OPINION:
St. Louis, Missouri, educators at The College School are teaching students in even the pre-kindergarten years all the various ways white people are racist — so racist, in fact, that they don’t even know they’re racist.
Racism anyone? “Witnessing Whiteness” was a 10-week voluntary course offered to teachers so they could first learn all the ways whites are racist, and then, in turn, teach their young students to similarly identify. Well, how about a “Witnessing Blackness” course, too?
Oh, forgive. That’d be racist.
As “Witnessing Whiteness” teaches, the most racist whites are the ones who think they’re not racist.
Like an alcoholic whose first step toward healing is to admit a problem, so, too, must go the white race. The entire white race.
“In order for us to dismantle racism, white folks have to change,” said Vincent Flewellen, the director of Equality and Inclusion at The College School and the guy who provided teachers with a 10-week voluntary course on how to heal racial differences, Fox News reported.
Hmm.
Again, let’s reverse course a bit and consider this comment: In order for us to dismantle racism, black folks have to change. How would that be perceived, you think?
But Flewellen says the course isn’t racist, and those who think it is are misunderstanding its intent.
“As a person of color,” Flewellen said, “it gets exhausting at times trying to help folks who are well-intentioned.”
Yes, but for a person of — no color? whiteness? — surely, it can be similarly exhausting to help “folks who are well-intentioned,” too.
Either way, come on now.
This is brainwashing, pure and simple. This is furthering stereotypes of race. And this is entirely unhelpful to the smoothing of racial tensions.
Moreover, it’s just a drop in the bucketful of diversity programs that administrators are bringing to this school — which, by the way, has a student population that’s only about a quarter minority.
“Maybe a student of color might need something different from their white counterpart,” said one administrator at the school, to Fox. “Students of color need a community of adults who understand them as individuals, including their cultural identity they bring to our school.”
That’s funny. Seems like all students really need at school — whether they’re white, black, brown or some other color — are teachers who can teach things like math and English, and Latin and German, and history and reading.
But maybe that’s just the old tired white way of looking at school. Apparently, that’s racism.
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