PACIFIC GROVE – Valerie Anthony stood in front of Robert Down Elementary School in Pacific Grove on Thursday and spoke, at times through tears, about the impact that racist comments had on her three boys who attended the school.
Speaking to roughly 50 people and surrounded by several Black leaders from Monterey County, the African American mother assailed the findings of an investigation by the Pacific Grove Unified School District involving a number of alleged racial incidents her children were exposed to by white children and then a lack of action by the school district.
The comments were leveled at her three sons between August 2019 and May 2022, Anthony alleged. They ranged from subtle racist comment to overt racial attacks, she said. In one instance in April 2021, one of her boys came home and asked her what a (N-word) is, having heard it in school.
In another instance, Anthony said a fourth-grade teacher told students, including her son, that “slaves were brought to California for a better life.” During an online second-grade class during the pandemic, a teacher told her son to tell your mother to get your hair cut, but made no such comment about some of the shaggy white kids, Anthony said.
Other concerns in a grievance Anthony filed with school principal Sean Keller included an alleged incident where one student told her son that he may not have been invited to a birthday party because it was a “whites only” party and an incident where a student told her son that he could “be his slave while playing a game.”
In its investigation, the district found that Keller did address some of Anthony’s sons’ experiences, including discussing with each white student the comments they made, as well as one white student’s mother.
“While the investigator found that Mr. Keller did respond to your concerns, it is clear that Mr. Keller’s actions did not satisfy your concerns nor deal with the race-based issues in a manner that the board would have liked,” read a letter from the school district’s board of trustees to Anthony.
The board’s letter acknowledged that the investigation did not find any violation of board policy, regulation or law. Anthony countered that she would “never accept white-washing” by the board.
Mel Mason, the co-founder and retired executive director of The Village Project, a Seaside nonprofit serving the mental health needs of underserved communities, said the kind of racial trauma children suffer that he has seen as a therapist can be both scarring and life-altering.
“Racial trauma is a beast onto itself,” he said as he stood next to Anthony on Thursday. “Coming to school should be educational and fun, not a place where kids get traumatized so they wake up every morning and feeling they are going to hell at Robert Down school.”
Anthony, an Air Force veteran of 20 years, said the school response was wholly inadequate. The principal warned one of her children that he would “have a target on his back,” she said.
Some residents listening to the speakers Thursday said they wanted the district to get help with the issues. Debbie Anthony, a trustee at Monterey Peninsula College and a resident of Pacific Grove who attended Thursday’s press conference, said as a trustee she is going through similar circumstances at MPC and that she is supporting the work that the NAACP Monterey County Branch doing.
“This district needs help,” she said. “They need aid so they can make a difference.”
When asked whether a lawsuit has been filed or planned, Lyndon Tarver, the president of the NAACP Monterey County Branch, paused and answered that “we’ll get back to you on that.”
Some in the crowd wondered if it was more a lack of empathy rather than ignoring the impact on the Anthony children. Al Shoats, a biracial father of a son and daughter who attend Robert Down Elementary and who grew up in Pacific Grove, said Friday morning that he doesn’t see overt racism aimed at him – his wife is white – or his children.
“I’m less aware of the water I swim in because I’m a fish,” he said. “My son, who has more African features, has heard little things like ‘you have kooky hair.’”
But Shoats said he’s had conversations with Keller and said “he’s a decent guy.” Shoats believes it’s more about what he sees as liberal white obliviousness to problems. “Keller thought he was helping.”
Still, the way the issues were handled created a vacuum in the community when Anthony pulled her kids out of school and eventually out of Pacific Grove, he said.
“She was a super parent,” Shoats said about her involvement in school organizations. “But they ran her out. It’s a loss for the community.”
Fred Jealous, a white Pacific Grove resident whose wife is African American, said he thought Anthony delivered an accurate account or how the trauma accumulated in her children “and how brutal it was” that the children ended up having to go to therapy. Understanding the emotional toll such behaviors have on children is critical for administrators, he said.
“It’s heartbreaking that the school lacked the skill set or level of empathy to help these children,” he said. “One thing about our culture is we go directly to right or wrong and don’t go to empathy first. You have to first acknowledge the depth of pain before you go to right and wrong.”
Several of the Black leaders put out a call to action by having more people show up at school board meetings or other civic venues to discuss these issues out in the open. Anthony reminded the audience that remaining silent can be equally damaging.
“If you do, you are not a part of the problem, you are the problem,” she said.
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