In the opinion of many leftist administrators in charge of overseeing the nation’s public schools, nearly every aspect of traditional education is rooted in racism against minorities.
Gifted classes or honors classes have a dubious history rooted in racism, experts say. https://t.co/PiSsA1kfVs
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 4, 2019
According to the school board director of the Olympia School District in Washington, even offering a music program is evidence of institutionalized White supremacy. Ignoring evidence that learning to play an instrument is clearly beneficial to developing brains regardless of race, Scott Clifthorne advocated eliminating the band and orchestra program in fourth and fifth grades in the name of social justice.
Not only does the decision save the district about $530,000, but he told parents that it is important to deprive students of music lessons because they can somehow lead to increased racism.
Describing his own school district as “entrenched” and “surrounded by White supremacy culture,” Clifthorne did not expound on his tenuous connection between band class and White supremacy.
In fact, he acknowledged that there is “nothing about strings or wind instrumental music that in intrinsically White supremacist” before adding: “However, the ways in which it is and the ways in which all of our institutions, not just schools — local government, state government, churches or neighborhoods — inculcate and allow white supremacy culture to continue to be propagated and cause significant institutional violence are things that we have to think about carefully as a community.”
Needless to say, many of the local parents were perplexed and insulted by his remarks.
In a subsequent interview, Alesha Perkins concluded that Clifthorne’s rhetoric “is not surprising at all” and is just “par for the course” considering the current state of the school board.
“The issue is we are having such a catastrophic budget crisis right now that they’re having to cut programs,” she added. “And so what has happened is this program has been deemed ‘inequitable.’ And in a previous comment, the director of elementary education stated that not only is this program ‘inequitable,’ but when she heard the word ‘tradition of excellence,’ which was used to describe our music programs, she said that the word ‘tradition’ actually translated to her to mean systemic discrimination.”
Perkins spoke for others in the community when she concluded that the district has “reached a level of absurdity” that is impossible to ignore.
“We are losing students in huge numbers,” she said. “I’m not talking about a handful of students. I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of students that are exiting the district, and they are virtually all citing these reasons. You cannot sustain a school district with a mass exodus of students.”
