A school district in Colorado is asking their teachers to take a white privilege survey in hopes that it will help them deal better with the school district’s minority students:
PJ MEDIA – Teachers at Colorado’s Cherry Creek School District have been presented with a “white privilege” survey in an effort to make sure they treat racial minority students well. Yet the survey and the documents accompanying it teach a radical version of political correctness that will arguably promote racial division. An anonymous teacher from the district sent PJ Media the packet, and Cherry Creek Schools verified its authenticity. The district said the survey was not mandatory.
The “white privilege” exercise asked teachers to rate how true a series of statements are for them and for their partners before and after a racial awareness training. Each statement is meant to begin with “Because of my race and/or color…”
Here’s the first ten questions from the survey.
Teachers are supposed to put 5 if the statement is often true, 3 if it is sometimes true, and 0 if it’s never true:
Because of my race and/or color…
- I can be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
- If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of hassle-free renting or purchasing in an area in which I would want to live.
- I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely and positively represented.
- When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my race made it what it is.
- I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the contributions of their race.
- I can go into most supermarkets and find the staple foods which fit with my racial/ethnic traditions; I can go into any hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
- I can criticize our government and talk about how much I feel its policies and behavior without being seen as a racial outsider.
- I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.
- If a police officer pulls me over, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
- I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, feared or hated.
So….I rated a 50. Does that mean I have white privilege? Or does that mean this test is really just stupid on steroids for trying to take everyday life and make it about race?
I’m going with the latter. And I’m pretty sure the author at PJ Media would do the same:
Many of these statements have nothing to do with race, except in the obvious context of the survey. For instance, expecting a “hassle-free renting or purchasing” experience for housing “in an area in which I would want to live” depends on a wide number of factors, from credit score to income to personal taste. As for “the person in charge,” all sorts of establishments are owned by racial minorities.
The feeling of being welcomed — “tied in, rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, feared or hated” — is elusive, since most human groups are exclusionary in one form or another. Conservatives and Trump supporters in America’s increasingly polarized political climate may feel feared or hated more than many racial minorities.
Exactly. These are complex, normal situations that have nothing to do with race at all. But by putting them in a test like this, they are trying to shame teachers for being white in order to make them feel like they need to treat a minority student differently.
You can read much more about this over at PJ Media…