For realsies, Rexy, what the fuck is wrong with those goals? Those look fantastic to me. And I’m white as the driven fucking snow.
Why should you not understand and analyze how race has influenced systems of power? It’s all the fuck around us! What, shall we spend another 200 years covering our eyes and screaming, “I can’t see you!” because it makes us feel vaguely uncomfortable?
And why shouldn’t we evaluate how identity has influenced people’s experiences? What’s wrong with that?
Race, and other identity features mentioned in that goal, have been used as an excuse to other and use people for as long as propaganda has been around. The Nazis did it with the jews. Men have done it to women (and I’d argue women have done it to men, without as much power on their sides though). The English did it to the Irish. And yes, various African tribes did it to other various African tribes. These identities and outward characteristics have been used to keep people down so others can profit off their labor.
I grew up watching people who were doctors in their own countries clean the floors of my school — the entire time I grew up, I don’t think I ever saw a white person cleaning up after other people. Do you think that’s an accident? How much talent is wasted when immigrants and brown people are othered into lowly jobs?
Why should our students not study this and how it’s affected our history and people’s lived experiences? Recognizing injustices of the past is the only way to make sure it doesn’t happen again — or to put it in a way your average CRT denier would understand — recognizing and understanding these things is the only way to make sure it doesn’t happen to white people in the future. If you’ve got a populace that sees through that bullshit, you’ve got a populace who won’t fall for it in the future.
Knowing that what we do and how we treat people MATTERS, that people shouldn’t be seen as a means to an end, that physical characteristics don’t justify othering an entire person — that matters, that’s a worthy goal.
I hereby sentence you to listen to the “Seeing White” series from Scene on Radio, and may god have mercy on your soul.
