Ali Collins 高勵思 is on Spill Profile picture
Jul 13, 2022 25 tweets 9 min read Read on X
Our SF school board is listening to folks who promote Jim Crow Education policies. For real!

Let me explain… (A thread. 🧵) 1/
It is not surprising many “Save Lowell” proponents (and others) are also fighting against anti-racist and LGBTQ-affirming education and believe CRT is “indoctrinating” our kids). 2/
Folks like Lawrence Lee promote the use of “grandfather clause” policies and “literacy tests” as a means of excluding low-income, disabled and English Language Learner students from applying for SFUSD’s most-resources high schools. 3/
You may have heard the term “grandfather clause” used to describe an old rule that continues to operate under certain conditions when a new rule or law takes effect. 4/
While many people are aware of this term, they're not aware that it originated after the civil war as a means of preventing Black Americans from exercising their rights to vote after that right was guaranteed by the 15th amendment. 5/
Grandfather clauses are among many other Jim Crow laws that were put into effect as a result of the civil war in an attempt to restrict Black Americans from exercising their rights as guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. 16/
What does this have to do with education?
When Black Americans were guaranteed the right to vote as a result of the 15th Amendment, many white Southerners were upset by this, because they were outnumbered and wanted to maintain the political power they had established under the racial cast system of slavery. 18/
The 15th Amendment clearly stated that you could not prevent citizens from voting based on race. But, you COULD use other criteria. (Are you following me on this?) 19/
Based on this, a rash of new voting restrictions started popping up, in order to prevent Black Americans from voting.
(See the full list here: 20/ abhmuseum.org/voting-rights-…)
Among them were the following:

- Property tests required voters to own property.
- Poll taxes required people to pay fees in order to vote. 22/
- And literacy test prevented folks who were not literate from voting. (You may remember that enslaved Africans were not allowed in many states, to be taught to read. It was punishable by law.) 23/
Now this all seems well and good, (if you are a RACIST!) but there was a problem… 24/
There were also a lot of poor white Southerners, who would not be able to meet these requirements. 25/
In order to ensure the passage of these new laws, they established a “grandfather clause”, which allowed you to vote if your father or grandfather had voted in previous elections. 26/
Pretty sneaky, huh?

So, what does this have to do with our education system? 27/
Well, if you've been watching videos I've been sharing, proponents for “merit” admissions, use Jim Crow rationales to justify the need to eliminate a race-neutral lottery and go back to an admissions policy than has proven to be discriminatory. /27
A lottery doesn’t systematically exclude low-income, disabled or immigrant students. But, folks like Lawrence Lee (who favors “merit” admissions) use grandfather cause rationales to argue for a discriminatory admission system because “We’ve always had it that way.” 28/ @kron4news
It’s not just Lowell, BTW. Many elite public schools use tests as a means of excluding students. In Boston, they even call them “exam schools”. You won’t be surprised to learn many of these tests, have been proven to be discriminatory against Black and Latinx students. 29/
If you’ve been following this conversation nationally, you may remember @DrIbram, even advocated against Boston’s standardized admission tests. As he stated in his letter to the Boston School Committee, standardized testing has always has a problematic history. 👇🏽
30/
Jim Crow Education policies abound. I was shocked to learn that as recently as 2020, students applying to Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia, were required to pay a $100 application fee. (Sounds like a poll tax, to me.) 31/ washingtonpost.com/local/educatio…
If you’ve followed along on this epic thread… THANK YOU for doing your homework! 32/
It’s time we ALL get educated. The right-wing assault on our school boards threatens to “take back” our country to Jim Crow days, and dismantle our public education system along the way. We must fight for progress in our public education system! #NoJimCrow #SiSePuede
Closing out this 🧵. Face it—meritocracy is a scam. If we really valued “hard-working” kids, we would elevate students who literally work-harder: low-income, disabled and immigrant youth meet academic challenges while ALSO navigating poverty, ableism & language barriers. Fin/

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More from @AliMCollins

Jun 7, 2023
Yesterday was out of control in LA, my “hometown”. The same folks radicalizing Christian Armenian immigrants in Glendale, CA invited Proud Boys and other Jan 6 insurrectionists to anti-LGBTQ protests at the GUSD. It got violent. 1/
Media continue to frame this as being driven by “conservative parents”, when we see many of the same activities happening that happened in SF and nationally.

Media often cite“conservative parents” in reporting who don’t even know which school district they are protesting. 2/
These same “parents” showed up at Saticoy Elementary in the last few weeks burning a Pride flag and protesting a book about two dads. There was a scrum there as well. 3/
Read 19 tweets
Jun 6, 2023
Everyone needs to watch this and watch it until the end.

Anyone posting images of homeless people and people struggling with addiction to shame them are only showing how cruel and inhumane they themselves are. People don’t choose suffering.
When I was a kid, I once told my dad, “What are you going to do? There have always been homeless people.” And my dad corrected me. He told me I was wrong.
My dad grew up in LA since the 50’s and became a professor of psychology at UCLA, he explained how homelessness was actually a product of Reagan cutting investment in mental health spending. That combined with other cuts to social safety nets has pushed more folks on the streets.
Read 6 tweets
Jun 5, 2023
This piece by @SandyBanksLA from a while back is really wonderful. It’s a testament to the powerful work Ethnic Studies educators are doing in schools. Rufo and DeSantis’ are campaigning to restrict this type of critical inquiry in our society via regressive ed policies.
“There is nothing natural about camaraderie among people of color,” Pérez wrote in a 2020 opinion piece for the WaPo. “For every commonality, a point of difference intrudes on unity.”

Right wing pol strategists are exploiting those diff. in “blue” cities like NY, SF, DC and LA.
As @ishmaelreed discussed in his most recent play, the Conductor, “diff. groups in America establish their bonafides through anti-Blackness”.

This is the Southern Strategy. Playing out daily in a culture war funded by right-wing billionaires who profit off conflict. ImageImage
Read 8 tweets
Dec 1, 2022
Now is your chance to see the legendary Ishmael Reed's new play. The Conductor is a satirical take on the SF School Board Recall. Catch this irreverent, informative, and funny virtual screening before it goes LIVE on stage in Spring 2023 Off-Broadway!
medium.com/@alimcollins/i…
I was no doubt a canary in a coal mine. As a parent organizer, educator, & former SF school board member, I was on the front end of the wave of right-wing attacks against educators dismantling anti-discriminatory policies in our schools. #truthbetold aapf.org/truthbetold
Many folks who know me know that these past two years have been really difficult with attacks on me, my family, and our public education system. Many of the San Francisco initiatives I and my colleague @lopez4schools stood for are currently being dismantled or reversed.
Read 11 tweets
Jul 12, 2022
This article by @jiasunlee is everything that’s going on in SF. The dynamics outlined here animate political life and are destroying our city. We need folks from all backgrounds to start talking about this, and especially members of API communities. jiasunlee.com/white-supremac…
“From a racial perspective, think of White supremacy as the narcissistic parent, and BIPOC as its triangulated children. Black, Indigenous, Brown Hispanics and Latinx, and dark-skinned Asian Americans have been scapegoated.
“Yet, Asian Americans as a whole were proclaimed the Golden Child. The successes of our elites were put on a pedestal to aspire to, while they—and many of us—have been deprived of the necessary tools.
Read 5 tweets
Jun 20, 2022
This past Juneteenth, I was in New York and went to visit the site of Seneca Village in Central Park. A whole thriving Black town erased. To make a respite from urban life for the rest of New York City (and raise the value of its real estate.)
How is this any different that what happened to the Filmore in SF?

How is this constant erasure any different from what is happening around Lowell High School?
How can we be free if we don’t have equal access to housing and educational opportunity?
Read 28 tweets

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