"Anti-racist" Indoctrination in Guilford County
The Guilford County school system in North Carolina has implemented mandatory “anti-racism” diversity training workshops for teachers. To conduct these workshops, it has hired Crossroads Ministry (and its “professional trainers”).
It is impossible for me in a short blog to list all my objections to this outrageous program of indoctrination. According to a
newspaper story,
This strikes close to home for me. Several years ago, eight faculty, including myself and fellow L and P members Jim Otteson and Charles Nuckolls, successfully fought off an attempt by Crossroads to implement this program at the University of Alabama. As an alternative, we proposed a voluntary program of debates and speeches which would feature speakers representing all perspectives, ranging from Cornel West to Thomas Sowell. Our opponents, who advocated the one-sided workshops, spurned this proposal.
We published an open letter describing some of our objections. In it, we charged that the workshops were
At least one blog, Hube’s Cube, has drawn attention to these issues. Hopefully more will follow.
Participants are taught that history is written from the perspective of whites and that laws and policies benefit whites while putting minorities at an immediate disadvantage.
The district paid Crossroads Ministry about $45,000 for training through mid-November, a district spokesman said. More current costs were not available.
Superintendent Terry Grier wants to spend $500,000 next year on teacher training, including anti-racism sessions from groups such as Crossroads.
at odds with the purpose of a university because they are based on a single, politically charged, interpretation of racism. These principles are articulated in the writings of Rev. Joseph Barndt, the executive director of Crossroads Ministry. The President of the UA Faculty Senate has stated that Rev. Barndt's book Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America (1991) shows"the content which is taught [at the UA training workshops] and the organizing principles which are part of the sessions. It will give you an excellent overview of what this work is about." A sample of the claims Barndt makes in his book
: all whites are racists, while no blacks are; racism is a white"disease" that, like alcoholism, is never cured, though it can be treated; and whites routinely suffer from a false consciousness, believing that they are not racist or unfairly privileged, when in fact they are both.