Darlene Sampson

A social media post of white students at a suburban Chicago high school in blackface has gone viral, prompting immediate outrage. “I know these kids,” says parent Nicole Brookens. “I know these parents; these are my daughter’s classmates. This is going to cause more tension in an already tension riddled community.”

Today is Juneteenth. A significant day in African American history — one that not everybody knows about. Here to help us better understand the significance of this day is Dr. Darlene Sampson from MSU Denver.

A huge majority of black and Latino students in Colorado rarely have a teacher who looks like them: 88 percent of the state’s teachers are white while 45 percent of students are students of color. A culture gap can develop in some classrooms where a white teacher has a majority of students of color.