In the United Sates and other western countries the concept of ‘white privilege’ has gradually, but steadily, entered into the public discourse and is defining actions within societies. What exactly is a ‘while privilege’? According to a broad definition it is a ‘term for societal privileges that benefit people identified as white in Western countries, beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people under the same social, political, or economic circumstances’. The concept posits that people considered to belong to the ‘white race’ enjoy privileges people of other races are not afforded in western societies. In fact, it has become so prevalent in some cases, that it is turning into a form of racism against people belonging to the white race. An example is an ‘Elite’ primary school in New York that openly segregates its white students from others of non-white colour and teaches them that they are guilty because of their race. As ’New York Post’ reports, the Manhattan school ‘Bank Street Graduate School’ teaches white pupils as young as 6 that they were born racist and should feel guilty benefiting from ‘white privilege’, while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers. Even liberal parents are complaining that this ‘novel approach’ is going too far. The NYP reports:
They (parents) complain the K-8 school of 430 kids is separating whites in classes where they’re made to feel awful about their “whiteness,” and all the “kids of color” in other rooms where they’re taught to feel proud about their race and are rewarded with treats and other privileges.
“Ever since Ferguson, the school has been increasing anti-white propaganda in its curriculum,” said a parent who requested anonymity because he has children currently enrolled in the school.
Bank Street has created a “dedicated space” in the school for “kids of color,” where they’re “embraced” by minority instructors and encouraged to “voice their feelings” and “share experiences about being a kid of color,” according to school presentation slides obtained by The Post.
Meanwhile, white kids are herded into separate classrooms and taught to raise their “awareness of the prevalence of Whiteness and privilege,” challenge “notions of colorblindness (and) assumptions of ‘normal,’ ‘good,’ and ‘American’” and “understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege.”
The same slides point out that a number of leading private schools across the country also have segregated students by “race-based affinity groups.” It lists several in New York, including Riverdale Country School, Brooklyn Friends School, The Cathedral School, The Calhoun School, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School.
Under Bank Street’s “Racial Justice and Advocacy” curriculum, parents say, teachers push white kids to grapple with America’s history of racism. Then they indoctrinate them into thinking “systemic racism” still exists, and that they’re part of the problem and must hold themselves accountable even for acts of racism committed by others.
“One hundred percent of the curriculum is what whites have done to other races,” said another Bank Street parent. “They offer nothing that would balance the story.”
Added the parent, who also asked to go unnamed: “Any questions they can’t answer they rationalize under the pretense of ‘institutional racism,’ which is never really defined.”
The program, these parents say, deliberately instills in white children a strong sense of guilt about their race. Some kids come home in tears, saying, “I’m a bad person.”
They say white kids are being brainwashed into thinking any success they achieve is unearned. Indeed, a young white girl is seen confessing on a Bank Street video: “I feel guilty for having a privilege I don’t deserve.”
Parents, moreover, say the classroom segregation only breeds resentment. Younger children, for instance, feel left out when the “kids of color” come back to the main classroom munching on cupcakes they were given in their “affinity group.”
The divisive program is run by Anshu Wahi, a longtime “social justice” activist who’s held the title of “director of diversity” at Bank Street since 2013. She referred questions to the school’s communications office, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Wahi believes even white babies display signs of racism, so she encourages parents to talk to their kids about race as early as kindergarten, making them hyperaware of racial differences, and even “examine your own whiteness.”
She defends segregating minority children by race by arguing they need a safe place where they can share their “ouch moments,” including subtle but offensive white comments known as “micro-aggressions.”
Wahi says the school is merely empowering children of color who feel “alienated” and “devalued” in a “dominant white culture.” But some parents fear the school is nurturing resentment among minority pupils and reinforcing perceptions of victimization.