Whiteness is equated with evil by a group working hand in glove with the Biden administration’s Department of Education.
When the Department of Education released a handbook for reopening schools after lockdowns due to COVID-19, one of the links in that resource was to the Abolitionist Teaching Network’s “Guide for Racial Justice & Abolitionist Social and Emotional Learning.”
The Department of Education, in discussing the benefits of “equity” in the classroom, said, “Schools are microcosms of society; therefore, culturally responsive practices, intentional conversations related to race and social emotional learning, and helping students understand the skills they are building in school are the foundation for participating in a democracy and should be anchor tenets in building a schoolwide system of educational opportunity.”
On the phrase “race and social emotional learning,” the department linked to the Abolitionist Teaching Network’s guide.
The guide, which aligns with the tenets of critical race theory, offers advice such as, “Remove all punitive or disciplinary practices that spirit murder Black, Brown, and Indigenous children.”
It also calls for schools to provide “antiracist therapy for White educators and support staff.”
The guide linked to by the federal government notes that the Abolitionist Teaching Network also supports “[t]eaching standards, learning standards, and  teacher evaluations that are grounded in the pursuit of Black, Brown, and Indigenous liberation, criticality, excellence, and joy.”
Schools are encouraged to “[b]uild a school culture that engages in healing and advocacy. This requires a commitment to learning from students, families, and educators who disrupt Whiteness and other forms of oppression.”
The guide also claims that existing models of social and emotional learning “can be a covert form of policing used to punish, criminalize, and control Black, Brown, and Indigenous children.”
The Abolitionist Teaching Network “is dedicated to not creating new schools or reimagining schools, but destroying schools that do nothing but harm black and brown children,” co-founder Bettina Love said in a welcome webinar, according to Fox News.
She said the group’s goal is to have “activists in residence” travel to hotspots and “go into schools or communities and do the work of dismantling,” Fox reported.
“If you don’t recognize that white supremacy is in everything we do, then we got a problem,” Love said. “I want us to be feared.”
Brandelyn Tosolt, another co-founder of the group, said part of her work is “trying to help other white teachers trouble their internalized white supremacy and anti-blackness.”
The group’s Twitter feed, which is now protected, is a succession of race warrior messages.
“At the root of white-supremacy is the fear and hatred of anything and anyone ‘other.’ A desire to dehumanize and dominate,” one March 18 tweet read.
“Abolition because we want to abolish the structures that are used to maintain our oppression, not simply remodel them. Black & Brown children deserve new beginnings!” another tweet read.
“‘When you hit power, power hits back. White supremacy power doesn’t go away, it shifts, and it evolves’-Anthony Downer,” a July 9 tweet quoted.
In a resource cited on the group’s “Resources for Agitators” section on its website, Love said teachers should focus on teaching about racial violence and oppression.
“Teaching should be a part of your activism … You can’t want educational justice from 8-3:30,” she said. “I’m asking for a lifestyle. I’m asking for this to be how you see the world; not just something you do in your classroom.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
