SPECIAL

Ed Commissioner Infante-Green: R.I. a place where black and Latino people not united

Linda Borg
lborg@providencejournal.com
At the annual MLK Jr. Day scholarship breakfast,

state education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green said, “I come from a place where black and Latino people are one. That’s not the case here,” she said. “That has to end here and now. No more, no more, no more.”[The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach]

CRANSTON — On a day when faith leaders extolled the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., state Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green called out racism in Rhode Island.

At the annual MLK Jr. Day scholarship breakfast, she said, "Everybody here talks about zip codes. Few people talk about race. We want to sweep it under the rug. The more we keep talking about it without naming it, the longer it will persist."

In what has become a stump speech, Infante-Green cited the ninth-grader who reads at a fourth-grade level, and the high school student who can't do grade-level math because he has had a string of substitute teachers. 

"With change comes turmoil," she said, referring to her takeover of the Providence public schools following a scathing report this spring by Johns Hopkins University. "We're getting ready for a battle. "

To a standing ovation, she concluded by saying black and brown students deserve the same opportunities as their affluent, white peers.

"I come from a place where black and Latino people are one. That's not the case here," she said. "That has to end here and now. No more, no more, no more."

The breakfast is a must-attend event for Rhode Island's elected leaders, faith leaders and community advocates. It raises money to support college scholarships.

Carlon Howard, chief impact officer for the Equity Institute, struck a similar theme. Schools across the country have become hyper-segregated since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated schools, Brown vs. the Board of Education. Although his parents grew up in Georgia during the Jim Crow era, his mother would sit him in front of a mirror and say, "You are somebody."

City Year brought Howard to Rhode Island. It also inspired him to become a public school teacher. On his first day, Howard forged an immediate bond with one student, who loved that Howard attended the University of Georgia. 

"He started to see himself in me," Howard said. "Every time I came to him, I showed him love, real deep love. No one had ever shown him that kind of love before. By the end of the year, he sat me down one day and said, 'I wish you were my father.'

"When you talk about changing the system," he said, "We have to change how people think. What I love about Rhode Island is, it's small. We have more potential to affect change."

Howard called on the audience to make the following commitments: to push for fair and equal treatment for students of color; to analyze how our school dollars are spent and where; and to look at not only what we teach but who is doing the teaching.

Howard said Rhode Island needs to hire teachers who look like the children they teach so students can see their dreams reflected in the faces in front of them.

Howard ended with the story of the Good Samaritan, who picked up an injured wayfarer when both the priest the Levite had passed him by:

"Are we going to be the priest, the Levite or the Good Samaritan?" Howard said.

Gov. Gina Raimondo outlined her recommendations for criminal justice reforms, including helping inmates find housing and jobs upon release, improving health care for incarcerated individuals, and increasing mental health services for students.

She also promised to do "the right thing" for students in the Providence public schools. 

"We're not getting it done for them," she said. "Last year, the state intervened in Providence. We're going to do right by those kids."

The audience also heard from two of the scholarship recipients, Blessed Sheriff, a pre-med student at Brown University, and John Quainoo, a senior from North Kingstown High School.

"We live in a grossly unjust world that leaves the vast majority of people to suffer," Sheriff said. Sixty years after King's death, she said, his dream remains unfulfilled.

"My dream is to change that."

lborg@providencejournal.com

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