How ‘Racial Literacy’ Erodes Education By Eileen F. Toplansky
As the country plunges deeper into Wokeland, the institutions of alleged higher learning continue to support and promulgate the ideology of the Left.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) offers an online book titled “Racial Literacy” edited by Detra Price-Dennis.
Chapter titles include the following:
- To Dismantle Racism, We Must Discuss It
- Everyday Colorism: Reading in the Language Arts Classroom
- Centering #BlackLivesMatter to Confront Injustice, Inspire Advocacy, and Develop Literacies
- Reopening Racial Wounds: Whiteness, Melancholia, and Affect in the English Classroom
- Tough Talking: Teaching White Students about Race and Responsibility
- Antiracist Language Arts Pedagogy is Incomplete without Black Joy
Thus, “[t]his collection shows how teaching from a racial literacy perspective is in conversation with antiracist, culturally responsive, equity-oriented frameworks that uplift curriculum design and instructional strategies to help educators [.]”
In effect, “[t]he English language arts classroom provides a significant place to begin as English Language Acquisition (ELA) scholars and teacher educators are illuminating the ways white supremacy of language policies and practice devalue Black ways of knowing, being, and doing in schools.”
Translated, this word salad of pseudo-intellectual leftist jargon states that education must be race-based. It reflects the infiltration of Marxist, communist, leftist, progressive ideology that runs completely counter to American ideas.
The contributors are “committed to the joy of Black women teachers and girls in K–12 schools.” And their “writing, research, teaching, and activism meet at the intersection of race, education, abolition and Black joy.”
Abolition of what? Furthermore, will the Greek poet Sappho be acknowledged when she writes “I will sing my songs beautifully, now, for my friends’ delight” or does this fail the racial joy test?
NCTE is certainly not speaking of the classics of Western literature in their curricula. Shakespeare has all but been eliminated from the classroom. The dynamics of Antigone’s resistance or the questions raised by Plato are relegated to the dustbin. Dostoevsky who?
Instead, teachers are expected to consider the following:
1. In what ways might you be complicit in perpetuating racial inequities, racial oppression, and/or White privilege?
2. In what ways do you work against racial inequities, racial oppression, and/or White privilege?
3. What tension/s do you notice?
4. What steps can you take to align your actions and eventually teaching practices with the principles of racial literacy?
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Repeatedly, the canon of Marxist ideology is drummed into these teachers-in-training. Those familiar with true multicultural material will recall the universality of the stories’ themes as well as the intriguing particulars from around the globe. But that is not the intent of the NCTE document.
Instead, the NCTE document is all about left-wing political activism.
Since the election of Trump, and in response to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, teacher-educators have innovated with such curriculum in their courses, drawing on a long tradition of teacher-educators working for social justice. Literacy teachers do not have the option to be neutral; to read these texts requires recognizing the partiality of representations and misrepresentations in the media regarding immigration and other political issues.
Moreover, “[t]eachers of literacy in and out of school have a responsibility to their students, and in particular, to their most marginalized students, including Girls of Color (GOC). Of course, literacy instruction, in and of itself, cannot create revolution, but it can be one tool that can be used in schools and other educational contexts to provide GOC and other marginalized students with opportunities to leverage their brilliance to help forge a path toward freedom.”
According to the NCTE document, “[i]t is difficult to teach white students that a significant part of their personal identity — being white — is connected with the enslavement of African people, the damage done to Africa, and the history of slavery and discrimination of African Americans. These are heavy burdens to put on such young people. Yet it isn’t accurate to teach about this history without covering how white people were the perpetrators of these acts. We know from the work of Robin DiAngelo that when a white person feels blamed or challenged their [sic] fragility will cause them [sic] to be defensive and even to turn to denial rather than to engage with these lessons. Teaching white students that the history of racism is a white issue is a tough lesson to deliver. “
I daresay that slavery from Africa and the Middle East will not make its way into the NCTE teaching. The facts are not the intent. Racism against whites and cancel culture against anyone who sees through the left-wing indoctrination is the end goal.
It is ironic that the alleged anti-racists turn out to be the most racist of all.
Lamar L. Johnson in the NCTE document asserts the following:
I have purposefully chosen to capitalize Black and other racialized language to show a radical love for Black and Brown people who are constantly wounded by white supremacy.
I have chosen to disassemble white supremacy by lowercasing the ”w” in white.. as well as the “e” in eurocentric.”
Thus, it is no wonder that recently Brown University barred White and Asian students from a new class that was offered to minority students only. Specifically, “[t]he Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island, began offering a teacher training class on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), but students were only permitted to enroll if they identified as black, indigenous, or Latino.” An anonymous Brown student attempted to enroll but was denied entry because he did not identify with the approved groups. The student then filed a complaint with the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR).
As the Left has insinuated itself into every aspect of education in America, “basic mathematics, logic, grammar and virtues are viewed as imperialistic and oppressive.” Author Douglas Groothuis explains that the “impetus for this revisionism is critical theory, the notion that race, class, and gender are determinative of culture, and that ‘privileged’ discourse must be overthrown and replaced with the revolutionary vanguard defending the oppressed.”
While “the norms for English grammar… are rooted in Western history… the mastery of English grammar allows and equips anyone [emphasis mine] to communicate his ideas clearly and effectively.”
In fact, “English grammar is not white, or black, or brown, or yellow, or red, or blue. It is the common currency of American culture and is the most common global language (or lingua franca), whether we like it or not. If one wants to advance in any profession in the United States (and in much of the world), proficiency in English is required.”
How conveniently the Left ignores the impeccable English that former slave Frederick Douglass penned.
There was nothing ‘white’ about it. A black man, an ex-slave, wrote eloquent truth that spoke to power about slavery and women’s rights.
In fact, “spurning grammar and syntax will not help non-whites lead successful lives.”
The Left never ceases in its quest to make equity the hallmark of this country to counter the myriad and never-ending injustices they claim exist. They assert that what they do for Girls of Color “facing intersecting forces of racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppressions” is a constant battle to “navigate the tensions between enacting agency and resisting systemic oppression.”
With the ongoing drumbeat claiming racism, our educational system is being eviscerated. Being alerted to the Left’s language, ideas, and true intentions, however, gives people the tools to resist the messaging and the indoctrination.
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