https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=B2g7POvmEhM
The word came down, there was a diversity, as I understand it, this is, you know, pieced together, but there was a diversity task force on the board. There was a retreat, a board retreat, that was led by something called the Carl Institute. The Carl Institute is this outfit, one of these outfits that stands for critical analysis of race in learning and education. And, you know, they, you know, influenced by critical theory, I believe, and then they, you know, they, they sort of pitched their tent with anti racism as as a philosophy. And they started to, you know, talk to the faculty a little bit. You know, the, what later became the Office of Community Engagement, or, which is the sort of the bureaucratic arm that, you know, is essentially a sort of ethical priesthood of how to behave properly in, you know, the school environment and, you know, how to be a good anti racist. But they would ask, they had meetings where they would ask us things like, well, what does anti racism mean to you? And that’s a perfectly innocuous question. And, you know, to me, I was like, it means not being racist, it means not differentiating, you know, individuals based on the color of their skin and treating people with respect and dignity, no matter, you know, what their, what their skin color is. And, and, and, and they said, well, that’s interesting, you know, well, you know, that’s very interesting, you know, okay, well, they, and then they just heard people out and some people had more, you know, I guess I would say advanced ideas about, you know, being aware of systemic oppression and understanding different perspectives based on how you might assume a child had been, you know, had developed given their circumstances. And those were rewarded, you know, much more. And those are not bad ideas, you know, we haven’t, we haven’t got to the bad stuff yet. But it started to become apparent to me, I sort of had the realization that this was really going the wrong direction when we, we had a professional development meeting and they passed out the, I’m sure you’ve seen it, the pyramid of racism, also known as the pyramid of white supremacy. And it had this schema, it was a schema arranged in the form of a pyramid with genocide at the top of the pyramid. And then various layers that had categorical names like overt racism covert racism, minimization, indifference, and then various, there must have been about 50 or 60 things sprinkled on the pyramid at various levels. And some of the things on the pyramid. I actually thought were, you know, in many cases virtues. So things like being a political or things like, you know, you know, there are two sides to every story. Things that were contradictory like, you know, not believing POC, but also thinking, well, my black friend said dot dot dot. So the idea that these two things were next to each other seemed interesting to me. Also things that were just, you know, political party plat, you know, platforms, things like minimization. Yeah, belong to the human race. Right. Right. That was that was a post racial society. Why can’t we all just get along? Prioritizing intentions over impact. That’s a nice one. Yeah. Yes, we could. We could talk about that for about three weeks. Yeah. Not believing experiences of people of color. Two sides to every story. Right. Yeah. Well, it’s very interesting when you look very carefully at the words that are lumped in with the other words, let’s say. Right. Guilt by association. Okay. Yeah. You had this pyramid of white supremacy. And I was asked, you know, what do you how do you respond to this? What do you think about this? And I just I said, I think this is extremely destructive and horrible schema to put in front of a child and I will never do it. And I think that it’s I just know and I said I went to the office. I said, I’m not teaching this. And so this was when you were teaching math. Well, you know, yeah, I should explain it at our school. At our school, all the teachers have other duties that are really important, like you have an advisory and the the advisor. Shepherds, you know, maybe eight to 10 kids through the four years, so they come to you with problems and you can help them out. You can help them out academically. So this would have been something that I would needed to share with with the advisory. And I think they actually you you registered your objections. I did. This is this is the first time I kind of registered my objection because I felt why did you do that? I mean, look, look what you just told me. Remember what you just told me. You said that at one point in your life, you were like dangerously lost. You found your way out through mentoring that put you into the education field. Then you got a good job that you liked with people you cared for that was meaningful to you and it structured your life. And then you bought into this anti racist movement, let’s say. And but now you decide you’re not going to do it. So like why you have a lot at stake at this point, a lot. So why what’s what’s bugging you about this so much? Yeah, I think it I think some things had happened before this, where I had spoken to the head of school prior to this and and warned him I because I immediately thought I was just thinking about anti racism, anti racism. Why does that should be a good thing? Why? Why does that bother me? And I what bothered me was that I knew that racism was a concept that had undergone enormous creep that the people had very different ideas about what was and wasn’t racist. And I saw this as a real threat because it would lead to real problems in determining what it was that you should be anti. And if you if you frame if you frame in your mission something which is anti racist, you’re not going to be able to do it. So we look at this pyramid of white supremacy, right? And at the top we have genocide. So it’s like the ultimate evil. And I think that’s the most important thing. Okay, so that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the ultimate evil. Okay, so then you might say, well, maybe your definitions matter when you’re talking about the ultimate evil. And so maybe being vague about exactly what that evil is, especially if it’s convenient for you to be vague, perhaps that’s a little bit ill advised. Perhaps particularly when you’re teaching children, you’re teaching them to be a little bit more So it’s like the ultimate evil. Okay, so that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the ultimate evil. Okay, so then you might say, well, maybe your definitions matter when you’re talking about the ultimate evil. And so maybe being vague about exactly what that evil is, especially if it’s convenient for you to be vague, perhaps that’s a little bit ill advised. Perhaps particularly when you’re teaching children. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I said, well, is this the is this the comprehensive list of things that belong on the pyramid? Are there other things that we don’t know that are on the pyramid? And they said, well, you know, there could be. I said, well, that’s nice. So now we have other stuff that’s just in the margins that could be thrown onto this pyramid. Who knows what they’ll be? Maybe maybe. And who knows who will decide exactly like this is okay. So this list is not exhaustive. And that actually scared me more. Why? Well, because it meant that no one could anticipate where the lines were. I mean, kids need boundaries. And so how are the kids supposed to know what is and isn’t if they just have this grab bag of all these possible things that could be associated with the ultimate evil? You know, that it just setting up this whole tripwire situation where they’re just how are they supposed to know how to trust? What is and isn’t? Falling into the schema that comes out of their mouth or they have a thought of the day they want to articulate it, how you’re just setting that you’re setting them up to for anxiety and. Intention and you know who? It means that you’re really, you know, and I began to see this in actual in actual. Discussions people have about it. Kids were restricting themselves to a very narrow set of things to say that they felt were okay to say, you know, and it was all the jargon, you know, it was saying, well, you know, we need to acknowledge our privilege. Yes, we are privileged. You know that privilege makes makes us unable to understand. Okay, so what you saw, you saw as people’s attempts to deal with the ambiguity was that they just stopped saying anything that wasn’t approved. Yeah, that is the way out of it, right? If if what’s negative is ill defined, but what’s positive is listed, then you just stick with the list. You stick with the list. Yeah, you stick with the list. And then there were a problem with that. Exactly. So the kids stick with the list. Why? Why is that bothering you? Well, it’s it’s because it means that, you know, events, the multiplicity of possible reasons for things that that change that are different depending on the actual incident get reduced to this script of of explanations and only those explanations. You know, fit the paradigm and only those explanations will be considered and and That means that you’re not making sense of the world for yourself.