Dear Fellow Brearley Parents,
Our family recently made the decision not to
reenroll our daughter at Brearley for the 2021-22 school year. She has been at
Brearley for seven years, beginning in kindergarten. In short, we no longer
believe that Brearley’s administration and Board of Trustees have any of our
children’s best interests at heart. Moreover, we no longer have
confidence that our daughter will receive the quality of education necessary to
further her development into a critically thinking, responsible, enlightened,
and civic minded adult. I write to you, as a fellow parent, to share our
reasons for leaving the Brearley community but also to urge you to act before
the damage to the school, to its community, and to your own child's education
is irreparable.
It cannot be stated strongly enough that
Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any
thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. The administration
and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of
leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing
the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal
views on Brearley's antiracism initiatives, but these are just a handful of the
criticisms that I know other parents have expressed.
I object to the view that I should be judged
by the color of my skin. I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my
daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge
others by theirs. By viewing every element of education, every aspect of
history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we
are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating
the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and
died.
I object to the charge of systemic racism in
this country, and at our school. Systemic racism, properly understood, is
segregated schools and separate lunch counters. It is the interning of Japanese
and the exterminating of Jews. Systemic racism is unequivocally not a small
number of isolated incidences over a period of decades. Ask any girl, of any
race, if they have ever experienced insults from friends, have ever
felt slighted by teachers or have ever suffered the occasional injustice from a
school at which they have spent up to 13 years of their life, and you are bound
to hear grievances, some petty, some not. We have not had systemic racism
against Blacks in this country since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, a
period of more than 50 years. To state otherwise is a flat-out
misrepresentation of our country's history and adds no understanding to any of
today's societal issues. If anything, longstanding and widespread policies such
as affirmative action, point in precisely the opposite direction.
I object to a definition of systemic racism,
apparently supported by Brearley, that any educational, professional, or
societal outcome where Blacks are underrepresented is prima facie evidence of
the aforementioned systemic racism, or of white supremacy and oppression.
Facile and unsupported beliefs such as these are the polar opposite to the
intellectual and scientific truth for which Brearley claims to stand.
Furthermore, I call bullshit on Brearley's oft-stated assertion that the school
welcomes and encourages the truly difficult and uncomfortable conversations
regarding race and the roots of racial discrepancies.
I object to the idea that Blacks are unable to
succeed in this country without aid from government or from whites. Brearley,
by adopting critical race theory, is advocating the abhorrent viewpoint that
Blacks should forever be regarded as helpless victims, and are incapable of
success regardless of their skills, talents, or hard work. What Brearley is
teaching our children is precisely the true and correct definition of
racism.
I object to mandatory anti-racism training for
parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna.
These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and
simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they
were taught to Brearley kindergarteners. They are an insult to parents and
unbecoming of any educational institution, let alone one of Brearley's
caliber.
I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate,
and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and
“inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about
so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions
preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep
pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it
would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to
a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead,
the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of
thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would
return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of
teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two
groups in this country: victims and oppressors.
l object to Brearley’s advocacy for groups and
movements such as Black Lives Matter, a Marxist, anti family, heterophobic,
anti-Asian and anti-Semitic organization that neither speaks for the majority
of the Black community in this country, nor in any way, shape or form,
represents their best interests.
I object to, as we have been told time and
time again over the past year, that the school’s first priority is the safety
of our children. For goodness sake, Brearley is a school, not a hospital! The
number one priority of a school has always been, and always will be, education.
Brearley’s misguided priorities exemplify both the safety culture and
“cover-your-ass” culture that together have proved so toxic to our society and
have so damaged the mental health and resiliency of two generations of
children, and counting.
I object to the gutting of the history,
civics, and classical literature curriculums. I object to the censorship of
books that have been taught for generations because they contain dated language
potentially offensive to the thin-skinned and hypersensitive (something that
has already happened in my daughter's 4th grade class). I object to the
lowering of standards for the admission of students and for the hiring of
teachers. I object to the erosion of rigor in classwork and the escalation of
grade inflation. Any parent with eyes open can foresee these inevitabilities
should antiracism initiatives be allowed to persist.
We have today in our country, from both political
parties, and at all levels of government, the most unwise and unvirtuous
leaders in our nation’s history. Schools like Brearley are supposed to be the
training grounds for those leaders. Our nation will not survive a generation of
leadership even more poorly educated than we have now, nor will we survive a
generation of students taught to hate its own country and despise its
history.
Lastly, I object, with as strong a sentiment
as possible, that Brearley has begun to teach what to think, instead of how to
think. I object that the school is now fostering an environment where our
daughters, and our daughters’ teachers, are afraid to speak their minds in
class for fear of “consequences.” I object that Brearley is trying to usurp the
role of parents in teaching morality, and bullying parents to adopt that false
morality at home. I object that Brearley is fostering a divisive community
where families of different races, which until recently were part of the same
community, are now segregated into two. These
are the reasons why we can no longer send our daughter to Brearley.
Over the past several months, I have
personally spoken to many Brearley parents as well as parents of children at
peer institutions. It is abundantly clear that the majority of parents believe
that Brearley’s antiracism policies are misguided, divisive, counterproductive
and cancerous. Many believe, as I do, that these policies will ultimately
destroy what was until recently, a wonderful educational institution. But as I
am sure will come as no surprise to you, given the insidious cancel culture
that has of late permeated our society, most parents are too fearful to speak
up.
But speak up you must. There is strength in
numbers and I assure you, the numbers are there. Contact the administration and
the Board of Trustees and demand an end to the destructive and
anti-intellectual claptrap known as antiracism. And if changes are not
forthcoming then demand new leadership. For the sake of our community, our
city, our country and most of all, our children, silence is no longer an
option.
Respectfully,
Andrew Guttman
++++++++++++++++++++++
I have not been back to Birmingham for at least 10 years and after I finished the book about "The Magic City," I began to think about the contrast between Atlanta and Birmingham.
I remember John Hand, who was president of The First National Bank, was typical of the then power structure that ruled Birmingham. They wanted to keep the races apart and keep labor cheap. If they wanted a good meal, night life they could afford to drive to Atlanta whose growth was accelerating while Birmingham's was shrinking.
Today, because Gov. Wallace spent rehabilitation recovery time, as a result of the assassination attempt, at The Spain Rehabilitation Center, he declared he would turn Birmingham into one of the great Medical Centers, which he did.
Instead of steel mill pollution, which hung over the city, because it was in a valley surrounded by mountains, Birmingham is now a great medical and education city and the air is cleaner. Also, the town put itself through the wringer over segregation but also resolved the divide, is now fully integrated, the power structure is diverse, contact between blacks and whites is active and it is a great place to live.
Rabbi Milton Grafman predicted Birmingham would eventually excel over the north because, and I am paraphrasing, 'the north cares about the race but not the individual whereas Birmingham cared about the individual but expressed antipathy toward the race.'
Because of the mountains and people working downtown, while living over the mountain, there are traffic issues and the beautiful surrounding suburbs are dense and crowded but nothing when compared to Atlanta.
Birminghamians are perhaps less sophisticated than Yuppie Atlantans, because the influx from the north is less, but, in my opinion, Brminghamians enjoy a far better life style, and it's people are more down to earth
Atlanta is run by blacks almost exclusively and has unresolved racial issues which recently surfaced. Birmingham, seems to have put those issues behind.
Economically speaking, Birmingham allowed business opportunities to pass it by (Delta offered to locate there) but it also has it's share of modest corporate domiciled entities.
Alabama, as a state, has a long way to go but, when it comes to racial matters, I believe they are ahead of the game. I hope the unresolved racial issues in Georgia do not spill over into our neighboring state.
++
Media’s Racial Narrative
Targets Whites, Harms Blacks
An insistence on ‘systemic’ racism tells
minority communities they have no power over their own lives.
By Robert L. Woodson Sr
Are only white people
capable of hate crimes? If you get all your news from mainstream media sources,
that’s what you’d think. A 51-year-old black man allegedly stabbing a
12-year-old white boy in Pittsburgh while shouting racial epithets barely made
national news. The same was true when a black man was arrested for savagely beating a
65-year-old Asian woman in Midtown Manhattan. We saw endless coverage of the
despicable assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, but when a 25-year-old black male
allegedly killed a Capitol police officer last week, MSNBC erroneously reported the
suspect was white.
Throughout 2020 there
was a rise in violence against Asian-Americans, but the race of the
perpetrators was typically mentioned only when they were white. Media and other
elites obsessively push the narrative that the greatest threat in this country
is coming from “white supremacists.” This gross oversimplification has dire
consequences for the most vulnerable in our society—those living in the poorest
neighborhoods—and for the nation as a whole.
A media environment in
which the only acceptable villains are white creates a more dangerous world for
all of us. The rush to judgment based on skin color is familiar to those of us
who lived through segregation. In those days, some in law enforcement couldn’t
care less about crimes committed by blacks against other blacks, but there were
severe penalties for offenses against whites. We marched and demanded fair and
equal treatment under the law. As far as the application of criminal law, much
of what is happening today is a retreat to the pre-Civil Rights South.
Every tragic police
killing of a black person is amplified by radical progressives to accuse police
of white supremacy and to push for defunding and anarchy. The more
law-enforcement officers we lose to defunding, early retirements and drastic
drops in recruitment, the fewer we have to patrol lower-income neighborhoods.
Homicides among lower-income minorities soar. Meanwhile, the cries of the 81%
of blacks who oppose defunding
the police are chronically ignored.
The loudest advocates of
defunding the police don’t have to live with the consequence of their advocacy.
The Los Angeles City Council president pushed for defunding the police while
having a personal police escort at
her home. Thanks to so-called racial progressives like her, low-income black
neighborhoods are experiencing some of what it was like to live in the
pre-Civil Rights South.
The assertion that
blacks must rely on white people to solve all their problems by somehow ending
systemic and institutional racism is both nonsensical and self-defeating. By
focusing on the past and present sins of white America as the source of all our
problems, we ignore the enemy within, and that which is in our power to change.
We turn a blind eye to the destruction within our communities that is consuming
more of our lives than the Klan ever did, even at the height of its power.
Furthermore, remedies
applied to a single racial group almost always include a kind of bait and
switch. The social pathologies are the bait: high unemployment, poverty,
inequities in education, high crime rates and so on. When the remedies
arrive—generally money—you get the switch. A large share of the benefits never
go to the people actually suffering from high unemployment or poverty or crime.
They go to the elite members of that race who are already insulated and
connected enough to capture the prizes.
For example, Coca-Cola now requires the law firms that
do business with it to have 30% of their attorneys be “people of color.” Other
companies, such as Wells Fargo, Ralph
Lauren and Delta Airlines, are
following suit with their own racial quotas for highly skilled positions. Even
race-neutral programs aimed at lower-income households spend most of their
funding on their middle-class administrators rather than on their supposed
beneficiaries. How does this help low-income blacks trapped in unsafe
neighborhoods and failing schools? How does requiring corporations to have a
certain percentage of women of color on their boards of directors help the
thousands of black women in prison,
many of whom are being mistreated by their guards, most of whom are also black?
Race remains a salient
issue in America, but not only because of whites victimizing minorities. Yet
the U.S. is the world’s most prosperous and harmonious multiracial society. We
have some serious problems we must address, but we can’t solve them unless
we’re willing to speak about them honestly.
Mr. Woodson is founder
and president of the Woodson Center and author, most recently, of “Lessons From
the Least of These: The Woodson Principles.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
California is inhabited by people who are unreal and governed by people who are certified insane:
California Weighs
‘Equitable Math’: Goal of Obtaining Correct Answer Is Racist
By Dr. Susan Berry
The California education
department is considering implementing a statewide math framework that promotes
the concept that working to figure out a correct answer in math is an example
of racism and white supremacy invading the classroom.
The framework, titled “A Pathway
to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction,”
is intended to be “exercises for educators to reflect on their own biases to
transform their instructional practice.”
The “Equitable Math”
website states its training manual was funded by
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the primary private source of funding
for the Common Core State Standards.
“White supremacy culture
infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions,” the document states.
“Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate
educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full
access to the world of mathematics.”
The proposed California
framework provides examples of how “white supremacy culture” has infiltrated
math classes in schools:
·
The focus is on getting
the “right” answer.
·
Independent practice is
valued over teamwork or collaboration.
·
“Real-world math” is
valued over math in the real world.
·
Students are tracked
(into courses/pathways and within the classroom).
·
Participation structures
reinforce dominant ways of being.
Additionally, the
document asserts the means by which teachers assess student learning in math is
based on white supremacy culture, as demonstrated by:
·
Students are required to
“show their work.”
·
Grading practices are
focused on lack of knowledge.
·
Language acquisition is
equated with mathematical proficiency.
The proposed California
framework continues:
These common practices
that perpetuate white supremacy culture create and sustain institutional and
systemic barriers to equity for Black, Latinx, and Multilingual students. In
order to dismantle these barriers, we must identify what it means to be an
antiracist math educator.
In order to embody antiracist
math education, teachers must engage in critical praxis that interrogates the
ways in which they perpetuate white supremacy culture in their own classrooms,
and develop a plan toward antiracist math education to address issues of equity
for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students.
In the section that
criticizes the concept of “getting the ‘right’ answer” in math, the document
states:
The concept of
mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is
even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong
answers perpetuate objectivity [sic] as well as fear
of open conflict [sic].
Some in the education
field are sounding the alarm about the “Equitable Math” framework.
According to Fox News,
Lori Meyers, co-founder of Educators for Quality and Equality, said her
organization sent a letter to California education officials, expressing its
members are “deeply concerned about the draft 2021 CA Mathematics Framework,
which contains discriminatory and divisive content that will impede us from
accomplishing” important goals in math instruction.
“We ask that the state
provide us with a mathematics framework that reflects sound,
research-based practices over political ideology,” Meyers’ group added.
In February, the Oregon
Department of Education defended its instruction of teachers via the “Equitable
Math” training manual in how to teach mathematics by dismantling as “racist”
the longstanding view of objectivity in math, as exemplified by the idea that
one must obtain a correct answer to a math problem.
Breitbart News reported on the
same “Equitable Math” manual:
The manual enumerates
signs of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” which include
a focus on “getting the right answer,” an emphasis on “real-world math,”
teaching math in a “linear fashion,” students being required to “show their
work,” and grading students based on their demonstrated knowledge of the
material.
“In order to embody
antiracist math education, teachers must engage in critical praxis that
interrogates the ways in which they perpetuate white supremacy culture in their
own classrooms,” the manual declares, “and develop a plan toward antiracist
math education to address issues of equity for Black, Latinx, and multilingual
students.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
74th Day Entry in Biden-Diary:
I am supposed to greet the Jap who heads Japan and I just am not up to it so I asked Kamala to do it for me but told my Chief of Staff to make sure she doesn't cackle.
I will meet him later and congratulate him on boy who got the Green Coat for winning The Masters. Yellow and green go well.
This job is more than I bargained for.
++++++++++
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