After reading “Diversity Contest award winners honored..." in the Happenings in the Hills section, I was overcome with joy that our children are learning the evils of racism and prejudice. Just look at the pearly white smiles and the pale white flesh of the twenty-seven people pictured from the event, not to mention the similar, monochromatic features of every other picture in this section, and you will realize that racism is being erased (eraced?).
When I see this kind of “diversity education”, I shudder as though I just ran into David Duke purchasing white bed sheets from “Linens and Things.” I understand that race is an off-color topic, but this article portrays the issue as an afterthought in the list of prejudices.
And what exactly is prejudice based on “family lifestyle”? If your family’s lifestyle involves using puppies as pińatas, then I will probably have a problem with it – I don’t know if that makes me prejudiced. Unless, of course, “family lifestyle” is the politically correct, mechanized, soulless, suburbanized way of saying “sexuality,” in which case those implied non-heterosexuals move pretty far up the list of marginalized groups, especially given the pertinence of issues right now based on sexual orientation. If I am mistaken about that euphemism – well, I suppose that brings things from bad to worse.
Maybe for a once a year school event in this area such as the diversity contest, having a white, Jewish woman as the keynote speaker isn’t the choice that will offer the most diverse perspective. As a recent high school graduate, I can say with legitimate authority that schools become dishonest cowards when dealing with issues of race. We take the Great White Father approach of teaching from textbooks about Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers and spotlighting noble white men who reached down a hand to the hapless Negro (in one semester in high school I had to read Ron Suskind’s A Hope in the Unseen, watch Cry Freedom, and watch Mississippi Burning – all great at showing how progress can be made thanks to helpful white folk).
With all of these “class lessons on reducing prejudice,” I want to know how much these students learned about Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, Rodney King, Alberta Spruill, the “trials” of Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier and others on that tragic list that hints at the true state of race relations in America – surely students are learning about what is happening today and not merely reciting the Gettysburg Address, right? Even history lessons are whitewashed: ask a student what he/she knows about Fred Hampton or Huey Newton and you’ll probably get, “what, did they sing backup for P. Diddy or something?”
Racism is a disease in this country (interesting that the biological agent to combat disease also serves as a statement of truth – white blood cells). This liberal pursuit of diversity education and “multiculturalism” reeks of insincerity and paternalism.
My suggestion is to give kids a real lesson in current race relations. If the kids want to see diverse people of darker hues (surely that won’t happen by having them glance at the Community Living section of their local newspaper), take them to the New Jersey Turnpike and point out what the people look like who are getting pulled over, then take them to Newark Airport and point out what the people look like who are getting “randomly” searched. Or, we can continue to lock more doors, build bigger gates, order more textbooks, and pray that these kids will be content with their contest prizes and won’t start asking the real questions.