Locals are not racists!

This is to express my dismay over an offensive statement made by Mr. Jaime Vergara, who, in his letter to the Saipan Tribune titled “My chill factor in good morning, America!,” wrote: “Great sentiment, but when I joined my San Vicente class the other day and announced my delight over Obama’s election, one of my local students blurted out: the black Nigger? I was stunned. It was a knee-jerk response of a child echoing something he learned from his home and culture.”

First of all, for Mr. Vergara to assume that the local student who blurted out the racist statement learned this behavior from his home and culture is completely false in that the phrase uttered by Vergara’s student is not native to the CNMI. Therefore, it is actually Vegara who engaged in a knee-jerk reaction when he singled out the child’s ethnicity (local) and hastily assumed that the local student learned this unacceptable behavior at home and via the child’s culture. Believe you me, there is a huge difference between saying that the student learned the racist remarks from television, his friends, society, etc. and that of learning it from home and his culture.

Next, I want to know the real message Mr. Vergara was attempting to convey through his letter to the editor yesterday. Is he implying that the CNMI’s indigenous or local population is racist? Is he implying that the CNMI or local populace is an oppressive people? Is he implying that the CNMI or local people are not mature enough to accept change? Mr. Vergara should take some time to enlighten us locals on this issue. As a PSS educator, it is Mr. Vergara’s responsibility to teach this particular local student the right way of behaving and not chastise the local student or, in the case of his letter, condemn his own local student the way he publicly did when he expressively stated the following: “It was a knee-jerk response of a child echoing something he learned from his home and culture. And I hum We Shall Overcome while a young boy in the front row of my class has yet to hear and learn the message.” Unless of course, his intentions as an educator are not to educate the child but instead, to seek 15 minutes of glory at the expense of his local student. If this is the case, then as a parent myself, I find it chilling to know that we have a PSS educator who engages in this repugnant activity. To this end, I want to share the following inspirational piece titled Between Teacher and Child, by Haim Ginnot, with Mr. Vergara: I have come to a frightening conclusion. [I]I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized.[/I]