A recent petition submitted by Bennett Carpenter, a lead organizer with Durham For All, has Black residents outraged over what they call savior posturing.
“I'm so sick of these racist ass white Duke graduate baby organizers creating fake battles against our Black representatives in the name of oppressed people of color cause you got guilt!,” Nia Wilson, co-executive director of SpiritHouse, posted on her Facebook page. “Go take care of your cousin that stormed the capital and GET OUT OUR BUSINESS! We see you for who you are!”
The petition challenges signees to act in demanding that members of the Durham Board of County Commissioners vote for all Durham Public School workers to make at least $15/hour applied retroactively to the entire 2020-2021 fiscal year.
Critics say the wording of the petition is deceptive in arguing “fiscal restraint is the same excuse Manager Davis used when Commissioner Carter and Commissioner Wendy Jacobs tried to raise wages to $15/hour during a June 8th BOCC meeting last year. In fact, the majority of years since becoming county manager in 2014, Davis has proposed county budgets that include less than the full funding that DPS has requested. Yet Manager Davis did not raise concerns of fiscal restraint when he allocated over $4 million in hazard pay to county staff last year without consulting or even informing commissioners at the time of his decision.
Carter placed retroactive pay on the table prior to engaging with other commissioners and staff for input. Durham County Manager Wendell Davis has requested accountability from members of the Board of Education after years of subpar academic performance and declining student enrollment. Durham Public Schools consistently ranks top in the state in funding per student while paying administrators, principals and assistant principals the most of any district in North Carolina. In a district with an overwhelming majority of Black and brown students, Davis contends Durham deserves better given the financial commitment from the county.
Antonio Jones, chair of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, says the petition is a nonissue used to attack Davis.
“As someone who’s personally fought for this issue for at least 10 years privately and publicly, and I specifically included it in my campaign platform when I ran for school board, let the public record show many of the elected officials were silent on this issue until it was “cool” to fight for $15/hour and it plays into the larger political agenda to discredit the county manager,” Jones said. “This could have been done 10 budget cycles ago. I don’t ever recall Heidi calling for $15/hr when she served on the school board and had the authority. As for the other elected officials I’d ask them to provide their track record on this issue.”
Rev. Frederick Davis, pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church, served with Carter on the school board from 2006-2014. Davis says the issue of minimum pay wasn’t championed by Carter when she served as a member of the board from 2004-2016 and served as the board chair when bus drivers conducted a strike.
“In terms of the board, I never saw a push from us (to increase wages) that I can remember. The only group that talked about increasing the minimum wage has been the city. It was in my last year when the bus drivers came up as classified employees. In fact, they did a little strike in 2015, and I was off the board then.”
Wilson says many of the people fighting in support of DPS funding fail to understand the historical conflict between white board members and Black students and their parents.
“Many of the people organizing this faux fight were either children or nowhere near Durham when Heidi as a school board member supported the worst superintendent (Ann Delinger) Durham's has ever had,” Wilson said. “Her being positioned as a savior is offensive to Black people with memory and receipts.”
Wilson said it’s an example of how white led community organizing takes place for the glory of white people without conversations with Black people.
“Can we talk about the nature of white led community organizing that creates battles for their own glory and funding? Culturally, southern Black folk pick up the phone, sit on the porch and talk to each other. Because y’all have professionalize organizing grounded in the competitive nature of capitalism and whiteness you don’t build or value relationships,” Wilson said. “You choose to represent our needs and fight for our community, and the only way you know how. With the takedown. Tactics rooted in white supremacy. We have been seeking accountability for the racism, including insufficient pay for DPS employees, that we have been experiencing in Durham for decades with no support from these people who are attacking our representatives today.”
The petition blames Davis for failing to prioritize pay increases for DPS employees.
Manager Davis has both chosen and urged fiscal restraint when it comes to school workers like our bus drivers and janitors, while spending millions on county staff without consulting commissioners. All workers deserve a living wage, and all frontline workers deserve hazard pay. Because of Manager Davis’s budget priorities and uncollaborative decisions, most DPS classified staff have received neither throughout the pandemic. No more stalling. No more excuses.
The Rev-elution contacted Bennett and Kaji Reyes, executive director of Durham For All, with questions regarding the petition. As of this post, we haven’t received answers.
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