Singleton Expands His "Diversity Training" Financial Empire to Cherry Creek, Colorado
Glenn Singleton, the professional “diversity expert” and leading beneficiary from the blowback generated by the conservative campaign of Michelle Malkin, Wayne Perryman, and many others against Bellevue Community College, is on a roll (For background, see Jesse Walker, Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber, and King Banaian at SCSU Scholars).
It turns out that Bellevue College is probably one of the more modest profit centers in Singleton’s expanding “diversity training” empire. In a revealing article for the Rocky Mountain News, Vincent Carroll reports that the Cherry Creek school district in Colorado has just shelled out six figures (yes, that’s right, six figures) for his “advice” on how to improve black and Hispanic student achievement.
What is Singleton's explanation for low black and Hispanic test scores? The rise of single-parent families? Poor teaching? Grade inflation? Administrative bloat? Of course, not. “"It is our belief,” Singleton and his co-author Curtis Linton proclaim, “that the most devastating factor contributing to the lowered achievement of students of color is institutionalized racism." Carroll provides more chilling details:
"We will shine the light on racial dominance to uncover how Whiteness challenges the performance of students of color while shaping and reinforcing the racial perspective of White children," Singleton and Linton promise…
The program also promotes a worldview in which American society is relentlessly oppressive; in which individuals, even today, remain at the mercy of their racial origins; in which"white talk" is"verbal, impersonal, intellectual" and"task-oriented," while" color commentary" is"nonverbal, personal, emotional" and"process-oriented." …..
Enlightened whites, in the authors' description, speak in the chastened, cringing language of someone who has emerged from a re-education camp. Singleton and Linton praise the example of a white male teacher in North Carolina who has this to say about his new perspective:"Although I often try to seek counsel of colleagues of color, it is inevitable that times arise where it's only after the fact that one of them points out some flaw in my reasoning. The flaws are often the result of my ingrained Whiteness and my own blindness to its perpetual presence."
White teachers (and minority teachers co-opted into the white power structure) stymie black and Hispanic students because they fail to understand their cultures and how daily racial oppression affects their outlook. They also push a curriculum tooled for whites, and are ignorant of the special ways that blacks and Hispanics communicate.
Speaking of low student achievement, another problem with Singleton's theory is that it does nothing to account for the poor performance of so many white students.