by Christopher Paslay
It’s time to speak out against the kind of racialized indoctrination taking place in schools like Dalton.
The Dalton School, an elite private school in Manhattan, is under siege from two separate factions. On one side are parents who are quite unhappy that the pricey school has still not opened for in-person learning, and are calling for kids to get off their computers and head back to the classroom.
“Our children are sad, confused and isolated, questioning why everyone around them gets to go to school when they do not,” parents wrote in a petition.
On the other side are Dalton’s teachers, who also signed and circulated a letter. But the teachers’ letter has nothing to do with returning to school to make sure students do not fall behind their peers in terms of academic skills. The demands recently proposed by the Dalton teachers are centered on indoctrinating students in anti-racist politics, and call for policies and programs that divide children by identity group, labeling some as “privileged” and others as “oppressed,” demands that seek to dismantle oppressive “whiteness” in an effort to end racial inequality.
On the surface, this is well-meaning. Most people want fairness and racial justice, and are willing to actively support efforts to bring about such change.
But under the surface — when you look past the noble-sounding words and phrases —there’s a much larger agenda at work. These groups want to indoctrinate not educate — teach children what to think, not how to think — so they can stamp out any resistance or disagreement, any challenge to their racialized, ideological worldview. It’s about telling people what they are allowed to say and think, how they are allowed to live and act, who they are supposed to support and vote for.
What is happening at the Dalton School, and a dozen other elite prep schools in New York, is not new. The teachers — who are “inspired” by political activist groups like BLM — use a Marxist playbook that’s been around for decades. The playbook can be summed up in 6 steps:
1. Manipulate. Take advantage of well-meaning people by exploiting their guilt and/or inexperience in matters of race and race relations.
2. Project. Use the Evergreen State College model of creating a perceived grievance by projecting a narrative of out-of-control racism, be it personal or systemic; the actual existence of this racism isn’t important, so long as the perception of it is accepted as truth.
3. Organize. Use Marxist activist organizations, such as Black Lives Matter, as role models, and build so-called “parent” and “student” groups around carefully worded yet politically loaded agendas.
4. Make Demands. Instead of cooperation or collaboration, demand changes be made along racial and political lines, stereotyping entire groups of people and polarizing them into divisive camps based on race and other identities.
5. Bully and Intimidate. Use media, agitation propaganda, and other types of protest and political theatre to force compliance with stated demands. Label anyone who disagrees a “racist,” or accuse them of the latest social justice buzz phrase such as “white fragility.”
6. Take Control. Open the coffers and receive the donations, the positions, the power and political capital.
As the old saying goes: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Identity politics is not teaching our children how to fish, but how to demand fish. And demanding fish is much different from doing the fishing yourself: it creates a permanent need for a middleman — the dependency on a political group. True self-empowerment frees an individual from the bonds of the collective identity, which is why such activist organizations rail against individualism.
For those families who have children in schools like Dalton, who mean well and want social justice, ask yourselves this: Do you want your child treated as a person, or as an identity group?
Do you want your child’s teachers to stereotype them by race, or communicate with them as individuals?
Do you want your child educated with academic skills, or indoctrinated with identity politics?
Do you want your child to develop into a free thinking American citizen, or an aggrieved political activist?
Do you want your child to embrace the love and compassion of MLK, or the anger and resentment of BLM?
If you answered the former for most of the questions, it might be time to speak out against the kind of racialized indoctrination taking place in schools like Dalton.
Inside White Fragility 