Sure. I enjoy having my moral and societal lectures coming from someone like this:
This is clearly somebody who is intelligent; well-versed; has empathy for anyone and everyone in his/her life and all who are not; has an extremely diverse collection of friends and associates from so many different backgrounds; and is rigorously and academically unbiased when talking about history, politics, religion, society, philosophy, and their three cats with an overflowing and neglected litter box.
It's somewhat campy that they pointed out that 100% of the presidents and vice presidents in 2016 and 2017 were white. Sure, they're perhaps the most powerful people in the nation (and world), but they are also only two people. So, using such a demographic statistic to illustrate white privilege is redundant. A better way to express it is to use the factoid that "all American presidents, save for one (#44), have been white men."
While I think some of the points in this lesson are reasonable (i.e. "We meet on stolen land, taken from Indigenous peoples"), and while I fully support confronting and erasing racism in society, I believe the presentation has the wrong emotional emphases. Pointing a finger and telling a room full of people that they are racist, despite having no credentials or evidence to support asserting such to any given (possibly white) person in the room, is basically a baseless personal attack. It's too in-line with the clearly erroneous thought processes of "you're white, so you must be racist" or "all white people are racist"; these arguments are clearly, on their best days, crude caricatures. Disseminating the meaning of racism to white people (who do, often in America and Europe, have less negative stress in relation to their race, racial identity, public and social perception thereof, and socioeconomic effects thereof) can be difficult, but will not be aided by the arbitrary cheapshot of referring to a large swath of people as racist (see the irony in that?).
As well, someone who is not white is also not immune from being racist, nor are they immune from aiding and abetting white supremacy. Case in point, of the four police officers involved with the murder of George Floyd, one was Asian and one was black.
In an effort to prevent discrimination, the school board voted to eliminate non-academic factors like late work and classroom behavior in a student’s grade.
No! The message I get from that is, "Please turn in your assignment by the due date. But if you don't, that's okay too. I'm cool either way." It fails to penalize students for having a perhaps poor work ethic. If there is a unique, uncontrollable situation which makes a student chronically late in turning in assignments, that can and should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. (Also, government or civil interference in the private discourse of teacher and pupil should not be exercised unless as a last resort. Most truancy and/or academic issues should be between the school and teachers, and the student(s) and parent(s)/guardian(s). No laws should be passed to force students to turn in their worksheets on time.) However, students absolutely need to be encouraged to be their best selves, and not encouraged to think "Whatever floats your boat, man. Do what you want." Schools are meant to be places where students can develop not only a strong intellectual constitution, and maybe good grades along the way; but it is up to the student to fully actualize and benefit from the tools given to them to the best of their own ability.
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nypost.com
. Like dropping 1 euro on the ground and not realizing it, and it's gone.
www.city-journal.org
