RACE AND THE SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION

PATCH's Mary Mann has a great take on race and this past election, including some good insight on the controversial question at the last debate.


See here views HERE.

A taste below:

The question was as follows (see video): "This question refers to the March 5 board meeting when a close supporter — this questioner says — a close supporter, Dr. Reeves — I'm not sure of this context — said the problem in the district is black culture. The person writing the question finds this offensive. Once again, I'm doing my best to translate this. Does this sound familiar? And the person is asking if this Dr. Reeves hosted a coffee for your campaign."

This publication decided not to report the question — which the moderator and candidates rejected ultimately as inappropriate — or post the video until it could perform further research on the accusation. Our judgment was that it would be unfair for either campaign to allow unsubstantiated accusations to air that could impact the outcome of the election.

This we now know: The citizen in question is not a member of the Pai-Eastman-Bennett campaign team. The Pai-Eastman-Bennett members have stated a platform of racial inclusiveness. Wayne Eastman has specifically rejecting the argument that "black culture" is reponsible for the achievement gap in an Op-Ed here on Patch. Jeff Bennett told Patch, "The comment had nothing to do with me nor do I agree with it." Neither Eastman, Bennett or Madhu Pai have made any comments or written any literature blaming the achievement gap on black culture.