Tag Archives: Alexis Mburu

Community

How Kaley Duong and Alexis Mburu Became Award-Winning Youth Activists

by Ari Robin McKenna

Kaley Duong and Alexis Mburu knew there was something wrong with school, only it took them a while to find the right words, to know how to phrase them, and to channel their innate leadership ability. In middle school, both joined racial equity clubs that began to illuminate aspects of the issues they were seeing or facing. In high school, both began speaking out more frequently, organizing, and building community around taking action to address the ills of a system they were still in. During the 2021–2022 school year — when Duong was a senior and Mburu a junior — both were unstoppable, working tirelessly for racial equity in schools while organizing, participating in, and speaking at events that impacted thousands.

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News

The Fifth Annual Black Lives Matter at School Week Set to Start Monday

by Ari Robin McKenna

On Monday, Jan. 24, the NAACP Youth Council (NYC) released their plans for the Fifth Annual Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, Jan. 31–Feb. 4. The event was attended by community members and local media and featured educators and students speaking about the week’s heightened importance in 2022, the continued relevance of the national movement’s demands, and a day-by-day schedule of the week’s activities.

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Voices

The Need for Mandated Racial Equity Training in Schools

by Alexis Mburu and Eva Herdener

What happens when those tasked with teaching also need to be taught? Our education system has always had to adapt, whether in regards to who was allowed in the doors or how we kept them safe. And we can always find ways to improve the quality of education students are receiving — especially regarding race and equity. 

As two members of the NAACP Youth Council, we spend a lot of time focusing on working towards racial equity in the education system. One of our group’s key issues is the need for mandated racial equity training in schools. We are youth currently in the education system. Most of us identify with one or multiple marginalized communities and we have seen firsthand the damage done to students due to the ignorance of those who are “authorities” inside schools. Racial equity training is one way we can help ensure the system we rely on for our educational and social growth is a safe place for all of us. 

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Voices

The Importance of Hiring and Retaining BIPOC Teachers

by Alexis Mburu and Layla Ismail

As we’ve entered a new school year — one with unprecedented experiences, dynamics, and reckonings — something remains the same. Students of marginalized identities are constantly being disenfranchised in our current education system. This is well demonstrated when we look at the ways Black and Indigenous students are pushed out of classrooms. Not seeing themselves represented — whether it be figuratively in the content and curriculum of the classroom or literally in the staff and teaching force of the school — is one of those ways.

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Voices

OPINION: The Liberation of Knowing History

by Alexis Mburu

They say we have to learn our history so as not to repeat it. While I do believe the saying to be true, we must think beyond this sentiment in our current age because there’s a lot more to history than what we read in books. 

In the past few months, we have seen a massive insurgence from Republican politicians pushing to ban critical race theory from K-12 schools. These pundits and conservative Republicans describe critical race theory as anti-American rhetoric, racist and abusive, and teaching their children to hate their skin color; all of which are not true. In fact, critical race theory (CRT) is not even taught in K–12 schooling and there is a large misunderstanding of what it actually is: a tool in upper academia, specifically in law school, used to analyze the U.S. legal system and its intersection with racial oppression. Instead, the term has been used to represent the idea of anti-racism being taught to students and the seemingly more rage-inducing topic of teaching a true, non-whitewashed portrayal of this country’s history. 

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Voices

Why We Need Black Lives Matter at School in 2021 — and How to Get Involved

by Alexis Mburu

Three years ago, if you were to ask me what the Black Lives Matter movement meant to me, I’d have given what I would now consider a lackluster answer. This is because three years ago, I was a seventh grader with a limited grasp on my identity and the world around me. Now, Black Lives Matter is a movement that holds so much weight it’s hard to imagine a time when I was so inattentive.

The 2017/2018 school year was the first year I participated in a Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action at my school in Tukwila, Washington, and it felt like a whisper. There was no energy or enthusiasm by the teachers I had because they were just doing what they were told,  going through the motions with slides that were provided by anti-racist teachers with real passion, ones who educated and liberated their students all year round — teachers who saw the necessity in decolonizing the education system one step at a time, and, for the most part, knew how to. I was lucky enough to know such a teacher: Erin Herda, who has been teaching ethnic studies for years, despite endless push-back.

Unfortunately, the experience of only getting to have the necessary conversations, read the important books, and be taught true history if you have the right teachers is all too common. 

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Voices

OPINION: Why We, the NAACP Youth Council, Are Demanding Superintendent Denise Juneau’s Termination

by Josie Jensen, Alexis Mburu, Angelina Riley, Gian Rosario, and Eric Anthony Souza-Ponce

In October, when we, the NAACP Youth Council (N-YC), publicly launched our demands for racial justice in public education, we demanded that Seattle Public Schools (SPS) terminate its contract with Superintendent Denise Juneau, currently serving her third year of a three-year contract. 

We knew that we, a coalition of anti-racist youth in Washington, were asking for a lot. 

We knew from personal experiences as students in SPS that our voices would likely be ignored, but we had to be bold. Sometimes that means daring to say the things we feel and holding ourselves to a level of integrity, regardless of people’s perceptions.

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Voices

Meet the NAACP Youth Council and Their Plan for a School Year of Racial Justice

by Kaley Duong, Edan Gortzak, Alexis Mburu, Aneesa Roidad, Gian Rosario, and Leah Scott

Beginning its fourth year of advocacy, the Washington NAACP Youth Council (N-YC) is kicking off the school year on Monday, Oct. 5, with the virtual event Launching the 2020-21 School Year of Racial Justice to unveil our demands for the new year and promote Black Lives Matter at School’s new Year of Purpose. 

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