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RACY MATERIAL

Wisconsin Public High School Draws Criticism for Teaching About White Privilege

Some parents object to the course material in an 'American Diversity' class

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by Lisa Fine

Staff Writer t +

Daily Mail

A public high school in Wisconsin has put a new spin on teaching students the three R's: reading, writing and racial oppression.

An "American Diversity" class at Delavan-Darien High School has come under fire for introducing students to the idea of "white privilege" defined as a 'set of advantages that are believed to be enjoyed by white people beyond those commonly experienced by non-white people in the same social, political, and economic spaces," Fox News reports.

"There is not space here to list all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our lives, but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day white supremacy is erased from society," wrote University of Texas professor Robert Jensen in a paper assigned to students, Fox reports.

In one homework assignment, students were told to go to the local Walmart toy department and count the number of dolls that were White and African American.

"They're teaching white guilt," one parent told Fox News. "They're dividing the students. They're saying to non-whites, 'You have been oppressed and you're still being oppressed.'"

After receiving complaints from parents about the course materials, Delavan-Darien School District Superintendent Robert Crist said the district would evaluate the curriculum before offering the class again.

Via Fox News

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170 Comments (view in Forum)

  • PNWest
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    "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Dr. Martin Luther King
  • methinks
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    I totally agree with MLK on this.

    But, why does the left, especially the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, play the race card all the time? They are continuing the racism to this very day!

    If we take that statement to it fullest extent, then Affirmative Action should be abolished as well.
  • Roco
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    @methinks Because they still want to be relevant. Racism today isn't what it used to be during their time and they don't want to be forgotten.
  • Knightkore
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    Thank you....this class is nothing more than reverse racism and acutally divides further rather than less....this plays right into the hands of those groups like neo-nazi's, kkk, or black panthers....
  • WMCOL
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    A dream cannot be reality until the reality that deters the dream is changed to accomodate and represent the dream. Otherwise it is just a meaningless dream.
  • Waynestew
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    @methinks "But, why does the left, especially the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, play the race card all the time?"

    It is their job to play the race card. They are political activist and civil rights leaders their job is to point out inequalities as it concerns race. MLK Legacy is the race card. This is like asking why a soldier always goes to war.

    I have a better question. Why are racial issues devided along left and right? If a white guy shoots an unarmed black guy. The right will take the side of the white guy. The left the black guy. If the situation is reversed, the black guy shoots an unarmed white guy. The right takes the side of the white guy. The left the black. Why does the situation not change the side the (FAR) left and right will fall?

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  • OhWiseOne
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    It's not about racism. It's about creating a class of victims, telling them they need government to live, they believe it, and then you have a reliable group of voters. Sound familiar?
  • DerivePI
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    It sure beats floating on the river face down because I'm a Hutu and not a Tutsi. Maybe if the other cultures of the world weren't oppressed by the white man, they could have had people like Aristotle, Newton, Leonardo, Mozart, Euler, James Watt, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Edison, ... It is not a racist fact that much of the world as we know it is due to dead white Europeans. And, no amount of white guilt will change that. Perhaps we could agree to teach towards excellence instead of the lowest common denominator for a change.
  • Thegrif
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    I don't know about all this doll stuff, i guess that may be true.
    But it sure seems to me that the worst thing to be in America today is white, oh yea, and American.
    Maybe that new gov't program will help make me feel better. You know the one I am talking about, the National White Americans College Fund (NWACF)?
    Oh yea, that don't exist----yet.

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  • Denizen_Kate
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    @AceLuby - Having to even explain this has me smh ... common sense is an oxymoron. Didn't any of these folks here raise children? Isn't that how you defuse a scary or uncomfortable notion with your kids? Talk about it in no-nonsense terms, just like they were thinking beings and not idiots that required sheltering. Sigh ...
  • Amtrak_Sam
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    PNWest, you're so naive. Don't you know color-blindness is the new racism?

    Anyway, about the dolls. Just shocking! It's not like the country is mostly white, and that would be shown in the toy dolls it sells.

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  • jessejaymes
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    Black are 12% of the population. If you're going to constantly play the race card 12% of the dolls at Walmart should be black. And the NBA is majority black. It should be 12% right? I'm sick to death of the never ending race card. There is bias in home lending and hiring and so on. But his constant nitpicking over things that doesn't matter like what color dolls are is beyond the pale. No pun intended. Is there nothing people won't bitch about? My WHITE father never made more than 11,000.00 in a year. He was never on welfare, never got food stamps, never collected unemployment and neither did his 4 kids. White privileged? His problem was he was not educated. We were "white trash". And there is a hell of a lot of white trash in America that have it no better than minorities. When are people going to wake up and understand that the class war of the ultra rich on everyone else is what is holding people back. Not race. Will you be happy when the average white person is as broke and destitute as everyone else as the ultra rich. Is that the "equality" you seek?
  • jessejaymes
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    correction: Will you be happy when the average white person is as broke and destitute as everyone else except the ultra rich. Is that the "equality" you seek?
  • stepped_in_it
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    @jessejaymes Shout it from the pulpit, preacher!
    I have a dream, a dream that one day 13% of the population will not hold something that happened 150 years ago over my head. And especially since my ancestors were in Germany and Ireland until the late 19th century....
  • jessejaymes
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    @stepped_in_it It's become the great American tradition. If you won't go to school, won't study, are too damn dumb or lazy to get ahead, then tear down those who are. "Equality" in America means I get what you have and I don't have to do a damn thing to get it except play the race card.
  • Comment removed for Engagement Etiquette violation. Replies may also be deleted.
  • John_Matrix
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    @Registre56

    Did you actually read his original post. He very clearly pointed out that he does not come from rich origins due to his father having a lack of education. Yet despite his fathers lack of education and money he brought home he never once bitches about it because he was white or any other baseless reason. There's this idea that Americans today owe minorities, especially blacks, something because of past transgressions which is bullshit. Blacks have already recieved their reparations, it was called affirmative action, among other initiatives that were started to benefit solely them. Every time something doesn't get handed to these idiots they whine and cry and say it's because of white oppression.
  • VVP
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    This isnt teaching about racial discrimination, It is indoctrinating white guilt. Sorry, but the most discriminated against in this country are the ones this class would be teaching to be "privileged"

    See, thats how this kind of tolerance works. Its not measured on a bar graph, its a pie chart and you cant give to one category without taking from another. If you tolerate one thing, you are discriminating against something else.

    Its funny to me because we call it "Affirmative action" in this country, but at least overseas they have the decency to call it closer to what it is "Positive discrimination"
  • Waynestew
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    I don't see a problem with this being taught as a "theory." The teacher seems to be using these things to provoke thought not ideology.

    Can someone please define what "race baiting" and "white guilt" is? I see these terms used a lot and having no idea what they mean.
  • jessejaymes
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    I see a huge problem with it. 30 years ago 70% of the money was in the hands of 10% of the people. Today 90% of the money is in the hands of 3% of the people. Common sense would dictate that whites are getting poorer (since the minorities by and large had nothing to take) and the rich are taking it all. Studies like this are divisive and taking away from the focus that we are one nation that is being shafted to the core by the ultra rich and I don't give a damn what race the ultra rich is. Of the 100 richest people in the world less than 50 of them are white. This is nothing more than smoke screening for the real problem. The average white person has no more opportunity or chance at the American dream than anyone else today. This is a waste of time when that teacher should be focusing on the war of the ultra rich on everyone else. United we might stand, divided we are falling like dominoes.
  • mimi57
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    'Race baiting' is a term used to incite one group of people against another on the basis of racial differences.---'White guilt' simply means a person feels guilty for
    being born white and 'should' feel guilty, because to many being white is seen as
    a 'privilege'. We are all born to be the race we are because that is how we were created. Obviously no one one picks and chooses what race they want to be, it's
    not anything we have control over. No one should feel either guilt or pride of their
    race, it is nothing we have achieved or failed to achieve , it's just that we were born into that heritage. I personally believe one can only be 'proud' of things they
    have achieved...and then only to a point.
  • jessejaymes
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    What purpose does this exercise accomplish? Does it create jobs for minorities? This is what is meant by "white guilt". What purpose does this serve? What "theory"? Black males are the highest unemployment in America. Know why? ":whuffo you axe me dat? I be a rappa. I don't sweep sidewalks dogg. That's a woman's work.". You come into my business speaking gang slang and sagging your pants you don't get a job. All the guilt placing on white kids saying they have "privileged" is pure BS. We had 9 business locations and all I was concerned about in hiring was would you show up for work and actually work. I had every single race I know of including Samoan working for me. But I would hire a rap culture black or Latino or White. It is what it is. We make our own beds.
  • Waynestew
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    @jessejaymes Information and thought are only devicsive if one lets it be. This class is not divisive it is informative. We should be united. But part of the key to being united is telling the truth. America does unconsciously prefer white people over black people. Being enlightened of this fact only helps us to unify. Because we will be able to make conscious decisions.
  • Waynestew
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    @jessejaymes I would not call it white privilege. I would call it "white preference. " There are actually studies out there that does exist. Studies show that Americans (ALL Americans no matter the racial background) Unconsciously prefer white people over black people. That is to say things that are positive they equally to white people things that are negative they going to black people without even thinking about it.

    Take your example of who you would hire at work. If a white kid and a black kid both came to your job with similar backgrounds. They both were equally qualified but you hired the white kid but could not specify why. It could mean that you subconsciously have a preference for the white kid over the Black kid.(Understand that doesn't not make you a racist)

    What this class is doing is simply trying to wake people up to that unconscious process of discrimination. It is not designed to make anyone feel guilty. It is simply designed to make a person question What is their purpose for doing something as it relates to people of other races and cultures. Is basically designed to make people self aware.

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  • jessejaymes
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    For three decades now the "while privileged middle class" has earned less and gotten less benefits than than their parents. Those who want to blame "the white man" for everything seem to think if the whites are brought down to the level of minorities then that's "equality" and things are wonderful. I thought the plan was to bring everyone up? Apparently I was wrong. Apparently the plan is for the ultra rich to take everything and the rest of us can fight over race. Wonderful.
  • Fishbone345
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    @jessejaymes " I thought the plan was to bring everyone up?"
    That's kinda the view that Europe takes on racial equality. They bring everyone up to the same level instead of buying into "Ebonics" or lowering education standards or other nonsense. Apparently it works, you don't see the same caliber of racial tensions or attention paid to it.
  • jessejaymes
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    @Fishbone345 No you don't see it in Europe. Not like here. I have a black friend who is French and live in Paris. he does quite well actually and we used to go see him every three years and he would come here. He doesn't believe the tension here. And he's appalled at the rap culture.
  • harold_lloyd
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    It's a good class because there does exist such a thing as white privilege, ask any non-white person.

    Why do we complain when someone wants our kids to actually think and be aware of the world they inhabit.

    Only those in denial about the social structure in this country would object to this, but they probably object to teaching evolution too.
  • harold_lloyd
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    @Mbjhug
    Yes. I will if you ask twice, but what I'd rather you do, assuming that you're caucasian, is to think of the times when you were trusted more because you weren't a person of color, the times when the clerk motioned you forward when it was a tie, but the other guy was non-white. Subtle things, hard to notice because you're so used to it you don't notice unless you intend to.
    So intend to.
    See what you find out.

    Why is Jesus a still white guy when any educated person could tell you that he was almost certainly not?

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  • Dan_Tien
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    I don't disagree with the basic tenet of the class, but I am suspicious of the motive for creating an entire curriculum based upon it and the objectivity of the person or persons who are creating it.
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