Some students have already taken up the cause, using social media to turn out supporters at a School Board meeting Wednesday and launching an online petition defending the unit.
“To me, it was life changing,” student Emma Sadinsky, 18, said on Friday. “The section that was taken away, I personally feel was incredibly important. Some people don’t think racism exists in Seattle; it is really hard to see things you yourself do that you don’t realize is racism.
“Some of these conversations were impassioned because people were saying things they had held in for a long time, but it was never hostile,” she said.
A student of mixed race said she was able for the first time to talk about jokes that made her uncomfortable. A black student said he was able to talk about going into stores and feeling like he was being looked at differently than the other customers.
“To be honest, I was proud to be able to tell my classmates what I have to deal with, to put it out there,” said Yasab Psister, 18.
Gerardine Carroll, who teaches ninth- and 10th-grade humanities at the school, said the value of the conversations was in taking instruction about race out of theory and into the real world.
“Those conversations are difficult, they are hard; these issues are uncomfortable and a nice little city like Seattle doesn’t like that,” Carroll said. “It’s the whole idea of institutional racism, and it needs to be addressed, but now there is a chilling effect.”
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