In recent years we’ve been laudatory in describing efforts by the school board at Oak Park and River Forest High School to talk honestly about race. Their “Courageous Conversations” have covered ground that most of us fear to tread — both because our own views on race and class are mostly unexamined and because we fear the label of racism being attached to us.
That’s why we are disappointed by our reading of last week’s school board meeting where multiple board members missed the opportunity to explain to frustrated student athletes that no one is accusing them of racism because their sports team doesn’t reflect the racial diversity of the community.
That doesn’t mean that questions about why our local youth and high school sports leagues and teams aren’t better integrated aren’t useful and productive questions to raise. To question why a team sport or any extracurricular activity is out of balance racially is to put us on a path to solve that problem. And let there be no question but that in a town focused on the academic gap between races at the high school, exploring the extracurricular gap between races also has value.
We are in trouble in Oak Park when overreacting to a race-related question — as we believe some members of the field hockey team have done and some members of the school board have offered cover for. That makes it more difficult to have an honest conversation.
There is no blame here. No accusations. Just observations of an issue where we can do better.
Meanwhile congratulations to the field hockey team on their outstanding season.