When the Center Shifts: Bad Bunny and the Politics of Cultural Power, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. April 30, 2026

When the Center Shifts: Bad Bunny and the Politics of Cultural Power

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

April 30, 2026

Bad Bunny’s Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show performance

united music fans around the world, according to real-time listening data from Apple Music and Shazam.

What does it mean for Latinas and Latinos to “win” the culture war? Not perform it. Not survive it. Not even just contest it. But win it—at a time when immigrants are under renewed political attack, when curriculum battles rage across states like Texas, and when the very meaning of belonging is once again being contested.

The answer came into sharp, unmistakable focus in that unforgettable cultural moment when Bad Bunny took center stage in a spectacle as massive and symbolically loaded as the Super Bowl.

What unfolded was not simply a performance—it was a cultural intervention at scale. An estimated 128.2 million viewers watched live in the United States alone, with the performance generating over 4.1 billion views globally within 24 hours across broadcast, streaming, and social media platforms (Brown, 2026; PR Newswire, 2026). This was not marginal visibility. This was mass presence—a re-centering of language, sound, and identity before one of the largest audiences in the world, without translation, dilution, or apology.

And it was deeply personal.

You could feel it—not as branding, not as choreography, but as conviction. This was not an artist accommodating an audience. This was an artist bringing his full world with him, insisting that the audience meet him there. Spanish was not a flourish; it was the foundation. Puerto Rico was not a reference; it was the frame. The performance did not ask for inclusion. It assumed presence.

That is what winning looks like.

But this moment also reveals something deeper. For generations, Latina/os have been cast through a narrow and racialized script—criminal, foreign, disposable. These narratives were not accidental; they were produced through institutions that controlled what stories could be told and how. Film, television, journalism, and publishing have long functioned as gatekeeping structures that shape public perception and, in turn, public policy. When a community is consistently misrepresented, it becomes easier to marginalize it politically, economically, and socially.

Culture, in this sense, governs. It shapes what feels legitimate, who is perceived as belonging, and which policies are seen as reasonable or necessary. It prepares the ground on which law and policy take hold.

This is why moments like Bad Bunny’s matter so profoundly. They do not simply “represent” Latina/os; they reconfigure the terms of representation itself. They shift the center. They expand what is legible, audible, and possible. They interrupt the long-standing assumption that Latina/o/x/e identity must be translated, softened, or made palatable to be accepted. More than visibility, this is a form of epistemic power—the authority to define reality rather than be defined by it.

But we must be clear: this kind of moment does not emerge out of nowhere. It is the result of years of refusal, experimentation, and risk. It is built on the insistence that one’s language, one’s rhythms, one’s histories are not obstacles to success—but the very source of it.

That insistence is political.

If we understand culture as a site of power, then “winning” the culture war requires more than visibility. It requires control over the production of meaning. It means moving from being objects of representation to being authors of narrative. It means asking not only who is on the screen, but who is behind the camera, who is writing the script, who is financing the project, and who ultimately decides what stories get told.

And this is where the analysis must turn to structure.

Latinas/os cannot rely on institutions that have historically excluded them to suddenly tell their stories with nuance and care. Change requires pressure—organized, sustained, strategic. It requires building alternative platforms while also demanding accountability from existing ones. It requires recognizing that culture industries respond to economic and reputational forces, and leveraging that reality to push for transformation. This is the work of building cultural sovereignty—not just inclusion within existing systems, but the capacity to shape them.

And this is where the analysis must also turn inward.

As a people, this requires more than visibility—it demands a deeper reckoning with who we are and how we show up for one another. Our diversity is not incidental; it is foundational. We are Indigenous, Afro-Latina/o, Afro-Indigenous, Caribbean, Central and South American, immigrant and U.S.-born, multilingual, multiracial, and multigenerational. 

We also name ourselves in ways that reflect history, place, and struggle: Mexican, Mexican American, Chicana/o, Tejana/o, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Nuyorican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Brazilian, and more. We are also gender diverse, encompassing women, men, nonbinary, queer, and trans communities whose experiences and leadership have long been central to our survival and resistance.

These identities are not interchangeable, nor are they reducible to a single narrative. They carry distinct histories of migration, colonization, dispossession, resilience, and creativity. This is not a complexity to be managed or simplified for public consumption—it is a source of intellectual, cultural, and political strength. And yet, it is too often flattened, sanitized, or erased in ways that limit how we are seen—and how we come to see ourselves.

We are American.

We are not uninteresting. We have never been.

At the same time, we must confront a harder truth: there is no path to transforming cultural power without transforming ourselves. Colorism, anti-Blackness, and the persistent marginalization of Indigenous, Afro-Latina/o, and Afro-Indigenous voices are not peripheral issues—they are central to how power operates within our own communities. 

Consider, for example, how lighter-skinned Latina/os continue to dominate media representation, while Afro-Latina/o and Indigenous voices remain underrepresented or erased. Left unaddressed, these dynamics replicate the very logics of exclusion we seek to dismantle. A politics of representation that elevates only the most palatable, light-skinned, or culturally assimilated among us is not transformation—it is tokenization, fostering an illusion of inclusion.

If we are serious about reshaping the narrative, then we must be equally serious about building a cultural and political project that is explicitly anti-racist, anti-colonial, decolonial, and accountable to those most historically erased—particularly within our own ranks.

Winning, then, is not simply about being seen. It is about who among us gets seen, and how.

Bad Bunny’s rise—and moments like that Super Bowl performance—also remind us of something else: the power of imagination. When communities are consistently erased or distorted, their ability to imagine themselves differently is constrained. Cultural production—music, art, storytelling—is not ornamental. It is foundational. It shapes what people believe is possible, who belongs, and what futures can be envisioned.

That is why these moments resonate so deeply. They do not just entertain; they expand the horizon of the imaginable.

And yet, even as we celebrate them, we must resist the temptation to treat them as endpoints. They are not. They are openings—evidence of what becomes possible when the rules are broken, when the center shifts, when the story is reclaimed.

This brings us directly to Texas.

In Texas, where battles over education, curriculum, immigration, and public life continue to intensify, the stakes of this cultural struggle are especially clear. The fight over curriculum—what is taught, whose histories are included, whose knowledge is valued—is inseparable from the broader struggle over narrative power. Whether in the revision of social studies standards, attacks on ethnic studies, or policies that reshape access to higher education, we see again and again how narrative frames policy, and policy structures possibility.

This is why the question of “winning” matters.

Latinas/os will not win the culture war by asking to be included in someone else’s story. We will not win by translating ourselves into frameworks that were never designed for us. And we will not win by mistaking visibility for power.

We win by reshaping the story itself—by insisting that our languages, our histories, our cultures, and our communities are not peripheral, but central. We win by building and controlling the platforms through which meaning is produced. We win by confronting internal inequities even as we challenge external ones. And we win by refusing to separate culture from the broader structures of power that govern our lives.

What Bad Bunny showed us on that stage was not just performance.

Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images

It was posture.

A posture of refusal. Of affirmation. Of unapologetic presence.

And perhaps most importantly, a posture that said:

We are not asking to be part of the story.

We are here to rewrite it.

And we can rewrite it—centered in our own stories and in solidarity with broader struggles for justice that extend beyond us.

In doing so, we help open space for a future that is more just, more truthful, and more fully shared.

Because the story that comes next should belong to us all.

References

Brown, M. (2026, February 10). Super Bowl LX viewership second highest all-time; Bad Bunny has 128.2M viewers. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2026/02/10/super-bowl-lx-viewership-second-highest-all-time-bad-bunny-has-1282m-viewers/

PR Newswire. (2026, February 10). Bad Bunny sets global viewership record for most-watched Apple Music Super Bowl halftime show performance of all time, reaching 4.157 billion views. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bad-bunny-sets-global-viewership-record-for-most-watched-apple-music-super-bowl-halftime-show-performance-of-all-time-reaching-4-157-billion-views-302701639.html 

What If Black People Had a 'Green Book' for Finding the Schools Our Kids Deserve? by Carrie Sampson, Ph.D.

Friends,

My Arizona colleague, Dr. Carrie Sampson wrote this cogent piece that not only informs the reader of this historical Green Book published in 1966 and 1967 that allowed Black people to travel safely. You can learn about this from a Smithsonian website titled, "How the Green Book Helped African-American Tourists Navigate a Segregated Nation." There is also a 2020 PBS documentary of this history titled, Driving While Black: Race, Space, and Mobility, streaming for free on PBS.

Hence, Dr. Sampson's phrase, "Green Book-worthy" that she applies to what should be safe schools for Black—and I would add, Brown, children. Such schools are deeply committed to educational excellence for Black and Brown children and youth. And they are deeply committed to "anti-racist practices that affirm the inherent worth of Black children." Expressed differently, parents shouldn't have to pick between high-performing schools and culturally-affirming, diverse and inclusive anti-racist education. What conservatives really need to understand is this isn't about indoctrination or political correctness, this is about safety and truly caring for children.

Here is where "reformers" who think that some combination of charter schools, high-stakes testing—together with the punitive notion that ever more stringent accountability measures will save the day—have it woefully wrong.

How many charter schools are anti-racist, decolonial, and for true inclusion of the historically "othered" children? And does this inclusion apply to special education children and others that might "bring their numbers down?" How many of them are linguistically and pedagogically aligned and appropriate for emergent bilingual children? How many of them are even cognizant of the Indigenous children and languages in their midst and embarked on linguistic and cultural preservation?

I'm not saying that public schools do this enough either. What I am saying is that charter reforms, with a few exceptions, are not reform at all. At best, they re-cast the same colonial, subtractive logics of cultural and linguistic assimilation and Europeanization, particularly through white-washed curricula and mind-numbing tests and curricula that teach toward those tests. N.B. English is a European language. It is not native to "Turtle Island," America's and Central America's original name emanates from the Algonquians and the Iroquois. Moreover, pre-contact America was a model of linguistic diversity (Jaimes, 1992).

I am in full agreement that we need a Green Book, as well as that schools to be Green-Book worthy. I would Though threatening to the status quo, what a wonderful discussion such considerations could entail.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Jaimes, M. A. (Ed.). (1992). The state of Native America: Genocide, colonization, and resistance. South End Press.

Townsend, J. (2016). How the Green Book Helped African-American Tourists Navigate a Segregated Nation. Smithsonian Magazine.

What If Black People Had a 'Green Book' for Finding the Schools Our Kids Deserve?

BY CARRIE SAMPSON, PH.D.

August 2, 2019

Black families should not be forced to choose between schools that challenge them academically and schools that nurture and love them for who they are. Yet, this is the choice so many Black families make every day because very few learning spaces are truly committed to meeting the needs of Black children. 

It is painful to think about the conditions that lead to the creation of The Negro Motorist Green Book. With Blacks regularly facing exclusion, humiliation, and violence on buses and trains, the growth of automobile transport was a welcome liberation. But for Black people, it turned out that "getting your kicks on Route 66" meant getting kicked around and getting kicked out. The Green Book helped “The Negro” traveling by car navigate this issue by sharing safe places "that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable."

The right to travel is considered a fundamental right. But so is the right to a free and appropriate public education. What if Black families had a guide to tell them which schools would provide them the learning they deserve without getting kicked around and getting kicked out? Until we can send Black children to any school knowing they will learn and thrive, we need an Education Green Book. We know schools that literally beat us down, criminalize our children as early as preschool and have academically failed our kids for decades. Let’s put those aside and ask a more pressing question: where can Black children learn without facing soul-crushing racism?

This is Personal

We were so excited when we found a gem of a school for our young children in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. Arrowhead Montesorri had almost everything a parent could ask for. Beautiful learning spaces. Personalized learning that had our daughter reading at 4 years old. A completely ridiculous outdoor learning environment filled with all sorts of animals and opportunities for project-based learning. 

Like many suburban schools, there was very little diversity. This was not surprising in a city where Blacks make up only 7% of the population. It was surprising, however, for children in this supposedly progressive learning environment to tell our children “I didn’t invite you to my party because we aren’t allowed to have brown people over,” or “that’s why nobody likes brown people” with no accountability or real consequences. 

The supposedly colorblind leadership at Arrowhead Montessori did not have the skills to address this. But sadly, they also lacked the will to address this, ignoring our offer to set up their staff with free training on anti-racist practices after the first incident occurred. To ensure our children will be protected from further unacceptable racist acts, we were forced to pull our children out.  

Education 'Green Book’ Schools

With all of the degrees we have between us, we are utterly clueless when it comes to figuring out how we are supposed to discern the answer to what should be a simple question: where can our children learn and be truly loved at the same time? The truth is, we are in an amazing position of privilege when it comes to answering this question.

Arizona is a 100% open-enrollment state, meaning that we can send our children to any district school we want as long as there is space. Arizona also has the highest number of public charter schools per capita. And we are privileged to have the means to practice the oldest form of school choice by just picking up and moving wherever we want. So, in theory, we have hundreds of options of where to send our children. But there are far fewer options once we consider the two main criteria that ought to make a school Education Green Book-worthy:

• A demonstrated commitment to successfully educating Black children
• A demonstrated commitment to anti-racist practices that affirm the inherent worth of Black children.

To be clear, schools that have mostly Black student populations and mostly Black school and teacher leadership would not automatically be included in an Education Green Book. And schools with mostly White student populations and mostly White school and teacher leadership would not automatically be excluded. 

Whether a school is in a traditional district, a public charter school or a private school would not be decisive either. The deciding questions should be whether this school is truly a place where educators believe in the unlimited learning potential of Black children and whether this school is truly a place with policies and practices that affirm their dignity and inherent self-worth.

As the 1948 printing of the Green Book stated in its introduction, "There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States." We are not there yet; definitely not in education. So, until we can send Black children to any school knowing they will learn and thrive, we need an #EducationGreenBook. Who’s in?

Photo by luismolinero, Adobe Stock-licensed.

Carrie Sampson, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. Her research focuses on educational leadership, policy and equity from three interrelated perspectives—democracy, community advocacy and politics.

"Research: Color-Blind Attitudes and Behaviors Perpetuate Structural Racism" A Meta-Analysis

I spoke with someone yesterday evening from India who told me that when one of her family members first migrated to the U.S., they shared with their family back home that the U.S. has a caste system, too. I shared with her that class indeed becomes caste when entire subgroups—mostly, albeit not exclusively, of color—are generationally deprived of resources, including a lack of access to good schools, health care, safe neighborhoods, and so on. She asked me how it is that Americans don't see this and thusly, allow this to happen?

I hate to sound professorial at a party, but it was fresh on my mind. As I had just read this study of studies on color-blindness that now appears in the May 23, 2022 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology and authored by Yi, Nevill, Todd, & Mekawi, I answered her how question by addressing the underlying psychology of when folks say that they do not see race. That is, they don't see it when they have don't what to fix racialized systems of oppression. "Yeah, white supremacy," she said.

Specifically, Yi, Nevill, Todd, & Mekawi look at 83 previous studies from research consisting of more than 25,000 participants between 1995 to 2019. This meta-analysis clarifies how "color-blind" attitudes keep us from having a more equitable society with the primary reason being that its absence feeds the vacuum that remains for "victim blaming." The more that minoritized communities are blamed for these same disparities, this lets white people and institutions off the hook for assuming responsibility for what we know are the continued effects of exclusion and subordination.

The researchers break down color-blindness into either "color evasion," "power evasion," or both. Power evasion correlated to prejudice towards Blacks while color evasion did not, adding conceptual depth to a growing literature on color-blindness and the psychology of white supremacy.

This has implications for anti-bias training, working (or not) in diverse contexts, and inclusive curriculum in both K-12 schools and in higher education institutions. Today's "anti-woke" and "anti-diversity" initiatives seek to engineer colorblindness much to our detriment as a society. Yet, addressing these is the very "medicine" we need if we are to resist the impulse to "other" people who are different from ourselves and evolve as human beings.

It doesn't just help whites, but all groups in society to be aware of racial ideologies and how they work to either address, or conversely, to perpetuate, our nation's highly unequal status quo.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Yi, J., Neville, H. A., Todd, N. R., & Mekawi, Y. (2022). Ignoring race and denying racism: A meta-analysis of the associations between colorblind racial ideology, anti-Blackness, and other variables antithetical to racial justice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 70(3), 258. 

Research: Color-Blind Attitudes and 

Behaviors Perpetuate Structural Racism

The psychologists behind a new study say their field 

can play an important role in dismantling systemic

racism by first helping us better understand what 

creates it.

By Maia Niguel Hoskin, PhD | EveryDayHealth.com

June 7, 2022

Researchers presented evidence that ignoring structural racism leads to more, not less, racism.Adobe Stock

Psychologists say an important step in rooting out systemic racism is to first acknowledge it, rather than deny or minimize its existence.

In a review article published online May 23 in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, researchers looked at 83 previous studies in which specific types of color-blind ideology were found to increase anti-Black perspectives and give a pass to racist behaviors and attitudes. More specifically, power evasion (the denial of racism) led to these negative outcomes, and color evasion (ignoring race) did not necessarily do so.

The researchers noted in the paper that by helping people better understand the individual-level behaviors and ideologies that contribute to anti-Black sentiment, counseling psychologists can help dismantle the systemic racism those behaviors and attitudes lead to.

These findings can inform best practices for mental health professionals and others who work in fields such as education, social work, and various nonprofits, said the study's lead researcher, Jacqueline Yi, a clinical-community psychology doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in a press release.

“The denial of structural racism appears to be a big barrier to racial equity because it allows for more victim-blaming explanations of systemic inequality,” Yi said. “The more that BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] individuals are blamed for racial disparities, the less likely it is for white people and institutions to take responsibility for the continued effects of systemic racism.”

Researchers Looked at Color and Power Evasion Separately

Psychologists define "racial ideology" as a belief system that informs one’s interpretation of and response to racial stimuli. For the study, the researchers analyzed data from 83 previous studies that had looked at the effects of color-blind racial ideologies on anti-Black prejudice and a willingness to show racial empathy or openness to diversity.

The researchers categorized color-blindness as either color evasion or power evasion. The first means ignoring someone’s race or ethnicity to reduce prejudice and possible tension, or focusing on human similarity rather than differences linked to racial group membership. The second, power evasion, is the denial, minimization, and distortion of the existence of institutional racism. All the studies in the new review focused on either color evasion, power evasion, or both.

The studies that were reviewed took place between 1995 to 2019 and included more than 25,000 participants.

The review found that power evasion was associated with greater prejudice against Black people and was not an effective way to “get past” or address structural racism; instead, it perpetuated anti-Blackness. Color evasion, however, was not associated with greater levels of prejudice.

The researchers also concluded that the denial of structural racism was more closely linked to anti-Black prejudice than to prejudice against other people of color; and that people who denied the existence of structural racism were more likely to endorse stronger beliefs, such as that societal inequality is acceptable, and they reported fewer intentions to engage in social justice behaviors.

Researchers noted some limitations: They did not analyze responses from study participants by race or ethnicity, meaning power evasion and color evasion attitudes from Black, white, and non-Black people of color were combined. And most of the studies in the analysis included mostly white participants.

Systemic Racism Needs to Be Addressed — Step 1 Is to Better Understand Why It Continues

Barbara Ford Shabazz, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and the owner of Intentional Activities, a personal and professional coaching company, says that better understanding attitudes that contribute to systemic racism will ultimately help address it. “Awareness and acknowledgment of the insidious effects of structural racism are not as prevalent as they could and should be,” she says.

The shocking murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, led to nationwide protests in opposition to racial violence directed toward Black people. In response at the time, the NAACP's president and CEO, Derrick Johnson, said, “This is about the systemic and pervasive nature of racism in this nation that must be addressed."

Doctors similarly pointed to systemic racism as driving racial inequities in COVID-19 infections and deaths in a 2020 New England Journal of Medicine article.

Research like this new analysis from Li and her team helps build a framework to address the specific mental health concerns that victims of racism face, and eventually dismantle structural racism, Dr. Shabazz says.

Color-blindness may be an attractive ideology because it allows people who benefit from a racist society to ignore their own privilege and lets them off the hook for contributing to it, adds Jocelyn Smith Lee, PhD, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

Even though the data from this research did not suggest that color evasion contributes to anti-Black sentiment, Dr. Smith Lee adds: “That approach is also harmful.”

Shabazz agrees. “The willful avoidance of appreciating diversity and [not] looking at racial disparities only reinforces white comfort, power, and privilege, rendering this approach wildly ineffective.”

Based on their findings, the researchers noted future directions for study, such as developing a tool to measure color-blind racial ideology, investigating the implications of color-blindness across ethnic groups, and studying the motivations behind it.

 Friends,

This is so shameful and unacceptable what's happening in Slaton and Lubbock-Cooper independent school districts in West Texas. I can only imagine how frustrating it is for students' and parents' complaints to go unheeded and even worsened by district responses. 

All students are deserving of a healthy, positive school climate free from racial bullying, discrimination, and harassment.

Glad to see the NAACP, the Intercultural Development Research Association, and the Texas American Civil Liberties Union working together toward a federal complaint with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of these Black students experiencing discrimination. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Taunted for being Black, a student fought back, civil rights complaint says. The 30-second fight derailed her life.

Reports of racist bullying at Slaton High School are part of a pattern of discrimination in and around Lubbock, Texas, civil rights groups say. They’re filing complaints and calling on the federal government to investigate.

By Mike Hixenbaugh

SLATON, Texas — The Black girl’s hands were shaking as she approached a white classmate in gym class.

“I told you,” Autumn Roberson-Manahan said, her voice quivering, “to stop using that word.”

Autumn, a 17-year-old senior at Slaton High School, said she’d asked the boy four days in a row to stop saying the N-word in class. And for four consecutive days, according to Autumn and a half-dozen other students later interviewed by the school principal, the boy had disregarded her pleas.

He’d said the slur while talking trash on the basketball court, Autumn recalled: “Oh! I’m ballin’ on y’all n----s.” And while cleaning up at the end of class: “These dumb n----s left the balls out again.” That day, Oct. 27, he’d said it again, smirking after having dribbled past a student and hitting a jump shot, Autumn said.

By then, Autumn, a straight-A student and one of only two dozen Black students at her small-town high school outside Lubbock, had been complaining about racial harassment involving three other classmates since the second week of school, according to interviews with Autumn and her family, messages they sent to administrators and a civil rights complaint filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Education. In September, she’d secretly recorded two boys in class calling her the N-word. When the alleged harassment continued, Autumn told administrators she was struggling to focus on her schoolwork. Her parents tried to intervene, demanding to speak with the principal and writing to the superintendent.

But the racist comments didn’t stop, according to the federal complaint.

That’s why, Autumn said, when the boy in gym class said the slur yet again, she snapped. “My mindset was: ‘This is the only way it’s gonna stop. This is the only way he’s gonna learn.’”

A classmate noticed what was about to happen and hit record on a cellphone. The grainy video appears to show Autumn — who had no major disciplinary history — grabbing the boy by the hood of his sweatshirt and yelling at him between each openhanded slap to the top of his head: “You’re gonna learn! … To stop! … That f------! … N----- shit!”

As the student wriggled out of Autumn’s grasp and darted away, she continued to shout at him, tears forming in her eyes as a substitute teacher stepped between them: “It’s not OK!” Autumn screamed. “It’s racist!”

The violent outburst, which had been building for months, lasted barely 30 seconds — but it was long enough to derail Autumn’s life.

Slaton administrators sentenced her to 45 days in an alternative school for students with severe disciplinary problems, according to the complaint and records reviewed by NBC News. Distraught and convinced that her future was ruined, Autumn’s family said she ran away from home last month and made a plan to kill herself. Now out of the hospital and recovering, the girl who’d entered this school year hoping to be named valedictorian is no longer sure she’s going to graduate on time.

“They took my beautiful baby girl — who my husband and I worked so hard to mold and love and support — and they broke her,” Autumn’s mother, JaQuatta Manahan, said in an interview. “They didn’t protect her. They cast her aside like she was trash.”

Autumn's parents, Broderick and JaQuatta Manahan, said they repeatedly asked Slaton administrators to address racist harassment.Mike Hixenbaugh / NBC News

West Texas Parent are Suing Their Schools Over Racism as Others Demand Action Over Antisemitic Bullying

This piece provides evidence on how racism and anti-semitism are on the rise in Texas schools. It's interesting, if not predictable, to note that this is happening at the same time that books and materials, including those designed to challenge racial, sexist, and homophobic hatred are limiting what can get taught in the schools. This creates a vacuum in knowledge and information that risks getting filled by other readily accessible online communities that promote hatred and violence. 

This vitriol then manifests at school board meetings where parents refer to race and gender justice texts as "porn," when what is really obscene is the racial hatred that plays out in school environments as youth take cues from adults, including from government leaders and members of the legislature who are happy to perpetuate fallacies, most especially, an ethnically-cleansed curriculum that's non-inclusive and thusly, narrow and harmful.

I think that most Texas students, their parents, and Texans, generally, find this to be both reprehensible and unacceptable, but those perpetrating these harms are often the loudest voices. I'm glad to see the federal government stepping in on behalf of these aggrieved students. Read for yourselves the IDRA statement here that expresses the following:

"The complaints list a number of demands for resolution, including revised district anti-harassment, anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies; training of school and district staff on Title VI and appropriate school discipline practices; effective and age-appropriate prevention programs for students; systems for student and family input; alternatives to exclusionary discipline placement, such as restorative practices; an external evaluator to regularly assess the educational climate and effectiveness of policies; and annual reports posted online summarizing the reports of racial bullying and harassment."

These corrosive and toxic dynamics have to change if we are to prevent racial, religious, and other forms of harassment and violence in our schools. Anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy together with policies like Ethnic Studies that support their teaching, are also steps in the right direction. There is a bill this session, House Bill 45, an Ethnic Studies bill authored by Rep. Christina Morales, is what merits specific support. And now is the time to rally for it as a way to move positively forward.

-Angela Valenzuela

 West Texas Parent are Suing Their Schools Over Racism as Others Demand Action Over Antisemitic Bullying

LUBBOCK — Parents, full of anger and disbelief, have confronted school leaders in the Lubbock area over a series of racist and antisemitic incidents in several schools.

In total, four separate incidents have come to light in recent weeks.

Two episodes — both involving Black students targeted in constant bullying by their peers and inaction by school officials, parents say — have led to separate federal civil rights lawsuits.

At the heart of the two lawsuits is the pain parents say their children have endured as a result of months of constant and violent bullying — including an Instagram account that posted photos of Black students from a Lubbock middle school with racist captions, and racial discrimination by school officials against students at the high school in Slaton, about 17 miles south of Lubbock.

A third South Plains school district — Roosevelt ISD — had a parent file a federal complaint against them for racial discrimination by school officials. There, a mother took her daughter out of school after she claims school officials targeted her child for undue disciplinary actions.

Meanwhile, a threatening antisemitic petition was passed around by a student at another Lubbock middle school. Parents say they are disappointed the school hasn’t had a strong response.

On their own, these might seem like isolated incidents of school-age angst. However, racially driven and antisemitic incidents are on the rise in Texas. And now four different school districts in the South Plains are facing tensions emblematic of the widespread problem. Instead of addressing it directly, parents say school officials try to sweep the issues under the rug.

Lubbock-Cooper ISD — which includes Laura Bush Middle School, where the Instagram account was based — declined to comment on the federal lawsuit.

“Racism has no place at any school within Lubbock-Cooper ISD,” the district added in a statement. “It is not a reflection of our beliefs as a school and it completely contradicts the virtues we wish to instill in our students.”

Black students at the Laura Bush Middle School in Lubbock-Cooper ISD were allegedly bullied over months, including with an Instagram account that posted photos of them with racist captions. Credit: Mark Rogers for The Texas Tribune

Friends:

Just came across this earlier piece from Oct. 14, 2021 as I was trying to get updated on the latest news out of the Carroll Independent School District (CISD) located in Southlake, Texas. Know that this is an affluent district undergoing a lot of demographic change.

Book banning. Closing class libraries. Vetting books. "Both-sidism" about the Holocaust and slavery. This all sounds so Medieval and backwards.

There are so many layers here. For one, if you listen to the Southlake podcast, you can hear for yourselves the expressed racial animus that is raw and unhinged. Geez, anti-blackness manifests recklessly with students using the "N-word" gratuitously—like this is exactly how many of their families talk at home. This kind of language is diametrically opposite that of what should be happening in a multiracial democracy. 

Another layer is a real misinterpretation of the law. Folks in CISD are interpreting and trying to implement SB 3979 when it's SB 3 that's the actual law they need to be following as expressed in the article below. Plus, "Critical Race Theory" doesn't even appear in the actual bill. Nor is it taught in K-12 education, period. And not even that much in higher education. I should know about this. I've taught CRT for many years now.

The irony of all of this is that it is these very families and this very community could really benefit from considering alternative perspectives and viewpoints in history. 

I read somewhere that districts like CISD, Eanes, and other places that are having these difficulties are the same ones that are undergoing the most demographic change which means a de-centering of whiteness. N.B. Will have to track down the exact source. Another irony is that SB 3, if you actually read the law, could be far worse. It does accord teachers a great deal of latitude in their teaching. How this all gets interpreted at the local level is what Southlake and Eanes are about, demonstrating how "policy implementation," isn't as straightforward a matter as one might expect from the passage of policy.

A deeper concern is a normalizing of extremism through the marshaling of cliches like "fairness" and "balance" as a defense.

The impression I have is that both bills—HB 3979 and SB 3—are succeeding in creating the polarization and confusion they inspire. Hence, it is more the (toxic) spirit, than the actual letter of the law that is at play in Texas, including on the State Board of Education that has decided to wait for a more conservative board to enter before it makes any revisions to our history standards in K-12 schools.  

I'm glad to see that the NAACP has filed a lawsuit there. Wishing civil rights attorney, Gary Bledsoe, and the NAACP Defense team great success in challenging the discrimination, and ultimately, the gratuitous prejudice, that is sadly, in full display.

-Angela Valenzuela

Southlake school leader tells teachers to balance Holocaust books with 'opposing' views:

Teachers in the Carroll school district say they fear being punished for stocking classrooms with books dealing with racism, slavery and now the Holocaust.

Oct. 14, 2021, 2:00 PM CDT / Updated Oct. 15, 2021, 9:00 AM CDT

By Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton

SOUTHLAKE, Texas — A top administrator with the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake advised teachers last week that if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also offer students access to a book from an “opposing” perspective, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News.

Gina Peddy, the Carroll school district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, made the comment Friday afternoon during a training session on which books teachers can have in classroom libraries. The training came four days after the Carroll school board, responding to a parent’s complaint, voted to reprimand a fourth grade teacher who had kept an anti-racism book in her classroom.

A Carroll staff member secretly recorded the Friday training and shared the audio with NBC News.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said in the recording, referring to a new Texas law that requires teachers to present multiple perspectives when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial” issues. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust,” Peddy continued, “that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

“How do you oppose the Holocaust?” one teacher said in response. 

“Believe me,” Peddy said. “That’s come up.”

Listen: Southlake teachers shocked by advice to balance Holocaust books with ‘opposing’ views

OCT. 14, 202102:01

Another teacher wondered aloud if she would have to pull down “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry, or other historical novels that tell the story of the Holocaust from the perspective of victims. It’s not clear if Peddy heard the question in the commotion or if she answered.

Peddy did not respond to messages requesting comment. In a written response to a question about Peddy’s remarks, Carroll spokeswoman Karen Fitzgerald said the district is trying to help teachers comply with the new state law and an updated version that will go into effect in December, Texas Senate Bill 3.

“Our district recognizes that all Texas teachers are in a precarious position with the latest legal requirements,” Fitzgerald wrote, noting that the district’s interpretation of the new Texas law requires teachers to provide balanced perspectives not just during classroom instruction, but in the books that are available to students in class during free time. “Our purpose is to support our teachers in ensuring they have all of the professional development, resources and materials needed. Our district has not and will not mandate books be removed nor will we mandate that classroom libraries be unavailable.”

Fitzgerald said that teachers who are unsure about a specific book “should visit with their campus principal, campus team and curriculum coordinators about appropriate next steps.”

Clay Robison, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, a union representing educators, said there’s nothing in the new Texas law explicitly dealing with classroom libraries. Robison said the book guidelines at Carroll, a suburban school district near Fort Worth, are an “overreaction” and a “misinterpretation” of the law. Three other Texas education policy experts agreed.

“We find it reprehensible for an educator to require a Holocaust denier to get equal treatment with the facts of history,” Robison said. “That’s absurd. It’s worse than absurd. And this law does not require it.”

State Sen. Bryan Hughes, an East Texas Republican who wrote Senate Bill 3, denied that the law requires teachers to provide opposing views on what he called matters of “good and evil” or to get rid of books that offer only one perspective on the Holocaust.

“That’s not what the bill says,” Hughes said in an interview Wednesday when asked about the Carroll book guidelines. “I’m glad we can have this discussion to help elucidate what the bill says, because that’s not what the bill says.”

Six Carroll teachers — including four who were in the room to hear Peddy’s remarks — spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity, worried that they would be punished for discussing their concerns publicly. They said district leaders have sent mixed messages about which books are appropriate in classrooms and what actions they should be taking.

“Teachers are literally afraid that we’re going to be punished for having books in our classes,” an elementary school teacher said. “There are no children’s books that show the ‘opposing perspective’ of the Holocaust or the ‘opposing perspective’ of slavery. Are we supposed to get rid of all of the books on those subjects?”

A Carroll ISD teacher hung caution tape in front of the books in a classroom after the new guidelines were circulated.Obtained by NBC News

After this article was published, Carroll ISD posted a statement on Facebook from Superintendent Lane Ledbetter saying that Peddy’s advice to teachers was “in no way to convey that the Holocaust was anything less than a terrible event in history.”

“Additionally, we recognize there are not two sides of the Holocaust,” he wrote in the post. “As we continue to work through implementation of HB [House Bill] 3979, we also understand this bill does not require an opposing viewpoint on historical facts,” he added, referring to the new Texas law.

Ledbetter said that the district would work to add clarity to its expectations for teachers.

The debate in Southlake over which books should be allowed in schools is part of a broader national movement led by parents opposed to lessons on racism, history and LGBTQ issues that some conservatives have falsely branded as critical race theory. A group of Southlake parents has been fighting for more than a year to block new diversity and inclusion programs at Carroll, one of the top-ranked school districts in Texas.

Late last year, one of those parents complained when her daughter brought home a copy of “This Book Is Anti-Racist” by Tiffany Jewell from her fourth grade teacher’s class library. The mother also complained about how the teacher responded to her concerns. 

Carroll administrators investigated and decided against disciplining the teacher. But last week, on Oct. 4, the Carroll school board voted 3-2 to overturn the district’s decision and formally reprimanded the teacher, setting off unease among Carroll teachers who said they fear the board won’t protect them if a parent complains about a book in their class.

Teachers grew more concerned last Thursday, Oct. 7, when Carroll administrators sent an email directing them to close their classroom libraries “until they can be vetted by the teacher.” Another email sent to teachers that day included a rubric that asked them to grade books based on whether they provide multiple perspectives and to set aside any that present singular, dominant narratives “in such a way that it ... may be considered offensive.”

In a statement, Fitzgerald, the district spokeswoman, said the training session was planned weeks ago in response to the new Texas law and was not related to the school board’s vote to reprimand a teacher. Fitzgerald acknowledged that the timing of the board’s disciplinary vote and the release of new class library guidelines caused “confusion and worry” among teachers. But the district’s inconsistent messaging to staff members and parents since then has also caused confusion, teachers said.

Carroll ISD circulated new guidelines about classroom libraries to teachers last week.Obtained by NBC News

Last Friday, after NBC News published an article detailing the district’s book instructions and plans for staff training that afternoon, Carroll Superintendent Ledbetter sent an email to parents denying that the district was asking teachers to remove books — even though the district had instructed teachers a day earlier to close their classroom libraries until every book could be vetted.

“I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight,” Ledbetter wrote in the Friday note to parents. “The district has not mandated that any book be removed from teachers’ classroom libraries. Additionally, the district has not provided any training on removing books.”

About an hour before Ledbetter’s note went out on Friday afternoon, Carroll teachers were receiving a different message, according to the audio of the training session recorded by a staff member and shared with NBC News.

“The information we have right now is that classroom libraries cannot be used until they have been vetted,” an assistant principal can be heard telling a group of elementary school teachers, instructing them to use the rubric sent by the district to determine which books are appropriate. “So you do need to go back to school and separate the books that have been vetted, and those books need to be available to students. The other ones do not need to be available to students until they have been vetted.”

A teacher can be heard arguing that the guidelines shared by the district for determining the appropriateness of classroom books are too subjective. Another said she didn’t feel safe keeping any books in her classroom following the school board’s vote to reprimand one of her colleagues.

After 30 minutes, Peddy, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, arrived at the training and tried to reassure the teachers. She told them not to worry and that district leaders supported them.

“We are in the middle of a political mess,” Peddy said in the recording, acknowledging that teachers are afraid. “And you are in the middle of a political mess. And so we just have to do the best that we can.”

Peddy then told the teachers to hold off on closing their class libraries, according to the recording. She said she was expecting Fitzgerald, the district spokeswoman, to send out a statement in response to the NBC News article from that morning. 

“There’s a general statement coming out from the district,” Peddy said in the recording. “I have no idea what it’s going to say. And so I think we need to wait and see what that says, and then we come back and determine how and what your library classrooms are going to look like.”

After several teachers complained in the recording about the changing messages, Peddy told them she was going to step aside to call another district leader, Deputy Superintendent Courtney Carpenter, to ask for clarification.

Peddy returned a few minutes later, according to teachers who were there. In the audio, Peddy explained that teachers should be working to ensure that the books in their classes present opposing viewpoints — and offered the Holocaust as an example. Based on her call with Carpenter, Peddy said, teachers should disregard the earlier instructions to close their class libraries as they worked to read through all of the books, which she acknowledged could take weeks.

Carpenter did not respond to a message requesting comment. Fitzgerald said the Holocaust example given by Peddy did not come from Carpenter.

“I do know that you feel like it’s putting you at risk,” Peddy told teachers on the recording. “I do know that. But I also know that we’re going to do what’s best for our kids. And we’re going to stand behind you on this.”

The recorder was still running a few minutes later, after the session had ended, as a group of teachers gathered in a hallway and discussed what they had just heard.

“I am offended as hell by somebody who says I should have an opposing view to the Holocaust in my library,” a teacher said, her voice quavering.

Another replied: “They don’t understand what they have done. And they are going to lose incredible teachers, myself potentially being with them.”

Mike Hixenbaugh

Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Houston.

Antonia Hylton

Antonia Hylton is a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC.