Tag: race

White Teachers Will Be Fired First if Minneapolis School District Downsizes

Under a new contract between the Minneapolis School District and the local teachers union, it is a requirement that white teachers will be fired first in the event of any staff downsizing.

“Starting with the Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle, if excessing a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population,” the agreement, which was originally obtained by Alpha News, says. Minority teachers “may be exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order,” and will also be given priority during reinstatement. In addition, teachers at 15 “racially isolated schools…with the greatest concentration of poverty” will be exempt from any downsizing that occurs in the future.

Both parties justify the racially discriminatory measure by pointing to alleged racial hiring inequities in the past. “Past discrimination by the District disproportionately impacted the hiring of underrepresented teachers in the District, as compared to the relevant labor market and the community, and resulted in a lack of diversity of teachers,” the agreement adds.

Despite backlash, the teachers union is sticking by the plan and hopes it can become a national model. “It can be a national model, and schools in other states are looking to emulate what we did,” Edward Barlow, who sits on the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers executive board, told the Star Tribune. “Even though it doesn’t do everything that we wanted it to do, it’s still a huge move forward for the retention of teachers of color.”

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Big Tech, Pharma, Finance Urge SCOTUS to Uphold Race-Based Discrimination in College Admissions

A large cross-section of corporate America filed briefs with the Supreme Court on Aug. 1 urging the court to allow colleges to continue using race as a factor in student admissions.

The court is poised to hear challenges to these racially discriminatory policies in its new term that begins in October. The challengers say so-called affirmative action not only hurts white applicants, but works out to be an “anti-Asian penalty” as well. Asian American applicants generally have higher academic scores and higher extracurricular scores, they say.

Some legal observers speculate that the nine-member court—whose six-member conservative majority broke new ground in June by curbing environmental regulatory powers, declaring that the court was wrong to recognize a constitutional right to abortion 49 years ago, and declaring that there is a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense—wouldn’t have agreed to hear challenges to race-based college admissions unless it intended to curb them.

The use of race-based criteria by institutions of higher learning in the admissions process isn’t popular in the United States.

Surveys from both Pew Research Center and Gallup have indicated that nearly 75 percent of Americans of all races “do not believe race or ethnicity should be a factor in college admissions.”

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Professor: ‘Unbearable’ that white people dominate discussions about ‘climate anxiety’

There’s a new concern in the relatively new field of so-called “climate anxiety”: Those interested in it are very white.

Wired reports this “unbearable whiteness” caused a “growing discomfort” in California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt Professor Sarah Ray (who’s white, by the way) early in 2021, so much so that she wrote an op-ed about it.

“[A] year into the pandemic, after the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol, I am deeply concerned about the racial implications of climate anxiety,” Ray (pictured) wrote.

“If people of color are more concerned about climate change than white people, why is the interest in climate anxiety so white? Is climate anxiety a form of white fragility or even racial anxiety?”

Ray says wealthy white people act they’re “experiencing an existential threat for the very first time” and “can take up all the oxygen in the room.”

In fact, “climate anxiety” itself is a “very privileged” term as affluent whites apparently have a bigger vocabulary to express how it affects them. By contrast, a climate activist had asked Filipinos how they felt after two typhoons had hit the country. Not many talked about it because mental health issues aren’t usually a topic of discussion. Thus, “people don’t even have the words for it because it’s not correlated in people’s minds.”

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Professor Insists Anti-Cheating Rules Aren’t Fair to ‘Black and Latinx’ Students

University of Cincinnati instructor Antar A. Tichavakunda has strong views on regulations regarding particularly pigmented pupils.

The professor has penned a piece for Inside Higher Ed insisting darker individuals don’t deserve the same rules as whites.

In “Let’s Talk About Race and Academic Integrity,” he serves up stats:

[In a study], Black and Asian…students reported being accused of plagiarism [twice that of] any other group… Further, Black students were the most likely to report being accused of cheating in college (9 percent of Black students reported being accused of cheating in a college course, compared to 6 percent of all students).

Hence, we need to take a serious look at race related to “academic integrity.”

For those of you who are unfamiliar:

Academic integrity is already about race. From the assumptions behind who looks like they are cheating to the punishments given for cheating to the technology that monitors cheating to what counts as cheating, the idea of academic integrity is racialized through and through.

It appears Antar’s positions hold that only white people can be racist; and white people are indeed racist. He gives the example of a black woman to whom he spoke while doing book research. She explained she was the only black female in her major and she never cheated. Once, she caught someone trying to copy her during a test. She moved across the room, fearing she’d be the one accused.

According to Antar, that proved a point:

The measures she took…are telling. … Racist and sexist beliefs shape assumptions about who looks like they are cheating and who is likely to be believed in front of a non-Black instructor.

He assails anti-cheating software, which “does not always accurately assess people who have darker skin.”

[A]s scholars such as Ruha Benjamin and Safiya Noble have shown, the algorithms and codes structuring such technologies can perpetuate racial biases and stereotypes.

Amid our ideas on academic integrity, he poses, “we can be too punitive.”

He wouldn’t destructively ding a student solely for lifting lines:

I won’t be failing a student for one copy and paste too many when the option of a redirection and a resetting of expectations is right there. Often, the problem lies in pedagogy — not the student. A zero-tolerance policy around plagiarism or academic integrity can do more harm than good.

Intolerance = inequity = iniquity:

If zero-tolerance educational policies have taught us anything, it is that they tend to disproportionately harm Black and Latinx students. The same goes for academic integrity policies.

It sounds as if whitey makes the rules; and he’s boldly bigoted:

The people who make the decisions about which transgressions are forgivable and which transgressions are necessary to report and punish do not exist in a race-neutral vacuum.

Interrogation’s on order:

Decision makers, from faculty members to student conduct officers, hold beliefs about identity that — if uninterrogated — could potentially be racist and discriminatory.

The instructor also asserts — “from experience” — that white fraternities and sororities “sometimes have test banks that members can use.”

His takeaway:

Some students take exams and do homework with unfair advantages.

And:

Collaborating or cheating on exams can adversely impact Black students at schools where they are in the extreme minority.

It seems everyone cheats. But blacks have fewer chances; Re: racism.

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“WE ARE NOT TACOS”: HISPANIC ASSOCIATION SLAMS JILL BIDEN FOR COMPARING LATINOS TO “BREAKFAST TACOS”

Hispanics are livid after First Lady Jill Biden compared them to “breakfast tacos” during a Monday speech to the 2022 UnidosUS Annual Conference held in Texas, where she opined on Hispanics’ “Quest for Equity.”

During her speech, Biden said that “the diversity of this community, as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio, is your strength.”

This did not sit well with Latinos, who spent the day dragging her on Twitter. It also caught the attention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), which said in a statement: “We are not tacos.”

“Using breakfast tacos to try to demonstrate the uniqueness of Latinos in San Antonio demonstrates a lack of cultural knowledge and sensitivity to the diversity of Latinos in the region,” reads the statement.

“Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by a variety of diasporas, cultures and food traditions, and should not be reduced to a stereotype.”

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WaPo: Black Americans May Need to ‘Flee’ U.S. Due to ‘Crazy White People’

Black Americans may need to “flee the country” in the face of an apparently growing population of “crazy White people” who are “not to be trifled with,” according to a recent Washington Post piece.

In an essay published in the Post on Tuesday titled, “Why Black people are afraid of ‘crazy’ White people,” columnist and associate editor Jonathan Capehart begins by letting readers in on a “little secret” — “black people” don’t fear typical white people, but rather “crazy” ones.

“Things felt so dicey during the Trump years, I half-joked that my husband and I might have to reenact that scene from ‘The Sound of Music’ and flee the country,” he said. 

“Now, an alarming new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] shows that my ‘Operation von Trapp’ might need to go live,” he added. “The ranks of ‘crazy’ White people appear to be growing — and the rest of us don’t know what to do about it.”

Capehart defines “crazy” as one who “believes any aspect of the racist ‘great replacement’ conspiracy.” 

“This is the noxious idea that liberals are deliberately replacing White people with non-Whites and immigrants,” he said, claiming it “allegedly drove an 18-year-old man to target Black people in Buffalo, killing 10 and wounding three.”

He called the fact that the “twisted belief” is so widely held, “terrifying,” as he cited a recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll allegedly revealing the “present-day Black fear of White violence.”

He also argued that the “right to self-protection, let alone the right to bear arms, doesn’t exactly apply to Black people.”

“Imagine I get a gun for self-protection (not that I ever would, but stay with me). A situation arises in which I use it to protect myself. But then the cops arrive, see a gun, ‘fear for their lives,’ and, well, the rest writes itself,” he said. 

“Remember Philando Castile?” he asked in reference to a black man who was fatally shot in 2016 by a Minnesota police officer in an incident that was live-streamed in a widely shared Facebook video. “We can’t win.”

Though Capehart “won’t be getting a gun. Ever,” he considers the decision to “leave the country for my own protection.”

“It’s a question many people of color have been pondering the past several years,” he wrote, highlighting Daily Beast reporter Wajahat Ali’s latest column, “Is It Time for Me to Leave America?”

However, according to Capehart, the decision to leave is not due solely to “race,” but also to issues surrounding gender, LGBTQ, and abortion.

“The SPLC report notes a correlation between the obsession with ethnic ‘replacement’ and a fixation on gender identity,” he wrote. “And look: More than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed this year alone, many of them targeting trans children and their families.” 

“This is not to mention the threat to abortion access or to other rights (such as my marriage) that could fall like dominoes,” he added.

Though citizens can and must “vote and organize, and change hearts and minds and all that,” Capehart demands that “marginalized people” not be blamed for “being scared.”

“The warnings of a potential loss of freedom, liberty and life are omnipresent and unrelenting, like being in the middle of Times Square with every sign flashing ‘You in danger!’” he wrote.

Capehart attributes all the aforementioned “threats” to a supposed rise in “crazy” white Americans.

“And it’s all because the number of ‘crazy’ White people in America fearing ‘replacement’ appears to be growing — and they seem ready to do whatever it takes to stay at the pinnacle of American life,” he wrote.

“I’m not sure they will succeed in getting me to leave my country,” he added. “But ‘Operation von Trapp’ is ready. ‘Crazy’ White people are not to be trifled with.”

The Post essay comes as many on the left continue to depict America as a systemically racist country.

Last month, a Washington Post essay called on Black Americans “tired” of American hostility to consider relocating to Ghana to be “free from White America’s psychic violence.”

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OPRF to implement race-based grading system in 2022-23 school year

Oak Park and River Forest High School administrators will require teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students.

School board members discussed the plan called “Transformative Education Professional Development & Grading” at a meeting on May 26, presented by Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning Laurie Fiorenza.

In an effort to equalize test scores among racial groups, OPRF will order its teachers to exclude from their grading assessments variables it says disproportionally hurt the grades of black students. They can no longer be docked for missing class, misbehaving in school or failing to turn in their assignments, according to the plan.

“Traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities and intensify the opportunity gap,”

It calls for what OPRF leaders describe as “competency-based grading, eliminating zeros from the grade book…encouraging and rewarding growth over time.”

Teachers are being instructed how to measure student  “growth” while keeping the school leaders’ political ideology in mind.

“Teachers and administrators at OPRFHS will continue the process necessary to make grading improvements that reflect our core beliefs,” the plan states, promising to “consistently integrate equitable assessment and grading practices into all academic and elective courses” by fall 2023.

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How Biden’s Menthol Ban Endangers Black Bodies

President Joe Biden’s ban on menthol cigarettes will put black communities at risk of more violent interactions with police, according to myriad experts ranging from former law enforcement to left-wing constitutional attorneys.

The Biden administration has made no secret of the fact that targeting menthol cigarettes is meant to change the behavior of the black community, alleging that a ban will help reduce racial disparities in the health care system. Criminalizing black people’s behavior, according to the Biden administration, is the best course of action.

“Black smokers prefer menthol products, and the Biden administration’s decision to ban menthol cigarettes will inevitably fuel an already well-established, lucrative, and violent illicit market,” Richard Marianos, a former senior official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, told the Washington Free Beacon.  “This will criminalize the behavior of Black communities and lead to more interactions with law enforcement, not less.”

Data support Marianos’s assertion. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health revealed that nearly 85 percent of black smokers prefer mentholated cigarettes, compared with just under 30 percent of white smokers.

As the Food and Drug Administration moves forward with its policy to outlaw menthols, Biden this week released an outline of his executive order to “advance effective, accountable policing and criminal justice practices.” The menthol ban stands in direct contradiction of the new policy, which has a stated goal of stamping out “systemic racism in our criminal justice system and in our institutions more broadly.”

“Why in this nation, why [do] so many black Americans wake up knowing they could lose their life in the course of just living their life today?” Biden said at a signing ceremony for his executive order. “Simply jogging, shopping, sleeping at home.”

Biden’s move to criminalize menthol cigarettes would violate his goals of eliminating disparate impact—supposedly neutral policies that disproportionately affect minority communities—in law enforcement. His executive order calls for disparate impact studies on the use of force by law enforcement and asserts that “fatal encounters with law enforcement have disproportionately involved Black and Brown people.”

Such disparate impact is why Biden’s menthol ban has earned criticism from left-wing civil liberty activists, such as the American Civil Liberties Union. An attorney for the organization in a letter last year highlighted the irony of such a ban in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

“As we approach the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd—only a few years removed from the killing of Eric Garner, a Black man killed by NYPD for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes—the racially disparate impact of the criminal legal system has captured the nation’s attention,” the attorney wrote. “It is now clear that such policies that amount to prohibition have serious racial justice implications.”

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