This was horrifying to watch, really. It was so biased. And really lacking in intersectionality. Some examples:
They ONLY asked questions about race discrimination. I'm sure many of the children have experienced traumatic discrimination for their sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, size, religion, class, etc. And some of those things happen to the white kids. But those questions weren't asked.
For example, during the running race, they completely ignored sex privilege. The boys would have had to take a step forward for their sex privilege (including boys of color) while all the girls stepped back (including the white girls).
The historian talking about the painting of the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 failed to mention that the painting is all men on the first floor (including freed black men) because the white AND black men refused to let the female delegates speak, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, who both were abolitionist leaders in the U. S. and traveled across an ocean to attend the conference. That shameful chapter of history actually inspired the U. S. Women's Suffrage movement.
The girls were sad that all the "pretty" women in the magazines were white, but no one thought to ask them why females (and not males) have to be "pretty." This was right before a commercial showing a diverse group of women parading around in high heels, looking "pretty."
The white kids talked about their very real fear of being falsely labeled "racist" and being ostracized by the entire school...but that reality was just completely ignored because, hey, they're white, so they got no problems, right? Only privilege.
The point? Discrimination is intersectional. The Harvard bias test was developed for all sorts of discrimination including all the categories mentioned above and even age discrimination.
The idea of having discussions about discrimination early with children is great. But not if you are going to teach children that race is the only type of discrimination in the world.
I really thought this program did more harm than good. Because in failing to teach the nuance and intersectionality of prejudice, they created a false binary narrative and taught these children to see the world in groups of privilege and prejudice, not as individuals who are a mix of privilege and prejudice.
My problem is not with teaching about racial discrimination. My problem is ONLY teaching about racial discrimination. That's when half a truth becomes a dangerous lie.
They ONLY asked questions about race discrimination. I'm sure many of the children have experienced traumatic discrimination for their sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, size, religion, class, etc. And some of those things happen to the white kids. But those questions weren't asked.
For example, during the running race, they completely ignored sex privilege. The boys would have had to take a step forward for their sex privilege (including boys of color) while all the girls stepped back (including the white girls).
The historian talking about the painting of the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 failed to mention that the painting is all men on the first floor (including freed black men) because the white AND black men refused to let the female delegates speak, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, who both were abolitionist leaders in the U. S. and traveled across an ocean to attend the conference. That shameful chapter of history actually inspired the U. S. Women's Suffrage movement.
The girls were sad that all the "pretty" women in the magazines were white, but no one thought to ask them why females (and not males) have to be "pretty." This was right before a commercial showing a diverse group of women parading around in high heels, looking "pretty."
The white kids talked about their very real fear of being falsely labeled "racist" and being ostracized by the entire school...but that reality was just completely ignored because, hey, they're white, so they got no problems, right? Only privilege.
The point? Discrimination is intersectional. The Harvard bias test was developed for all sorts of discrimination including all the categories mentioned above and even age discrimination.
The idea of having discussions about discrimination early with children is great. But not if you are going to teach children that race is the only type of discrimination in the world.
I really thought this program did more harm than good. Because in failing to teach the nuance and intersectionality of prejudice, they created a false binary narrative and taught these children to see the world in groups of privilege and prejudice, not as individuals who are a mix of privilege and prejudice.
My problem is not with teaching about racial discrimination. My problem is ONLY teaching about racial discrimination. That's when half a truth becomes a dangerous lie.