Letter: As locals plea for the school board to just listen, President Arend just keeps speaking
Dear editor,
– I read the letter by Camille Katz and Yessenia Echevarria the other day, and the rebuttal offered by Board President Chris Arend a day after.
As an outside observer to Paso Robles and one who often visits for business and pleasure, it’s clear that we have a problem of leadership. Echevarria and Katz share what they consider to be problems — and in response, Arend not only dismisses their viewpoint, but doubles down on his own — even being self-aggrandizing for the talk he’s been giving to groups up and down the state.
Arend’s dismissiveness is mirrored in the Facebook comments of Echevarria and Katz’s post, replete with locals also in disbelief that systemic oppression could possibly exist. Perhaps many are exhausted by the 24-hour news cycle having bombarded concerned citizens with repeated news stories, but these are experiences that minorities must live with daily. Granted, it was also clear that many simply read the headline and skipped the rhetoric, but that’s the cost of attention in today’s inattentive world.
But to Board President Arend: I think your constituents just want you to listen. You might label them as activists, but many are parents, relatives, and friends of Paso school kids who want their kids to grow up in a better world. They know you’re already partisan to a certain belief and desiring a certain outcome (the way you handled CRT was evident). You are entitled to that after all as an American. And while piling on dictionary definitions, citing your law school education, and living in your ivory tower shows that you know how to Google and check a box, it doesn’t really provide the empathy, safety, or care in these tense and uncertain times—and neither does just wearing an LGBTQ flag mask either.
Instead, just listen for a moment. The stories do matter, especially in a community you serve where more than half of the students are minorities. It’s the least you could do. And if you still want to go home and turn on Fox News, you do that. But at least you’ll see that the world is grayer than the black and white you seem to want to desire.
Regards,
Albert Qian
“Somewhere between Paso Robles and San Francisco”
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