By Kelly Field, Pacific Standard, July 24, 2019
This story was produced in collaboration with the Hechinger Report.
On a recent Thursday morning, when most of their peers were busy prepping for the day, a dozen teachers and staff at Delaware's Sussex Technical High School sat down to talk about race.
The group was discussing Chapter 2 of scholar Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism.
Lynne Banning, an administrative assistant to the principal, said she was surprised to read that racial biases begin in preschool. At the elementary school she worked at before Sussex Tech, kids of all races played together, she said. "I don't see racism at that age," said Banning, who is white.
"It absolutely happens," said Spanish teacher Valarie Dacius, who is biracial. "I think it's because you're white." Dacius then told her own story about growing up in predominantly white Bel Air, Maryland, one of three kids of color. "We were made very aware we were different," she said. "We were excluded."
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