EDITORIAL: A teachable moment

We share the heartbreak and disappointment that the Marblehead High School community — and the broader community — has to confront a disturbing act of bias, the scrawling of swastikas, the n-word and other graffiti in the school’s bathrooms, for which a 15-year-old male student is facing juvenile charges.

Our local educators are no doubt familiar with a number of helpful online guides to assist educators in responding to such bias incidents, as Superintendent John Robidoux has already demonstrated an understanding of what a proper response looks like.

The Anti-Defamation League’s guide advises that, when describing the nature of the incident, school leaders should be “transparent and specific.”

“If slurs or offensive language were used, make sure to use censored words (for example, n-word, r-word) so that you do not perpetuate the harm,” the ADL’s guide adds.

(The Current, guided by the Associated Press Stylebook, has a similar policy.)

Robidoux is to be commended for letting the community know that it included swastikas and the n-word — along with “phallic images” — rather than using a nebulous term like “offensive” to describe the graffiti.

The ADL continues that school leaders should, “Denounce the incident and reaffirm your school’s values.”

Robidoux stated, “Hate of any kind will not be tolerated in Marblehead Public Schools.”

The ADL then recommends, “When ready, present a clear plan of action moving forward.”

Robidoux has said that school officials would “continue to collaborate with the Marblehead Police Department and our community partners to work to create and maintain a culture of acceptance, understanding and belonging.”

He also welcomed the participation of students and families.

“We will use this opportunity to continue the conversation with Marblehead High School students through inclusive, meaningful teaching and learning opportunities,” he pledged.

We may learn more about the “action plan” at the School Committee’s Oct. 15 meeting, where an update on the graffiti incident is on the agenda.

The goal of such an action plan, the ADL explains, is “to facilitate deeper understanding and valuable learning for those involved.”

“When students get ‘caught’ saying or doing something inappropriate or unacceptable, they are usually able to respond in ways that we, as adults, want to hear. However, that doesn’t mean learning, empathy or healing has taken place,” the ADL notes. 

The ADL stresses, “It is never too late for students to learn.”

Understanding how and why bias is harmful is essential to long-term learning and change, the ADL adds. 

In the days ahead, students will be reminded that Adolf Hitler in 1920 adopted the swastika as the primary symbol for the Nazi Party in Germany, including the symbol on the Nazi flag. Under that banner, the Nazis engaged in an increasingly violent campaign of legalized discrimination against certain social groups based on religion, ethnicity, political beliefs, ability and sexual orientation, which culminated in the state-sponsored mass murder of around six million Jews and millions of other people belonging to “undesirable” groups, including children.

White supremacist groups in the United States today, particularly neo-Nazis, continue to display the swastika to praise Hitler and Nazi Germany’s discriminatory practices and to express hate for Jews, people of color, people with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“These groups and the individuals that adhere to them pose a threat to the safety and well-being of all, in particular those who belong to

marginalized communities,” the ADL explains.

As for the n-word, it can be the source of confusion for young people, who may have heard hip-hop artists and Black people more generally reclaim it in their song lyrics and private conversations, the ADL notes.

Black writers have written and spoken eloquently about why white people using the n-word is so different.

In a piece titled, “If You Truly Knew What the N-word Meant to Our Ancestors, You’d NEVER Use It,” the editor and author Brando Simeo Starkey recounted reading slave narratives to explore the lives of black agricultural workers after the end of the Civil War.

What those narratives illustrated was white people’s “campaign of mental terrorism” in which the n-word was a primary weapon to indoctrinate those workers into accepting their supposed inferiority.

“Now, whenever I hear the epithet, a visual and emotional representation of the heinous process by which a people — my people — were induced to think they were less than trespasses into my thoughts,” Starkey writes.

Responding to a question at a book event, the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates explained that, for white people, there’s “a lot to be learned” from refraining from signing along with the n-word in hip-hop lyrics.

“When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you,” he said. “You think you have a right to everything.”

Stopping short of singing along, Coates suggested, “will give you just a little peek into the world of what it means to be Black, because to be Black is to walk through the world and watch people doing things that you cannot do.”

Our thoughts are with our educators as they convene these important conversations in the days and weeks ahead. You have our support.