Roy Exum
In Chattanooga, Tn., last week, the school district’s teachers were required to attend “in service training sessions” held at the Bayside Baptist Church. The training included a pointed program on “white privilege” that was so intense one teacher stood before her peers and, according to numerous sources, apologized to all present for the fact she was white.
In a rash of emails and telephone conversations since Friday when what is obviously a concerted effort by Hamilton County’s public schools to identify and eradicate racism among its white principals and teachers was exposed in an eye-raising fashion, I believe there is now little room to doubt the public school system has lost its moral compass.
The zany “white privilege” moniker is limited to whites only, according to the rabble rousers. One of a number of visual slides that have now gone viral on the Internet explained the ridiculous lie: “People of color cannot be racist because they lack the institutional power to affect white lives."
There were even copies of a “Racism Scale” circulated that originated from Chattanooga’s liberal-minded Public Education Foundation and its “Inspire Program.” Click here to view the scale. According to the website, “Project Inspire is a partnership between the Chattanooga non-profit Public Education Foundation, Lee University, and Hamilton County Department of Education. At the national level, Project Inspire is part of the National Center for Teacher Residencies and 100kin10. Generous funding is provided through the National Science Foundation, AmeriCorps, SmartCity Venture and the Chattanooga Lyndhurst Foundation.”
A handout from the Project Inspire team accompanying the Racism Scale reads: “Our stance on public education/teaching as an issue of social justice was also not just for show, we plan to dive deeper into that truth at the start of the year and throughout the residency. Attached is a racism scale (you will see this document a few more times during the program) for you to look over and HONESTLY reflect on. This scale coupled with the resource list will help prime you for a year of growth, learning, and honest reflection.”
Areas on the Racism Scale ask:
* -- “I would/have killed a black person simply for being black.”
* -- “The way things are in God’s will.”
* -- “Whites are the superior race.”
* -- “That’s their problem, not mine.”
* --"I just don’t like ‘ghetto.’”
* --“Whites were slaves, too.”
* -- “If we can’t use the N-word, they shouldn’t either.”
* -- “I don’t see color.”
As you may guess, all the white and black people I talk to in any given day would never broach anything this stupid. Yet the HCDE seems to thrive with such repetitive nonsense.
To be candid, some white teachers in the county’s public schools talk among themselves about race and inequity, but it is always framed far differently. For example, with the schools trying to hire 188 new employees by the start of the start of the school year, it is lost on no one that The Howard School is now 60 percent Hispanic.
Add the traditional black students, and the heart of the conversation will indeed reflect racism – Howard has “at least 18” administrators while schools in predominantly white neighborhoods will be lucky if they are assigned four or more: Howard has two assistant principals, 4 or 5 Deans of Students, six counselors, five truant officers, a community outreach office, etc.
“If the school district wanted to address an aching need, do some in-service training on the gangs in the system, drugs sales and abuse, children born out of wedlock, guns in classrooms….” said one Opportunity Zone teacher.
An assistant principal said the biggest priority at (their) school was finding classroom teachers. “The Central office raided every schools’ faculty when the additional 188 new positions were added to the budget at the last minute. We all think it’s a UnifiEd deal,” the teacher said, “One thing that’s certain … you can’t just hire that many teachers in just a couple of weeks and what is happening right now is your best teachers are being moved from the classroom.
Another email said that during the in-service training the teachers were required to hug four people who were also attending, teachers who they did not know, on two different occasions. A number of teachers remained seated. “I don’t agree with that … I feel our leadership is doing a lot of things wrong right now.”
That has become the overwhelming sentiment and then there is this …
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THE HAMILTON COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION VIOLATES ITS OWN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION POLICY
The email reads, “I simply cannot rationalize why you would identify one segment of your teacher population as requiring ‘special training and attention’ to correct a perceived mental deficit they have with regards to relating to people. I think the racism scale goes against Hamilton County's discrimination policy (click here for the policy.)
“Funding, that I'm not sure of but I don't think it will take you long to pull the string on that one. I will say that Project Inspire is all over the United States and is working in the Shelby County school district in Memphis. I would wager this issue of the racism scale is not limited to our area of the country alone but sadly creeping into many school districts.
“For the counter argument on why (others across the United States haven’t opposed the volatile racism scale) it's simple. There's no debate on the subject in their minds and the issue of white privilege is already determined to be real and something that must be addressed.”
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“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.” -- Charlotte Bronte.
royexum@aol.com