Yahoo Movies Our Voices, Part III: Education is universal, but for many it meant unique pain.
We are all experts on education, because we have all experienced it in one form or another. But for people of color, our K-12 and postsecondary college education systems have often promised much and delivered little, hurting students with systemic racism that resulted in unequal treatment in the classroom and the principal’s office, uneven funding, and a sense that they did not belong.
That’s why the third round of Our Voices — the joint project between the Herald Leader, RadioLex, Key NewsJournal and CivicLex to feature marginalized voices during a time of racial reckoning — attracted numerous proposals from people who wanted to share their experiences of whitewashed history, alienation and questions about how to improve systems that are so crucial to our societal well-being. Our writers recount painful experiences, such as never having a Black male teacher from kindergarten to college, and ask painful questions, like did the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision help children or hurt them?
Our previous rounds explored housing and gentrification and economic opportunity. We’re now taking applications for the fourth and fifth rounds, “Health and Racial Disparities,” and “Law Enforcement, Justice and Accountability,” respectively. If you are interested in applying, you can download the application and make a submission civiclex.org/our-voices.
In addition, RadioLex will debut an audio documentary for Round One of Our Voices on Saturday, April 24, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, April 25, at 3 p.m. on WLXU 93.9FM.
The project is funded through a grant from the Facebook Journalism Project and the Lenfest Institute. We are also grateful to our partners at the Blue Grass Community Foundation, which hosts the Bluegrass Civic Journalism Fund. To make a contribution to the fund, go to https://bgcf.givingfuel.com/donate-now.
Our Voices: Written by your neighbors. Please respond like a good neighbor.
