You are complicit in racist practices and perpetuate unacceptable behavior, and before you say “not me,” yes you. It may be uncomfortable for you, but our time at Marianapolis and the trauma we experienced have damaged, harmed, and changed us and how we feel and continue to feel about ourselves. As some of us leave or enter college, we will continue to process our emotions connected to this school, and we hope that you acknowledge and respect our stories. We are only a minority at this school by your doing, so do not diminish our voices. 

Regards.