I side with the Palo Alto parents who are infuriated that the city’s school district won’t tell them the truth about the ethnic studies class the district intends to roll out next year. “We aren’t against ethnic studies,” said one of the parents, while another added, “It would sure help if we as parents could see the curriculum.” But so far, the district cannot or will not reveal that curriculum.
Why the big secret? What are they hiding?
If I had a kid in high school, I’d certainly want to see the curriculum for an ethnic studies class. I wouldn’t care about the curriculum for a class in biology, or algebra, or computer science, or art, but when it comes to something as politically loaded as ethnic studies, I’d demand it. The parents are worried the class will push far-left-leaning political activism onto impressionable high school students. The district replies, in essence, “Hey, don’t worry about it. Trust us.”
Not buying it. From everything we know about these ethnic studies proponents, they do push an overtly woke agenda, laced with false “facts,” onto the students. We know from our own experiences in Oakland that “progressive” educators are always indoctrinating young students to perceive Whites as an oppressor class of people of color, who are denied the opportunity to learn about their history and culture. There are multiple areas in which woke teachers propagandize to their young charges:
- The Israel-Palestine conflict, in which progressives favor a victory for the Palestinian people, which includes wiping out the Jews “from the river to the sea,” and accusing Israel of racism and genocide
- Racial matters in the U.S. Wokes always insist that there remains a systematic conspiracy by White people to prevent people of color, especially Black people, from achieving economic success
- Policing. Ethnic studies curricula insist that American police officers are racist thugs who invade communities of color to inflict atrocities
- American history, which progressives always claim was polluted from the start
- Our free enterprise system of capitalism, which the wokes say purposely discriminates against people of color and allows only Whites (and sometimes Asians) to succeed
The ethnic studies crowd claims that all they’re trying to do is “present what is available [in a curriculum] and let teachers decide” what they wish to teach. This is false. Teachers are ultimately told what to teach by their school’s administration, which in turn carefully follows the advice/orders of the district administrators, the overwhelming majority of whom are far-left progressives and race activists, at least in Oakland. And then there’s the City Council, which formally has no control over school curricula but is able to influence it indirectly. The Council and the District both are elected positions, and both share the same district boundaries and often run simultaneously. School board members frequently become candidates for the City Council. Candidates for both inevitably stress “equity” as their goal, and the same unions (Oakland Education Association, SEIU, Plumbers-Steamfitters and others) that support progressive Council candidates support progressive District candidates.
It helps to put this controversy into perspective. In 2021, the California Legislature approved, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, a new law requiring “a one-semester course in ethnic studies” for all high school pupils in order to graduate. AB101 backers conceded that the new law “would constitute a state-mandated local program.” The law’s author, Assembly member Jose Medina (D-Riverside), said “The inclusion of ethnic studies…is long overdue…Students cannot have a full understanding of the history of our state and nation without the inclusion of the contributions and struggles of Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans.”
It’s hard to disagree, and I don’t. The problem arises when matters of pure historical fact are replaced or overshadowed by ideological fiats that are not historically accurate, but represent the political agenda of those who advance them. As the co-founder of this Coalition and a fierce defender of the police, I do not want adolescents whose minds are still developing to be brainwashed into the woke lie that cops are racist thugs, as Cat Brooks says. We’ve seen what that leads to in Oakland: the election of extremists like Carroll Fife, Nikki Bas and Sheng Thao, and the outsized influence of police abolitionists like Brooks. These individuals have helped destroy Oakland. No wonder the Palo Alto parents don’t want the same thing to happen to their city.
We can appreciate how much this far-left ideology has infected our own Oakland Unified School District by examining their Ethnic Studies program, which highlights an “Anti-Racism Self-Assessment” test that assumes all of us who are not persons of color are inherently racist, and even in grade school calls for instructing White children that they’re probably racists. The district heavily promotes the book, “How To Be An Anti-Racist,” by the discredited race baiter Ibram X. Kendi, on which I reported last May.
We all know that these school districts are trying to implant race-based grievances into the minds of young people, while hiding their true intentions behind grandiose buzzwords such as “equity” and “diversity.” It’s why people run for school district in the first place: they begin as racial bigots and then the unions promote them to a generally ignorant electorate, enabling a flood of mailers, yard posters and emails. It’s how an extremist like VanCedric Williams got elected to Oakland USD: the California Teachers Union, the Building and Construction Trades and AFSCME poured a ton of money into his race. He demanded that OUSD “must systematically use a racial equity lens in determining all aspects of the district program, including policies, curricula, personnel practices, budgeting.” This is the woke’s Long March through the institutions. Cat Brooks and Rebecca Kaplan supported his pledge to “Expand Ethnic Studies to all grade levels.”
Really? Even kindergarten?
Do you think the Building and Construction Trades union really cares about the content of elementary school classes? No. They support candidates in every local election in the East Bay who are ideologically aligned with their progressive goals, including Nikki Bas and Sheng Thao. It’s impossible to reconcile their support of VanCedric Williams with their main goals of better salaries and benefits for skilled workers, which the school board has nothing to do with. The unions see candidates for minor offices, like school district, as IPOs, betting on them early to advance to higher office, like Oakland mayor, where they really will promote the social policies of the unions. It’s corrupt and contemptible, but it’s the system Oakland has been trapped in for decades.
Have a wonderful weekend! Try to stay safe, and please support your local neighborhood businesses, who really need your help.
Steve Heimoff