Report: California School District Launches 'Anti-Racism' Training Because a Rope Swing Was Spotted in a Yard
According to a report, a California school district has announced the launch of far-left “anti-racism” training because what “appeared to be a noose” was spotted in front of a home within the district.
As it turns out, the “noose” was actually a rope swing for children.
Regardless, administrators and staff at the Piedmont Unified School District sent an email to students and parents from both high schools in the system noting that although the rope was found to be “innocuous,” students would still be taught controversial “anti-racism” philosophies such as “systemic racism” and “identity privilege,” The Federalist reported.
“While it is unlikely that most of us will replicate this particular act, it is likely that those of us with identity privilege have caused harm ‘unintentionally’ to those with non-dominant identities,” the district wrote, according to the report.
“Rather than absolving ourselves of responsibility, we must listen, reflect, apologize, and do better when we are told that the impact of our actions does not align with our intentions or perceptions of ourselves,” the statement continued.
“Any reminder of the history of lynching and the abuses and murders of Black people in the United States causes harm and trauma to the BIPOC community.”
The email sent out to parents went on to explain that the administrators believe systemic racism has been an impediment to minority success within the district and that teaching the tenets of “anti-racism” should be a priority going forward.
“Systemic racism has a long history in our country and in Piedmont. Recognizing the positions we hold as site and district administrators, our goal is to use our power to lead for equity and change. This incident highlights the importance of continuing and improving the educator training and district policy-making centered around anti-racism,” the email said.
Ideas such as systemic racism and “anti-racism” come from a highly theoretical framework developed by far-left academics known as critical race theory.
Critical race theory is not based on a scientific analysis of evidence but rather through interpretive personal perceptions based on the assumption that America is inherently racist and every personal decision each individual makes is motivated by asserting and maintaining racial dominance.
Moreover, teaching that “equity,” or equality of outcomes, is the same as equality of opportunity is a highly troubling proposal.
Different cultural groups act differently. Different outcomes among those groups cannot be automatically attributed to racism or a lack of equal opportunity.
Both possible causes of inequity should always be explored, but they should also never be outright assumed.
Having equity as a goal rather than equality of opportunity leads to proposals such as affirmative action, which favors certain racial groups over others. In the end, such policies have actually been shown to hurt the very people they are supposed to help.
Another example of equity gone wrong is the 2008 housing crisis. Due to equity policies, lenders were pressured into lending to minority communities more often, despite the fact that members of those communities were often unable to pay back their loans.
Equality of opportunity means lending to people based on the same qualifications regardless of their race. Equity, which was the policy used in this case, means giving loans to all communities regardless of whether they could pay them back or not.
Well-known economist Thomas Sowell explained as much in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Daily News in 2008.
“In our personal lives, common sense leads us to avoid some neighborhoods. If you want to call that “redlining,” so be it. But places where it is dangerous to go are often also places where it is dangerous to send your money. As for racial differences in mortgage loan application approval rates, that does not tell you much if you are comparing apples and oranges. Income, credit history and net worth are just some of the things that are very different from one group to another,” Sowell wrote.
“Laws and regulations pressured lending institutions to lend to people that they were not lending to, given the economic realities. The Community Reinvestment Act forced them to lend in places where they did not want to send their money, and where neither they nor the politicians wanted to walk. Now that this whole situation has blown up in everybody’s face, the government intervention that brought on this disaster in is supposed to save the day.”
Despite what we know about equity and critical race theory, all of these uniformed ideas are now becoming part of the curriculum for Piedmont students.
And why, exactly, are these ideas now being taught to young students?
All because someone thought a rope swing looked like a noose.
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