Tukwila case shines light on black on black racism

The Tukwila School District is one of the most diverse
districts in the state. Seventy percent of the kids are
minorities. But yet there are claims of racism from nine
African American district employees. Their claims are
pointed at the district superintendent who is also black.

The employees range from a vice principal to bus drivers
to teachers. They all claim superintendent Ethelda Burke
uses racist language, and they want her suspended.

The nine are represented by attorney Joan Mell who said
that Burke referred to some of the employees as slaves,
and even criticized a supervisor for hiring too many black
people because it was turning the district into a ghetto.

“The one thing we won’t tolerate,” Mell said, “is people
calling out other people based upon their skin color,
whether you’re one of them or not. You don’t get to be
mean, and you don’t get to supervise, and you don’t get to
enforce your power to demean and diminish.”

The group is coming forward now because they didn’t
originally realize they were all being treated the same
way. They didn’t realize it was a widespread problem.

Mell has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission on their behalf.

“It’s so undermining and so immobilizing when someone who
you want to embrace and who you want to look up to is
throwing your skin color back in your face,” she said.

This case has raised the issue of black on black racism
and shined a light on how prevalent it can be. Chris
Parker is a political science and social justice professor
at the University of Washington. He said it is often
underreported.

“It generally stays within the black community,” he said.
“It hardly ever escapes the black community. It’s sort of
like airing dirty laundry. We just don’t do that that
often.”

And the reason why, Professor Parker said, is because the
black community feels it can give ammunition to other
critics or racists.

“I think there’s a concern that it will permit critics of
the black community to say something to the effect that
you know your own are criticizing you so the critique that
we have, the little more broader society, it must be
legitimate.”

The district declined to comment publicly about the case
citing privacy concerns, but in a statement it said “the
district is engaged in the process of complying with the
EEOC’s request and expects to provide the EEOC a
preliminary response by the end of March.”