African American History

This is a petition to the Anoka-Hennepin District, primarily directed towards Champlin Park High School. Speaking on behalf of the Champlin Park student body, I, Ebaisin Fessa, propose this petition as a plea for help. Champlin Park is a very diverse school, full of many people from a variety of different backgrounds. Even this being, there has been reoccurring incidents within the school that have discriminated the very own students attending the school, because of the background they have come from. Champlin Park High School makes it very clear that hate has no home in its building, but the only way to eliminate the demeaning actions caused by the lack of empathy and understanding of one another, starts by educating one another. African American Studies is a class that has been added to Champlin's elective choices this year, and while it was a good addition, the class should be a mandatory history course. The numbers of white students in AAS are much lower in comparison to people of color. The class should be just as diverse as the school is. More students from ALL backgrounds, primarily white students who don't understand why these incidents are problematic need to be informed by these subject manners. Observably, these students were some of the many students that have no reaction to the racist posts. Some seeing no problem in it, some wondering why things like this are unacceptable or why they are offensive. Some say there is no such thing as racism or white privilege, some say black students are overreacting, and some just genuinely don't understand. Current units in our history courses provide information on African American History within 1-3 class periods, which results in surface level understanding of topics that need to be taught with a deeper objective. Very minimal to no classes deeply address why things like racial slurs are still problematic in current day society, or explain in depth what modern day slavery and racism look like today. Things like white privilege are not understood by many students, some may even misinterpret it to mean white people don't struggle. There is a huge gap and lack of education in the Champlin Park student body that needs to be addressed and changed in order to create a loving and safe environment for all students. People of color at Champlin Park are tired of having to explain and advocate for ourselves, we are tired of our pain being portrayed as anger, we are tired of being silenced, we are tired of being ignored, we are tired of being viewed as problematic, and we are tired of being hated. Champlin Park and the district of Anoka-Hennepin this is not a request... this is an ORDER. Change is being demanded and will be received by all means necessary. We the student body refuse to be ignored. Champlin Park and Anoka-Hennepin do better.