Seattle teachers told that education system is committing “spirit murder” of black children, leaked training documents show

Seattle teachers told that education system is committing “spirit murder” of black children, leaked training documents show
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Seattle public schools are instructing teachers to “bankrupt their white privilege” as well as “commit to the journey” of anti-whiteness while discussing “spirit murder,” the notion that American schools “murder the souls of Black children every day through systemic, institutionalized, anti-Black, state-sanctioned violence.”

Posting his findings on social media, investigative journalist Christopher Rufo wrote, “The trainers begin by claiming that teachers are colonizers of Native American ‘ancestral lands”’ and that ‘the United States was built off the stolen labor of kidnapped and enslaved Black people’s work, which created the profits that created our nation.’”

Documents obtained by Rufo state, “We would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish People. We want to recognize that the United States was built off the stolen labor of kidnapped African and enslaved Black people’s work, which created the profits that created our nation.”

Rufo included screenshots in his Tweets that showcased the participants’ bios, commenting, “The participants identify themselves by both gender pronouns and race labels. While it has become commonplace in academia to use gender pronoun identifiers, this is perhaps the first example of an institution creating the expectation for explicit race-labeling in the workplace.”

Rufo added, “The trainers tell white teachers that they ‘must commit to the journey,’ even if their ‘lizard-brain’ makes them ‘afraid that [they] will have to talk about sensitive issues such as race, racism, classism, sexism, or any kind of ‘ism.’”

Rufo described “the central message” of the training, “that white teachers must recognize that they ‘are assigned considerable power and privilege’ because of their ‘possession of white skin.’ To atone for this guilt, they must ‘bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgment of [their] thieved inheritance.’”

He noted, “Next, the teachers hold a discussion about ‘spirit murder,’ which, according to Dr. Bettina Love, is the concept that Americans schools ‘murder the souls of Black children every day through systemic, institutionalized, anti-Black, state-sanctioned violence.’”

“The goal of this program is to transform public schools into activist organizations. At the end, teachers must explain how they will practice ‘anti-racist pedagogy,’ address ‘current social justice movements taking place,’ and become ‘anti-racist outside the classroom,’” Rufo continued.

Rufo reported earlier this month that the San Diego Unified School District was holding training sessions telling teachers of their “white privilege,” that they were racist and are part of an oppressive white power structure. Teachers were not only told to acknowledge their “privilege,” and embrace “antiracist ideas,” they were also under instruction to “teach others to see their privilege.”

Rufo noted, “After watching clips of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi, the trainers tell the teachers: ‘you are racist,’ ‘you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies,’ and that they must commit to becoming ‘antiracist’ in the classroom. They must submit to the new racial orthodoxy.”

Social Justice Warriors Washington State
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