These days’ school systems are deploying a massive campaign, requiring staff to be trained in what they call anti-racism and inclusion. From the title of the training it sounds like a great topic to discuss. Who doesn’t want to be more aware of racist habits and avoid them, or provide a more welcoming environment for other staff and students? At first impression I thought all this “training” was a really good thing. Upon spending hours in these sessions with my colleagues I have discovered something interesting. The training is a new mandate formed in many schools requiring all staff to listen and comply. The actual subject of these sessions is far different from my impression. Any resistance to this new training is met with threats of losing your job.
My first session was hosted just before the COVID shutdown and all staff were required to attend. It was two full days and students were sent home for staff “professional development.” The speakers introduced themselves by describing their sexual preferences. One was a woman who said she liked to “date” men and women equally. The other was a man whom had performed extensive surgery to become the “woman” he wanted to be.
My opinion here is that you do what you want to yourself. That choice is between you and God. The part that bothered me is that the entirety of both days of class were focused on sharing one general premise. Those who choose to be identified as the gender they were born with, and prefer to “date” the opposite gender are privileged people known as binary. This so called privilege in the trainers eyes meant all who fit this description were practicing prejudice against those who do not by being able to enter the bathroom labeled with their general gender appearance. That privilege was then described to us as Racism and the words used interchangeably. This “racism” was described as society’s exclusion of genders other than Male and Female.
The training actually labeled a person who made a personal choice to modify their body as another race. It continued to state, because I did not modify my body I am somehow a racist as I can go to the men’s bathroom.
This training has continued onward to more sophisticated levels as the months and years have worn onward. Now stories of discrimination toward persons of “different races” are shared hand in hand with stories of discrimination for sexual choice. In this training these things are considered the same. You as a person who may identify as the gender you were born with are a racist and you need to change your behavior because you do not spend your time considering how these “other genders” might be able to use the bathroom peacefully. They called me a binary person and because of that I was intrinsically racist.
Just by being in the room, being perceived as a white male, who is heterosexual I was labeled a racist without uttering a word. This “woke” culture of people treated me with preconceived ideas of who I was just by looking at me. They judged me to be privileged and racist because of my appearance!
So this is how a modern “woke” culture shows an example of love and acceptance? I have to accept you and all the changes you want in society, but it’s okay for you to treat me like trash simply because of who you think I am? Without me uttering a word, just being present.
My upbringing was in portions of the country where people that had white skin were rare. I was the minority in most cases. I lived around diverse populations and was taught we were all just people. Humans, and members of that one race. In addition I was often persecuted growing up because I have bright red hair. It’s not quite as bright red these days but you get the idea.
To really blow the minds of the judgmental crowd I will share a few facts about me. My lineage is Jewish which has its own story. That means I am Middle Eastern, but the typical government form doesn’t have a selection for that. In addition I have a rare gene that shows up in my family every few generations, where some have pale skin and red hair. Almost like an albino type thing but not quite. The rest of the family typically have darker olive skin and dark to medium hair. My Grandfather was a Jew and my Grandmother was Choctaw. This makes me not only of Jewish lineage, but also Native American!
With all this background the trainers didn’t care to learn, I was labeled a racist because I was present and had pale features.
If you make choices in your life that bring difficulty to you, than you have considered the change and are willing to accept the difficulty. This may not be true all of the time, but when it comes to things like Gender change it is. The difficultly and prejudice you face isn’t right, but you knew about it going into it. You facing that difficulty does not make me a racist just because I might remind you of those that treated you wrongly.
I can tell you that if we were nicer to one another much of that difficulty would melt away. The great Dr. King Jr. proved that.
I present to you a simple argument. Race and privilege are not the same thing. They should not be used to describe one another. There are people of many “races” who were raised in a privileged environment, and do not have a racist bone in their body. There are those on both ends of that spectrum. There are those who hate, and those who love.
While discussing the total content of this training and its impact on education is a much broader discussion I present to you a challenge.
Stop judging people by your limited view. We are all biased based on our view in life. We cannot see it all. We are only one person that has one little window into the world that we see. God is the only one that can see it all. Instead of judging, start reading the Bible and living by that example Jesus set for us. While He lived as a man, He is God, He could see it all and lived as he wanted us to live knowing we are so limited. He knew we needed an example.
Start practicing hesitation when voicing your judgement or hostility toward others.
As of writing this, I live in a part of the United States where people can be nice in person at times and heavily entitled at other times. When they get behind the wheel of an automobile they turn into entitled pricks who hate everyone and everything. Their nature can be summed up in this phrase:
“Get out of my way, the rules don’t apply to me!”
STOP IT! Leave a little earlier on your commute so you can be nicer. You might even lower your stress level and live a longer healthier life.
Learn from the many aspects of the Southern US. There people tend to convey a pretty cheery aspect most of the time. They say crazy things like, yes ma’am, and no sir. Or even stranger things like Thank you. Southerners do this as a sign of respect toward you, the person they are interacting with. Even the highways are a far more pleasant experience in most cases. In addition it has been my observation that people in the southern states are far more accepting of people who are different. Other races or life choices are not as heavily judged as they are in northern or western areas. This is contrary to what many believe about the South but known to be true by those that have lived there.
Practice being helpful to others and living the example instead of yelling at everyone else to change. Be the change yourself and wait for opportunity for pleasant dialog before you try to conform others to that limited view you have. Then understand no matter how close you may be to someone else, their window is different than yours. No two people view things the exact same way. It’s just the way we are made. The wonderful part is that we can learn from one another’s views by sharing.
Your life and the choices you have made are not the only, end all, be all way things should be done. God loves and created us a diverse people, but He expects us to live up to the standard in the Bible. Just remember, don’t take someone else’s word for what it says. Of course there are many scholars that we can learn from but remember, their views are biased. Read it for yourself and ask God to show you the meaning. Seek Truth and Change in your own life before seeking to change others. Then understand we were created to be a diverse people.