'All Lives Matter' Note Sent To Newton Teacher Prompts Alarm

NEWTON, MA — A middle school teacher received a racist note last month, the Newton superintendent of schools announced Monday, describing it as a "disturbing, serious and painful matter."

The staff member, who regularly prepares for Black history month, which is February, and works with students and staff at the school to support anti-racism work, got a note in his school mailbox Jan. 29. That note included stickers spelling out "ALM," which stands for "All Lives Matter," according to Superintendent David Fleishman.

"To be clear, that is a direct attack on a staff member who’s doing terrific work, who supports our antiracism work, and an attack on Black Lives Matter and our whole community in the values we hold dear," Fleishman said.

The district notified the police, which alerted the Human Rights Commission at a meeting Feb. 11. Police said after consulting with the District Attorney's office, they determined this was not technically a crime and the department would not be able to charge the person responsible.

The police department is still working with the school to determine who is responsible.

Brown Principal Kimberly Lysaght "is outraged," according to Fleishman.

She recently shared details with the community last week and brought in the school's director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Kathy Lopes, to work on healing the Brown staff and the Brown community.

"Obviously we’ve got a lot of work to do as a community if one of our leaders in our anti-racism work can’t feel safe as he works on important School Committee and district goals,"Fleishman said. "We are obviously doing what we can to support this staff member who feels a lot of pain and is really frightened and feels directly attacked. We stand with the Brown community. This is a reminder that this kind of hate doesn't just happen in other communities but can happen here in our city and our school district."

Reports of hate crimes and bias-related incidents in Newton in the past month have been higher than normal, police said during the February commission meeting.

In 2020 there were 31 reported incidents related to bias or hate in the city, according to Newton police. Of those reported events, 10 took place at Newton South High School, and most of those were related to Zoom bombing. Other reported events included graffiti, the wearing of confederate flag hats, papers left on a car. The reports spanned everything from anti-gay, anti-Black, anti-Semitic, anti-Indian, anti-hispanic to anti-Asian.

The note comes just weeks after police found two white supremacist banners hanging off Echo Bridge in January.

All Lives Matter is a slogan that has come to be associated with criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, and has been condemned as racist and offensive.

"'All lives matter' can be understood as a racist dog whistle — a direct push-back against the Black Lives Matter movement. It is far from an innocent term celebrating the worth of all humanity," wrote Karen Stollznow, a research fellow at Griffith University, in an article for The Conversation.

According to University of California professor of critical race theory David Theo Goldberg, "All Lives Matter" reflects a view of ""racial dismissal, ignoring, and denial."

Jenna Fisher is a news reporter for Patch. Got a tip? She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a something you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how.