The Tone-Deaf Politics of Denying Racism, Excusing Segregation
Let’s connect the dots, which is challenging because, if those with power had their way, it would be white dots on a field of white.
Rick Hess, whose tagline is “Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute [AEI] think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform,” blogging at Education Week makes this claim:
Some deem this a healthy and long-overdue development, believing that social justice demands that education be understood through the prism of race and inequality. They believe that tackling deep racial inequities is the measure of one’s commitment to educational improvement, and view measures like the DREAM Act and affirmative action as inseparable from elements of that work. Thus, they tend to see an inevitable overlap between school reform and the pursuit of progressive policies regarding housing, immigration, policing, health care, and much more.Others of us think that viewing education primarily through the lens of race is unhealthy and divisive, fueling a destructive hypersensitivity and race-based grievance. We’re concerned that it undermines the unifying possibilities of democratic schooling, especially when foundational virtues like personal responsibility and patriotism get dismissed as culturally oppressive remnants from yesteryear. We fear that it turns schooling, potentially one of our great common endeavors, into something very different, political, and partisan.
Keep in mind the dichotomy of “some” and “we.”
Next, a review of an AEI report on charter schools reveals:
The reviewers find that the report presents charter school de facto segregation as a benign byproduct of parental choice. In fact, the review finds that the original report actually acknowledged that this type of stratification was part and partial of a “properly” functioning charter sector – one in which parents get to choose the type of school their children attend.
“Some” who “[believe] that social justice demands that education be understood through the prism of race and inequality” are being, according to Hess, “political” and “partisan.”
And AEI finds segregation “benign” because it is just what parents choose.
With those dots detected and connected, consider this Tweet from Charles Blow:
White people admonishing black people to be colorblind is like the walking telling those shackled to the ground to ignore the restraint… twitter.com/shy3616/status…
What is at play here, and linked by AEI, includes an ends-justify-the-means The Tone-Deaf Politics of Denying Racism, Excusing Segregation | radical eyes for equity:
