Antiracism in schools

I recently read an article from The Hechinger Report about teaching antiracism to students. I read the article and noticed a ton of problems. Someone out there has probably written a more comprehensive critique of this piece, but I at least wanted to share my concerns.

A lot of my concerns reflect another post that I have written. For a number of reasons, schools should not teach children that slavery is wrong. I'm sure there are people out there who don't want to hear this, but there are serious problems with providing a manipulated perspective of history to push an agenda, even if it's an honorable agenda.

The Hechinger Report's headline itself raises serious concerns: How do you teach antiracism to the youngest students? Antiracist (antiracism was based on that term, although I have almost exclusively seen this referred to as being antiracist) has become a bit of a buzzword lately. All exposure I have personally had to this term has followed the same pattern. White people need to address their anti-black racism, and black people need to know the best way to deal with anti-black racism.

Now imagine the three following arguments:

• Everybody is racist against black people. Racism against white people does not exist.
• Systemic racism against black people is a serious problem in this country, and easily outweighs anti-white racism.
• Although racism hasn't been eradicated, it has been diminished to the point where the influence is too insignificant to elevate above other problems.

Which statements are believable? Hint: One of these three statements defies common sense.

Antiracist is a strictly one-way concept. This clearly does not match reality. If you insist that anti-white racism doesn't exist, you are establishing yourself as a liar. Keep in mind that acknowledgement of anti-white racism does not in any way mean that anti-white racism is anywhere near as substantial as anti-black racism. Unfortunately, when all you hear are lies, it's difficult to establish an accurate understanding of racism in America. Without proper information, problems caused by racism could range anywhere from extreme to insignificant.

This article points to several questionable sources. Teaching Tolerance is curriculum created by the ultra-liberal Southern Poverty Law Center. The Southern Poverty Law Center is known to push propaganda to portray conservatives as hate-filled and violent. To do this, they frequently skew facts.

I first became aware of Teaching Tolerance when they posted something online about how schools are getting the story of slavery wrong. Among their concerns is that some students don't believe that slavery was the sole cause of the Civil War. How do we know that slavery was the sole cause? Because all of the Confederate States cited slavery as a reason to secede (not go to war). There is no mention of the role the North played. Most evidence I have seen points to a desire to keep the union together, not slavery. This means that Teaching Tolerance has been lying in order to push an agenda.

What about Black Lives Matter at School? There has been a lot of confusion between the movement and the organization. I'm not going to go into details here, but the organization has been proven to embrace Marxism. Black Lives Matter at School includes the 13 guiding principles from the organization. I think it's safe to say this curriculum promotes the values of the Marxist organization rather than just the movement.

How about the 1619 Project? I haven't personally read any of this project. I have seen plenty of criticism from historians. Even some historians that support the 1619 project have shown concerns that the inaccuracies could undermine the intent.

How about the Zinn Education Project? This is the source that I know the least about. One thing that I do know is that it is based on a controversial book. Some critics insist that Zinn used a misrepresentation of history as a means of pushing an agenda.

All of these sources have something in common. They all embrace a skewed liberal perspective on addressing racism. Racism itself should not be considered political, but teaching children that they should embrace liberal solutions is deeply concerning. They neither expose children to alternative viewpoints nor encourage children to look for new ideas on addressing these problems. Their approach could be considered to be anti-thought. And how do the schools defend this? By insisting that their material isn't political.

And now, it's time for a quote from the article:

In her own classroom, she and her students sent videos and wrote letters to senators about school funding and state testing. In her preschool classroom, she said her students made signs and did a walk around to protest mass shootings during a national walk out movement.

There are some unknowns here, but this sounds deeply concerning. I had teachers who pitched levies to their students. They would try to manipulate us so that we would fight on their behalf. In this case, were students free to write their senators to oppose school funding? Did the kids have a choice about making signs and protesting? Were these preschool children allowed to even have their own thoughts and opinions? Child exploitation is very common in schools. It seems to me that this teacher crossed a line that should be considered criminal.

And I have another concerning quote:

“When kids come to school, we have the opportunity to create a culture of school that may be different than their home culture, and really be able to expand their racial beings as antiracist,” she said. “We have the capacity to create antiracist kids at school, whether they live in an antiracist home or not. And we don’t have that ability remotely. And so we’re working as a start to find out how to do that.”

Again, antiracist isn't just about opposing racism. It's a liberal approach to addressing racism. This quote is entirely reliant on the idea that children have to have their thoughts provided by others. It's a distinctly anti-thought mentality. It also pushes the message that the schools are powerful enough to override the views of the parents.

This also creates issues with a common influence. This is another issue that I have already discussed. Common influence is a dangerous concept. With the schools having more influence on just about every child than their own parents, the schools can manipulate mainstream opinions. Alternative viewpoints are diminished, and intolerance emerges. This also means that flaws within these views can't be properly challenged, and children end up in an echo chamber. We become entrenched in any mistake that our schools make.

We have been pushing this approach to race relations for the last decade, although some of the terminology has been updated. The colorblind approach has its flaws, but racial fixation has been catastrophic. Black people hating white people is not a valid solution. This over-the-top approach also guarantees pushback, potentially fueling anti-black racism as I have previously stated.

This is the big reason I struggled with the article. It promoted anti-thought solutions. To address racism, you must mindlessly embrace the liberal approach.

Liberals are also arrogant. Take a look at our schools. We keep throwing more and more money into the system. This approach has failed miserably. How do liberals respond? More of the same. We must throw more money into the system in hopes that more money alone will magically produce the exact opposite results this time. Similarly, they refuse to admit that their approach to racism isn't working

The last decade of pushing to look for racism against black people in everything has failed miserably. How should we fix this problem? By pushing the exact same concept even harder in hopes of seeing the opposite results magically appear. I'm not like that. I would rather cut our losses and fix our mistakes than keep pushing more of the same bad ideas.

We are building history around an agenda, not the truth. This raises a serious question. Why are teachers so heavily opposed to the idea of an honest portrayal of history?