Three high school teenagers from the San Francisco Unified School District spoke with KQED to share their reactions to Sue’s comments. Uniformly, the teens felt that her characterizations of Black and Latino families, especially when it came to her own family, were completely untrue.
What did Shu say?
As part of a school board candidate survey she completed for a parent advocacy group ahead of the November 2022 election, Sue said black and brown families were not adequately supporting their children’s education. I am writing.
The statement is in response to the question of how to improve the performance of marginalized students in San Francisco. Hsu wrote:
“Having been so limited in the last four months to the task of educating marginalized students, especially in black and brown communities, one of the biggest challenges has been the lack of family support for those students. A precarious home environment caused by housing, food insecurity, and parents’ lack of encouragement to focus on learning can make children less focused or more focused on learning. It becomes a more difficult task for teachers as they have to address students’ emotional and behavioral issues before teaching them…it’s not fair to teachers.”
Sue apologized for her Twitter comment As soon as they surfaced publicly. At her board meeting last week, she apologized in person and even voted alongside her colleagues on her own advice, with more than a dozen organizations and city officials urging Xu to resign. rice field. Many organizations and officials, including Mayor Breed of London, have publicly stated that Su should stay in office and use this opportunity to grow and learn from her mistakes.
Students looking back on Shu’s comments
The youth leaders we spoke with work with two organizations: the China Progressive Society and the Coleman Advocacy Group for Children and Youth. Coleman Advocates released a statement condemning the remarks, but neither organization has taken a position on whether his Mr Hsu should step down.Organizations often take cues from youth leaders.
Each student expressed concern that harmful stereotypes would influence Sue’s decision-making for the San Francisco Board of Education and endanger their classmates through bad policies.
Selser Seth wanted to set the record straight — black families absolutely value learning. She says her mother cares a lot about her education and she always lets her improve her grades.
Seth says he likes both music and science. She was a DJ spinning tracks for dancers at her San Francisco festival Carnival in May. She also shared the story of her academic delight when she recently dissected a pregnant shark.
“We had a scalpel, we had a little tray, and we just cut the stomach and cut the tissue,” she said. However, he admits, “It was quite troublesome.”
Seth felt that Hsu’s comments not only failed to account for other black students, but made them feel underrepresented on the board.
Briseis Portillo, a 16-year-old Salvadoran-American, felt the Latinx community was being unfairly punished.
“It was like a slap in the face,” she said.
Portillo says Hsu knew he was wrong, but he still did the damage.
“I think racism should never be tolerated,” she said.
Portillo said she met Hsu through Coleman Advocates about a week before her racist comments went public. After they surfaced, Coleman Advocates students said the current proposal to allow SFUSD public school students to vote on school board proposals would run counter to the Black and Latino communities. said he hopes it will be commensurate with the policy choices made by