An African American member of a volunteer schools advisory board referred to Asians as “yellow folks” during a group email exchange with more than 100 people — leading one recipient to blame the “toxic racial environment” created by Chancellor Richard Carranza.
“The tone comes from the top,” fumed Lucas Liu, a member of the Community Education Council 3, which covers the Upper West Side and part of Harlem.
“I think this is representative of the environment Carranza has created. It’s a toxic racial environment pitting parents against each other.”
He also said that Carranza “has successfully intimidated white families into not speaking up by playing the race card, but failed to achieve the same success with Asian families.”
Carranza has repeatedly stirred controversy through a series of moves intended to increase diversity in the city’s schools and change the curriculum in favor of “culturally responsive sustaining education.”
Liu, who is Asian, saw red on Friday when Jackie Cody of Community Education Council 22 in southeast Brooklyn sent out a message in favor of eliminating the city’s specialized high school exams and “gifted and talented” programs.
“To be blunt, certain Whites and certain Yellow folks on this list serv continue to focus on a very narrow view and misunderstanding that what they’re advocating for is damaging to White and Yellow children as well!” wrote Cody, who is African American.
“You see, perhaps if we bring to the forefront that 90% of white and 85% of yellow children are not accepted into Specialized High Schools nor G&T Programs, there’d be a better acknowledgment and understanding of the need to gut this system.”
In response, Liu fired off a message expressing outrage at Cody’s choice of words.
“Thank you Jackie. Your use of a racial slur … speaks for itself,” he wrote.
The back-and-forth led the administrators of the “Yahoo Groups” list to announce on Saturday that they were changing its protocols so that only a handful of moderators would be able to send messages to the entire group.
“Some of the threads have become deeply offensive and toxic for many members,” wrote Shino Tanikawa and NeQuan McLean, both members of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s School Diversity Advisory Group.
“While we asked that members reply only to the sender and NOT to the listserve, this rule has not been followed diligently.”
Liu said Monday that “the term ‘yellow’ is clearly a derogatory term.”
“I don’t know if she deliberately put this out there in that way,” he said.
“But I would say that there are some terms you don’t use no matter what, and ‘yellow’ is one of them.”
Cody insisted she meant no offense, saying, “I had no intent like that at all.”
“We are split up into colors these days. Black people are black, brown people are brown, white people are white,” she said.
“My only purpose was trying to get people to understand that every child is gifted and talented. Once you really authentically understand that, things will be seen in a different perspective.”
Department of Education spokesman Will Mantell said in an email, “This was an unacceptable comment made by one parent on a message board, and it has nothing to do with the Chancellor.”
Additional reporting by Bruce Golding