Tag: racism

School District Decides Asians Aren’t Students of Color

One school district in Washington state has evidently decided that Asians no longer qualify as persons of color.

In their latest equity report, administrators at North Thurston Public Schools—which oversees some 16,000 students—lumped Asians in with whites and measured their academic achievements against “students of color,” a category that includes “Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Multi-Racial Students” who have experienced “persistent opportunity gaps.”

Most indicators in the report show that the achievement gap between white/Asian students and “students of color” is fairly narrow and improving over time. It would probably be even narrower if Asian students were categorized as “students of color.” In fact, some indicators might have even shown white students lagging behind that catch-all minority group. Perhaps Asians were included with whites in order to avoid such an outcome. (The superintendent did not respond to a request for comment.)

What the equity report really highlights is the absurdities that result from overreliance on semi-arbitrary race-based categories. The report also measured “students of poverty”—those who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches—against non-poverty students, and unsurprisingly found a much more significant achievement gap. Students of poverty perform 28 percent worse on math tests, for instance. That socioeconomic category captures something real and meaningful in a way that the gerrymandered race category does not.

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Professors Call Out Beer And Beethoven As Latest Examples Of Racist Bias

In column in Slate, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s Christopher White declared that referring to composers like Beethoven and Mozart by one name is a form of white supremacy. After all, White explained, it creates a “habitual, two-tiered” method where white composers are referenced by one name while women and minority composers are referred to by their first and last names:

“These canonized demigods became so ensconced in elite musical society’s collective consciousness that only one word was needed to evoke their awesome specter.”

White calls for an end to such “mononyms of music history.” I guess I will have to research the full names of Beyonce, Madonna, Sting, Cher, Bono, Pink, Seal, Adele and others.

For many, messing with Beethoven is still better than messing with beer. However, Virginia Tech sociology professor David L. Brunsma, has declared that beer also reinforces white supremacy. His co-authored book, Beer and Racism: How Beer Became White, Why It Matters, and the Movements to Change It, is marketed as a game changer: 

 “From the racist marketing of malt liquor to the bearded-white-dude culture of craft beer, readers will never look at a frothy pint the same after reading Beer and Racism.”

Craft beers are singled out as examples of racism. As explained by University of New Mexico professor Eli Wilson, it is long overdue to call out such beer lovers:

 “maybe a little bit of guilt: after the 10th beer festival you’ve been to where it is a bunch of pretzel-necklaced white dudes with beards and potbellies, it gets kind of old, you know?”

The ultimate racism recreation is presumably having an actual “Beethoven Beer.” 

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San Diego Public Schools Will Overhaul Its Grading System To Achieve ‘Anti-Racism’

San Diego’s public schools want to be anti-racist, so they’re…abolishing the traditional grading system?

“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” San Diego Unified School District Vice President Richard Barrera told a local NBC affiliate. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”

District officials evidently believe that the practice of grading students based on their average score is racist, and that an active effort to dismantle racism necessitates a learning environment free of the pressure to turn in assignments on time. As evidence for the urgency of these changes, the district released data showing that minority students received more Ds and Fs than white students: Just 7 percent of whites received failing grades, as opposed to 23 percent of Native Americans, 23 percent of Hispanics, and 20 percent of black students.

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