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An elementary school principal in California is learning a painful lesson after sending an email to parents at a predominately white school that set off racist alarms about a Black man she saw in Starbucks and assumed was a predator.
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Principal Donna Tripi of La Jolla Elementary wrote an email to parents and cautions that she saw a Black man at Starbucks who allegedly stared and followed around the daughter of a parent. Tripi said the man was “an African American male about 30 years old, about 6’1”-6’2”, dressed in all black and a hooded sweatshirt,” The Los Angeles Times reports
And then she urged parents “to keep your children safe.”
“We’re all hoping it was an isolated incident,” the email read, “but reminders are always helpful.”
After receiving backlash from her Starbucks email, Tripi walked back that statement and apologized.
“My email was a mistake. While it is critical to keep our school family safe, the way I communicated didn’t provide enough specifics to identify the individual, but could easily lead to unnecessary and harmful reactions against other members of our community,” Tripi wrote.
“African American males continue to face discrimination in our society every day. The thought that I unintentionally contributed to that climate with a vague email is something for which I owe our community an apology.”
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The principal now plans to hold a forum on the issue Monday at 6.p.m. “on the ways we can support all families in our school community,” Tripi wrote in her second email.
Omar Passons, an attorney and community leader will facilitate the forum.
“I am an African American man who’s a little bit shorter than 6’1”, but I’ve been in workout clothes and a hoodie in La Jolla after working out,” Passons said. “The description that was included in the email was just really, really general.
“It’s humiliating to be in that position where you look at somebody and see fear in their eyes for no reason,” Passons added.
But Passons seems to be satisfied with how the principal handled her error.
“Their response was what I would hope it would be,” Passons said.
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