☆ Educators divided on polarizing Bay Area DEI workshops

In this Opp Now exclusive series, three experts in education debate local nonprofit rEVOLution's DEI trainings: their controversial oppression-based curriculum and anti-colonization focus, and how to actually talk about inequality with young people. Diverse perspectives below in this candid, brazen discussion.

On Oppression-Based Instruction:

Natalie Thoreson of the Oakland-based organization rEVOLution leads workshops that claim to work "toward liberation” by helping attendees dismantle evidence of oppression within themselves (as everyone has been socialized to participate in oppression as either the oppressor or oppressed, or, most often, both). Educational experts Kevin McGary, Larry Sand, and rEVOLution's own Natalie Thoreson address this controversial type of teaching below.

Kevin McGary: There are some people within poor communities of all ethnicities who submit to mindsets that negatively frame and limit their world. One such mindset is that they're oppressed, that societal/cultural plights limit their individual ability to excel. We should dismantle these old viewpoints about what's possible.

Naturally, it's reasonable to try to end personal oppressions people may be feeling at any moment in time. However, Natalie's phrasing here might also mean they bring the idea of racial oppression by a supposed class of oppressors into that conversation.

Larry Sand: I'll make this very clear: This is what's called cultural Marxism. These are radicals who aren't interested in traditional education but want to push their far-left political agenda. They're all about DEI and molding students to their own Woke standards. If they admitted that more forthrightly, it would be better.

Natalie Thoreson: Unpacking and dismantling oppression begins with folks knowing historical constructs (such as race), acknowledging how they've been socialized, and recognizing that they're good people.

To me and many others doing this work, everything is centered in a place of love (and for further reading, I recommend bell hooks' All About Love, which discusses how we've largely pushed love away but need it for social change movements). How can you love people you have disagreements with? Well, there's a higher likelihood that you have way more in common with them than you do differences.

M. Scott Peck defines love as “the desire for one's or another's spiritual and emotional growth.” When you frame love not in a capitalist or passionate way but “I want you and myself to develop into the best possible human,” it's easy to love the people around us. To have patience. To share our perspectives and listen to theirs. Otherwise, it's easy to shut people down, other them, dehumanize them. Being that my politics are progressive and radical leaning, I sometimes feel a block around love with folks whose politics don’t align with mine. But I still choose to love them.

On the Oppressor/Oppressed Binary:

KM: This oppressor/oppressed dichotomy is not a reasonable way to view society. Natalie of rEVOLution is pointing to the old Marxist playbook of proletariat and bourgeoisie: The bourgeoisie (victimizers) are the class that control mechanisms of power/wealth, and the proletariat (victims) are the worker class subject to the bourgeoisie. Wokeism has just changed the labels for today's nomenclature. (Something ironic here, if we're talking about anti-racism, is that Karl Marx was a historically documented racist and sexist. He hated Black people and was highly misogynist.)

People today who align with Marx's philosophies probably don't realize that they're unprincipled, that they ultimately lead to a communist/retribution mindset. Marx himself wasn't succeeding in business and life, so wanted to redistribute the community's wealth to benefit himself.

Truly, what's dangerous about feeding this oppressor/oppressed binary idea to the next generation is that it rejects meritocracy. It rejects the notion of personal responsibility: that you must motivate yourself and work hard to do things that encourage your success.

Instead, there's a sense of perpetual victimhood. No matter what you do, you're being victimized by the system, which is set up against you. There's no mechanisms for success besides demanding people be treated differently based on skin color (e.g., given the priority to speak, wealth via reparations).

LS: I don't know that I have words strong enough to describe how much I dislike Natalie's binary statement, which puts all workshop participants either in the "oppressor" or "oppressed" category. How dare this organization encourage educators to talk this way to children! Once again, this is agenda-driven. It's Marxist. People need to wake up to this pervasive ideology. Parents need to get into the classroom to stay informed and take action. It's the best way to effect change.

NT: I've done a lot of work with young folks, though I currently work almost exclusively with adults. In reality, in the work I do, it's not about a good/bad paradigm or binary. My work is really about us recognizing the structural inequality in our society, and how we can all be treated with more dignity and equality.

And this isn’t about “super radical” or “super conservative” folks taking over the larger sphere. If one group did, what would we do with the people who don’t agree with us? Do we imprison them or find some other way to destroy them?

We must find a space to connect across difference so we can move forward together as a society. Hating people who don’t agree with us isn't going to fix it. We can't keep pitting people against each other.

Here's an example. On the news the other day, I saw a clip of a conservative politician in Utah speaking about how transgender students are young people who are having a hard time, and just want safety and acceptance. First, I got to witness this person—whom I'd put in a box as completely opposite of me in so many ways—centering love and care for young folks in a way that politically might not completely align with his party. Second, I got to challenge some of my prejudices. We can't become perfect people, but we can grow together to help our next generation.

On Anti-Colonialism as a Curricular Focus:

Educational experts Kevin McGary, Larry Sand, and Natalie Thoreson break down their thoughts on rEVOLution's instructional emphasis on anti-colonialism, and if they believe it's harmful to centralize colonization as “the root” of modern society's evils.

Kevin McGary: Colonialism is a part of our nation's issues. The only disconnect is when it's taught as if America is completely unjust, has always been unjust from its very beginnings, because we colonized lands from Native Americans. When it's emphasized that we killed off tribes and colonized land, but there's a much fuller picture to be studied (e.g., extensive negotiations for some of the land, some conflicts legitimately won by the United States). If students are being instructed too heavily about colonization, they acquire an unfair characterization of America. They believe they should hate their country, not be proud of it.

I think there's a way to teach this topic historically while not creating a narrative about oppression (which makes me think of the harmful 1619 Project).

Larry Sand: No one is making an argument for colonization. Our country started out as colonies, and then we rebelled and became independent. But at this point in time, there's no colonialism in this country now. Why talk about it as if it's still affecting every aspect of our lives?

Yes, there's people of differing intelligence and wealth and so on in America, but you can't point the finger at other people for that. Individuals are ultimately responsible for their own situations. And in general, it's a terrible thing to teach children that big, bad, powerful people are out to damage them. It's a very destructive message for children, not to mention all of society.

Natalie Thoreson: Most folks haven't chosen to engage in systematic oppression. If I asked folks on the street, “Do you want racism to exist?”, just about every person would say “no.” But if we can't have conversations about the origin of racism, it's difficult to actually challenge those systems.

As an example, whiteness (as well as “person of color”) is a construction created from a place of extreme wealth that came with the colonization that happened in America. It was a way to separate and disconnect poor and indentured white people from black enslaved folks. It is a construction created so that resources, including humans, could be taken from around the world. Humans were used and disposed of.

The white legacy, the constructions as we know legally in the US, came out of legislation established after Bacon's Rebellion. Nathaniel Bacon was a white landowner and member of the governor’s Council. He was able to inspire poor and indentured white people and black enslaved people to come together and rebel. The wealthy elite were able to hire a militia to stop the rebellion and quickly enacted two laws to push poor whites and black folks apart. The laws basically stated that white people when released from indenture must be given a weapon and land or money to purchase land. The laws also stated that black people could never own a weapon and that they could never go against a white person in a court of law.

When you know information like this, you can recognize that people on the same side of the struggle began to be pushed apart. We live with this and so many other pieces of a colonial legacy still today.

On Facilitating Difficult Conversations:

Natalie Thoreson of the Oakland-based nonprofit rEVOLution says they're committed to open, authentic conversation where different perspectives are encouraged in love. Is it possible for instructors to facilitate tough conversations about inequality without resorting to reductive name-calling?

Larry Sand: I would emphasize that there's always going to be inequality because inequality is part of the human race. I'd say, “Some of you are tall, some of you are medium height, and some of you are short. That's just the way it is. Now, do some people discriminate? Sure, but they tend to be few and far between.”

What's more, I would stress this to students: If there are differences between you and someone else, or you aren't who you want to be, the first place to look is inside yourself. You need to ask: What can I do to bring myself up?

It's almost satirical that rEVOLution is talking about oppressors and the oppressed, and they're talking about tribalism and colonization, and then they're saying they promote love as the ultimate social solution. I'm skeptical that love is at the heart of what rEVOLution does because it is incongruous with everything else they say.

Kevin McGary: There is a right way to have these conversations. Inequality is mostly due to the fact that we're all born with different God-given skills, talents, and abilities. We can hone these and become highly competent. We also have different backgrounds and life experiences that feed into who we are as individuals.

Inequality is only a bad thing if it causes people to not get equal opportunities. It's not possible, and is even a bit ridiculous, to have equal or similarly situated outcomes. We can't all be born with talents, competencies, and skills of, for instance, the NFL greats or a nuclear engineer. Instead, we can all apply whatever innate raw material we have to work with.

We should applaud equal opportunity at all levels, but not applaud the misnomer of equal outcomes. That's antithetical to what we're about as Americans.

Natalie Thoreson: I encourage parents to educate themselves on how to have these dialogues at home. I read a study in which it was found that many white families were so uncomfortable having formal race-related conversations that they either dropped out or said they had talks but didn't document anything. People are willing to have many kinds of conversations with their youth. As a culture, we need to be talking more about oppression in general.

I’d love for white folks to take time to consider: What might be so scary about having a conversation about racism with your child? People of color are often forced by the system to have these talks all the time, so it's important that white folks unpack their guilt and shame. And really, we shouldn't focus just on race. Most of us, including myself, have identities in which we're oppressed, and also identities where we hold privilege. We should be doing work around all our identities, including those that might feel hard.

At the end of the day, young people want to have these conversations. Because of this, all of us, including educators, need to do our own work in order to be prepared to support open, honest conversations about inequality. When children are around three years old, they develop a strong sense of justice. They want to make change—not from a place of guilt or shame, but desiring the good of those around them. What's more, young folks haven't experienced socialization to the same extent as adults and aren't perpetuating oppressive systems yet. If we can change these social systems through difficult conversations and organic spaces of love, young folks can thrive.

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