Prejudice Revisited, Again

Further to recent posts on PC bigotry and the redefinition of racism, La Shawn Barber has highlighted another example of students being steered towards approved kinds of prejudice.

Seattle high school students have at public expense been sent to the annual White Privilege Conference, the stated aim of which is to provide “a yearly opportunity to examine and explore difficult issues related to white privilege, white supremacy and oppression.” Topics headlined for ‘exploration’ include “white man’s pornography”, “multiple systems of oppression” and “transforming whiteness in the classroom.” Given such tendentious subject matter, readers may be forgiven for questioning the extent to which realistic discussion will actually be encouraged, or indeed permitted, and for questioning whether the White Privilege Conference does in fact provide “a challenging, empowering and educational experience.”

Visitors are, however, assured that the WPC is “not about beating up on white folks,” but is instead about “working to dismantle systems of power, prejudice, privilege and oppression.” Whether those two statements prove compatible in practice is, alas, not entirely clear. Dr Peggy McIntosh, a “highly sought-after speaker” on multicultural teaching methods, describes white privilege as “an invisible package of unearned assets… like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.” If that explanation isn’t sufficiently clear or convincing, Dr McIntosh also provides a White Privilege Checklist, which defines white privilege as the ability to “be in the company of people of my race most of the time” and to “avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.” The ability to go shopping without being followed or harassed is, Dr McIntosh asserts, another indicator of heinous racial advantage, as is the ability to find publishers for articles on the “invisible, weightless” phenomenon upon which she happens to opine.

La Shawn Barber notes that racially-fixated ideology isn’t exactly unknown in Seattle’s educational system. Dr Caprice Hollins, the Director of Equity, Race & Learning Support for Seattle’s public schools, has previously criticised individualism, long-term planning (or “future time orientation”) and the speaking of grammatical English as “white values.” The expectation among teachers that all students should be responsible individuals and meet certain linguistic and organisational standards is, according to Dr Hollins, a form of “cultural racism.”

Behold your tax dollars at work, shaping young minds for a brighter tomorrow.

More here and here.

Comments

[Julien]

In McIntosh's "checklist," she calls meritocracy a "myth." She points to acts of discrimination and somehow deduces that they render fraudulent the entire concept, though it would make much more sense to conclude that discrimination makes implementing meritocracy completely and consistently all the more important. But that approach would make it harder to peddle her invisible knapsack unpacking services. It's maddening to think that students might be studying the ins and outs of an intellectual nullity like the weightless invisible knapsack during time they could spend learning about the quadratic formula, the theory of natural selection, the U.S. Constitution, or how to write an essay.

[David]

Judging by Dr McIntosh’s “checklist” criteria and her general ramblings, I doubt evidence matters anywhere near as much as self-loathing, pretension and/or racial revenge fantasies. Apparently, that’s the way to get public funding. And yet, despite all this, academic sack beatings are now frowned upon.

[Franklin]

"Dr. Caprice Hollins"? You made that up, right? No, you didn't. Wow. It's like bad fiction, but real.

[David]

Franklin,

Two items worth noting:

“Combating [‘institutional’ racism], Hollins said, first requires knowing to what extent it exists in Seattle's public schools… ‘They wouldn't have hired me if there wasn't a need,’ said Hollins, who started the job last week. ‘I just need to find out what that need is.’”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/195794_ecenter19.html

and,

“Hollins recently admitted to The Seattle Times that even she, a die-hard, diversity-obsessed devotee, could not find an institutionally racist program in the system. With nowhere else to turn, she pointed to summer vacation – summer vacation – as ‘an example of systemic problems’ because black children fall even further behind.”

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=seattle%E2%80%99s_guilt-tripping_battles&ns=LaShawnBarber&dt=04/09/2007&page=2

So despite being unable to find any evidence at all to justify her role or her $86,000 salary, Ms Hollins remains in place, looking for ‘institutional’ racism in children’s summer breaks. Perhaps she can find some ectoplasm while she's at it.

[clazy]

Some of the kids subjected to this conference will recognize it as foolishness. I won't be surprised if their less subtle peers, who lack the skills to deflect such abuse, emerge as nascent racists. If we're lucky, they'll only hate pink turtlenecks.

[Chris Allen]

I have to wonder how many smart but poor black kids could be given an education at a good private school for $86,000.......

I mean, if she REALLY cares about outcomes....

[Chip]

Maria Goodloe-Johnson buys into that same nonsense. Congrats on Seattle's choice of superintendent. And good riddance.

[Jamie Anderson]

So. The problem is not a lack of civil rights among blacks. It's that whites have them which only serves to make blacks jealous, thus leading to social disharmony?
A philosophy to make the spirits soar.

[David]

Clazy,

“I won't be surprised if their less subtle peers… emerge as nascent racists.”

Surely that’s an unspoken aim of the racial grievance industry, or at least a large part of it? Hollins and McIntosh depend on racial preoccupation, paranoia and resentment for a living, as do their peers. It’s the source of their status, power and funding. Encrusting young minds with prejudice, albeit of a fashionable kind, is imperative in order to justify the monstrous witch-hunting industry in which they thrive.

[TDK]

It obviously works on some white people as evidenced here:http://www.daveyd.com/commentarywhitelikeme.html.