Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights
The public school system in Broward County was thrust into the limelight earlier this month, after video surfaced of 29-year-old Ticora Daniels slapping a 7-year-old boy's hand from his mouth, because he allegedly struck her daughter on a school bus.
Now, the ignorant and racist statements of school board member Ann Murray (pictured below) will ensure that Broward County stays in the news for quite some time.
In 2007, Murray, at the time a bus terminal supervisor, told her colleagues, which included three African-American bus drivers, that she was forced to sit in "n**ger heaven" while attending a Bills game:
"Do you remember when a group of us from transportation came down to watch a Bills game, she asked fellow supervisor Lisa Spince. "Yeah, they had us up in n**er heaven. You know, way up at the top of the stadium.''
One of the bus drivers, Markeia Funchess, filed a complaint with the board's Equal Educational Opportunities Department, in spite of receiving a phony apology from Murray.
According to the Miami Herald, Funchess said Murray referred to it as the "n**ger bleed section,'' then apologized and said, "I forgot the company that I was in.'' In a statement, Murray issued another apology:
"In 2007, I used a word I should have never used,'' Murray wrote. " "Minutes after saying it, I apologized to my co-workers and subordinates. Eventually, I received a very strong reprimand from my supervisor. To this day, I have the deepest regret for the incident and the pain I may have caused others. I ask the African-American community and all communities who suffer with the ugliness of bigotry to accept my sincerest apology. I pray for healing and forgiveness from those I have offended as we move toward a new chapter and forever close the old.''
If Funchess's account is correct, "I forgot the company that I was in" can hardly be considered "deepest regret." It sounds like the instinctive reaction of a spineless bigot who forgot the target of her ingrained prejudice was within earshot.
During a school board meeting, where ethics and leadership were called in to question because two school board members were arrested for bribery and official misconduct, Freda Stevens, vice president of the Democratic Black Caucus, called for Murray's resignation, saying that her apology came "too late":
"If I didn't call her out, she never would have apologized,'' said Stevens. "She is just trying to save her political career.''
Her career may need saving from more than her Klan-ish tendencies.
According to the Palm Beach/Broward County New Times, after Murray's election to the school board, she "quickly cozied up to the special-interest campaign contributors [that] she claimed she would fight... and hasn't reformed a thing."
But that doesn't stop Broward County from protecting their own, and on Monday, Broward Superintendent Jim Notter made it clear how ineffective Murray's punishment was:
"[The reprimand] went in her personnel file and that was basically the end.''
While racist statements, such as the ones uttered by Murray, come a dime a dozen, when you look at the incident in a broader sense, this incident bothers me more than most.
Why?
Because it highlights not just racism, but the systemic classism that our black students in Broward County are forced to endure.
When turning the microscope on the county that was instrumental to the high-jacking of the presidential election in 2000 and where the dropout rate of African-American students is double that of white students, even though the population is 20.5 percent and 58 percent, respectively, what quickly becomes evident is that there is a culture of clinging to manufactured entitlement in this county that did not die with slavery.
As a young girl in Mississippi, I remember listening to my elders reminisce about the "Buzzards Roost," the "Coloreds Only" balcony seating at the old Clarke Theater. Under the cover of anonymity, their classmates would throw popcorn down on the heads of white moviegoers. During those days, where blacks sat was patronizingly coined "heaven" because we were considered lucky to even be allowed into the theater.
So while it comes as no surprise that this incident was regarded as something so small that it warranted nothing more than a "written reprimand," what is troubling is the nonchalant way in which Murray introduced Jim Crow-era racism into the conversation.
Like it was second nature.
This woman was not only allowed to keep her job in 2007, but to subsequently become a member of a local governing body whose sole purpose is to represent the public and ensure our children receive the best education possible.
Her insensitive statements show just how little respect she has for the public she's supposed to serve, and if nothing more than a written reprimand is given, Broward County will once again prove why they are considered a safe haven for cronyism and corruption, and no apology can ever heal that.